CAMPAIGNERS against controversial plans for an opencast coal mine have blasted the move to delay a decision on the scheme for the sixth time.
The Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) is fighting plans by UK Coal for a new mine on the former Minorca site, off Gallows Lane, Measham.
The group has described as ‘extremely disappointing’ the news that the plans will now not be voted on by Leicestershire County Council until Thursday, July 15 – the sixth delay to a scheme which was originally due to be voted on in December last year.
Steve Leary (pictured), MOPG spokesman, said: “It will now be over a year, come July, that this application has been waiting for a decision. We have since learned, to add a further illustration of the unfairness of the system, that we may have as little as three weeks to both understand the new information which may be another 400- page highly technical submission, prepare our response to it and lobby interested parties before presenting our case to the council.
“For some of us it seems that we will have some intensive work to do during the height of the summer when people are usually thinking of holidays if we are to prevent this application from succeeding.” Meanwhile, the group’s fight has been featured in the pages of satirical magazine Private Eye, which looked at the fate of two other sites previously mined by UK Coal.
The article examines the ongoing saga of the company’s delays in carrying out its promised restoration work at its site in Lounge, near Ashby, and the company’s plans to build an industrial park at its former opencast mine in Cutacre, in Bolton, despite promising to turn it into a country park once mining was complete.
