Liam Carr writes:
My first ever blog post was called "Down the Woods" It was about the forest sell off (that was subsequently abandoned) and an opencast planning application (that was subsequently refused) I claim no credit for either positive outcome. But a happy coincidence nonetheless.
UK Coal are back, and they want to opencast the Pont valley again, A planning application to opencast the Pont valley was refused a few months ago thanks to the work of councillors and local activists. UK Coal have appealed the decision and are trying to get the decision to refuse planning overturned.
They will say that we [the activists] are NIMBYs. Well the Pont valley is my backyard and I don't want an opencast coal mine in it so yes I am a NIMBY but I don't want an opencast coal mine in your backyard either, or in anyone else's for that matter - there are other ways to generate electricity.
They will say that the opencast will not adversely affect the environment, What an absolute load of utter rubbish. The layers of soil and rock have taken millions of years to form, they will be dumped back in no particular order when UK coal have finished. Industrial scale opencast coal mining is relatively new we are not fully aware of the long term environmental effects but one thing that I am sure of is that it will have an negative impact on biodiversity in the region. It is impossible to move an entire habitat, abiotic factors will not be the same in the new location, succession (the gradual increase in biodiversity over time) will have to restart. UK coal want to relocate mature ponds so they can mine underneath them. You don't have to be a great crested newt, a mayfly or a Biology lecturer to know that it will never work.
They will say that the opencast will create jobs, this is true - fixed term contract jobs that will be disappear just as quickly as the coal does. UK coal will also bring their own staff, which will do nothing for the local economy. We need long term investment in new technology and renewables that will create skilled, long term jobs for the future in the region.
They will say that they spend millions on improving the roads. That amounts so another roundabout to allow trucks and heavy machinery to turn into the coal field. The last thing we need is another roundabout 200yds from a one with 5 exits, they only vehicles that would ever turn right at this 'road improvement' would be those going to the Stanley area, the road has recently been widened and is now fine with no roundabout. The people who will be infuriated by the roundabout would be commuters who will face further potential delay when driving into Gateshead/Newcastle from the Consett area
But really it doesn't matter what the highly paid executives and lawyers from UK Coal say. We the people of the local area must fight the appeal as effectively as we fought original application.
Coal is our heritage not our future.
But this island stands on vast reserves of coal, a means both to independence from actually or potentially war torn corners of the earth, and to high-wage, high-skilled, high-status employment for working-class men. Opencasting is not the only way of extracting it, but public ownership is by far the most efficient and effective means of organising this highly efficient and effective safeguard of national sovereignty, the Union, and the economic basis of paternal authority.
What says the local MP, a signatory to the EDM, initiated by an MP whom some of us are quite sorry has felt moved to give up the Presidency of the NUM rather than resume the practice of serving trade union leaders sitting in both Houses, calling on the BBC to restore to its press roundup the Morning Star, the only place where one may still read the views of average Mail or Telegraph readers on the NHS or the railways? Speaking of the railways, what says she about the fact that, a month from now, the village where she lives and where she was until recently a Parish Councillor will have no bus to its railway station on a Sunday or a Bank Holiday, previously a 20-minute journey?
As you know, Pat does not plan on giving Kevan a free run for the new seat. Ian Lavery is Harriet Harman's PPS so well on course for ministerial office under Miliband. Pat is much more left than Kevan anyhow, he is just a union fixer and council enforcer. But you are right, there is more to being left than signing an EDM in support of the Morning Star when your constituency is standing on neglected mountains of coal and your own village is losing its Sunday bus to its railway station.
ReplyDeleteYou should have been a PPS this time. At least.
ReplyDeleteYou were told you would never be the Labour parliamentary candidate because from Lanchester made you too posh. What changed?
ReplyDeleteSo posh that you get the bus. But they told you you were too posh even for Lanchester, served them right when they lost 2 seats out of 3, that would not have happened with you on the ticket. Pat Glass cannot be expected to know any of that because she only became politically active 5 minutes ago, in her 50s. You really are a dreadfully wronged man.
ReplyDelete