100,000 signatures reached
To: Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
End opencast coal for good
Don't give permission for any new opencast coal mines.
Refuse Banks Group’s permission to extract 3 million tonnes of coal at Druridge Bay, Northumberland and revoke planning permission at Bradley, Pont Valley, County Durham.
Why is this important?
Opencast coal extraction is a reckless and dirty industry that is fuelling climate change while hurting communities in the UK and abroad to fuel UK power stations.
Over the next few weeks, the UK government faces a choice: it can let this dirty industry get bigger, or it can end opencast coal extraction for good, honouring it’s promise of a 2025 coal phase-out to the British people, saving communities and protecting the climate.
Right now, the government is considering whether to allow two opencast coal mines in the North of England 1. Bradley in Pont Valley, which is already destroying the countryside, and 2. Druridge Bay, which threatens a pristine stretch of coastline.
Both mines are being pursued by Banks Group; the only company in the UK pushing for the expansion of coal extraction. They have already extended their operation at Shotton, Northumberland and are undertaking a scoping inquiry into a new one at Dewley Hill, near Throckley, Newcastle.
Together these four projects would extract over 6.5 million tonnes of coal and release around 13 million tonnes of Co2 .
There’s no time to lose - at the Bradley mine in Pont Valley, each day that goes by means more coal being burned and more countryside being lost.
The government is due to make a decision on both Bradley and Druridge Bay in the next few weeks.
Banks Groups lawyers and lobbyists are putting forward their arguments in favour of their damaging projects. Let’s make sure we get heard too.
Sign our petition to make sure that the government makes the right decision and ends opencast coal mining for good.
