Open-cast Coal Sites (Restoration)

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

The House owes a debt to the Backbench Business Committee and particularly to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for bringing up this subject. The situation she reviews in south Wales is a really dreadful one, and a source of anxiety to any area where open-cast is currently contemplated.

My constituency was the last deep-mining constituency in the north-east, and it also has a large amount of open-cast mining—it has had for many years, it still does and it is committed to having more in the future, as permissions have already been given. In the early days of open-cast mining, whole villages were removed to make way for it. The villages of Radcliffe and Chevington Drift in my constituency were totally removed in order to enable open-cast mining.

More recent applications have in many cases been even more controversial because some of the earlier ones related to areas with a fair amount of dereliction from deep mining or for other reasons, and there was a net benefit from the restoration process. Open-cast mining now, however, is moving to areas that will suffer for a considerable period and, when restored, they will not be in any way better than the areas they replaced—even if the Banks Mining restoration on one of the sites on the estate of Lord Ridley, which features a large figure of a lady from the former Northumberlandia park, has had 100,000 visitors. I suppose that is one way of making a success of restoration.

Around Widdington and Widdington station in my constituency, people have lived with open-cast for 40 years, and it looks like they will be doing so well into the future. Permission already exists for the Ferneybeds site, another Banks site, with three years of excavation, three quarters of million tonnes of coal and 200,000 tonnes of fire clay expected to be taken out of the surface mine. Banks has a projected application for Highthorn, close to the magnificent Druridge bay and the villages of Cresswell, Ellington and Lynemouth. Local people are worried that this might be granted either by the planning authority or on appeal, and that the planning authority might be frightened of losing it on appeal and so might grant it in perhaps a more limited form. That fear exists even before the application has been formally submitted.

Where surface mining does take place, people are entitled to certainty that restoration will be completed to high quality and on time. The major sites in my constituency have been UK Coal sites—and we all know what has happened to UK Coal. The Butterwell and Steadsburn/Maidens Hall sites are UK Coal sites. The Butterwell site has to cease operation by July this year, while the Steadsburn/Maidens Hall site ceased operation some time ago. The soil has been replaced but no cultivation has yet commenced, and residents have complained about the delays in restoration and aftercare.

Following the demise of UK Coal, Harworth Estates has become the freeholder, and an organisation made up of former UK Coal directors—UK Coal Surface Mines Ltd—has become the operator in these areas. We are dependent on dealing with those organisations for the kind of restoration that the sites need either now or for the future. Coaling ceased at the Stobswood site in 2008, but site buildings and haulage roads still have to be removed, and footpaths reopened. In fact, Harworth Estates has now applied for planning permission to keep the site offices and use them for another purpose. There is therefore anxiety about sites that have already ceased coaling; anxiety about sites for which permission has been granted; and anxiety about potential further sites.

The hon. Member for Bridgend talked quite extensively about restoration bonds. These are clearly vital, but they do not appear to be enough. If he catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) will probably want to refer to the Potland Burn site in his constituency, which we are all looking across at with some anxiety. At one point there was a £1.67 million restoration bond for that site, but I understand that the actual cost involved is more like £3.6 million. It is one thing to have a restoration bond, but another to have a huge shortfall, and we are very anxious lest the same situation should arise in our own area. Restoration bonds are particularly attractive to my constituency, where there has just been a fire in a waste site. There was no restoration bond, and there is no money to deal with the consequences, because the company is bankrupt. We do not want that to happen on open-cast sites. However, it is not enough to have a bond; the bond itself must be sufficient.

I do not want to take up too much time, because many Members with direct constituency experience wish to speak, but I do want to reassert a principle. Residents are entitled to assurances that all the promises made when open-cast permissions are granted will be fully kept, and that restoration aftercare will be carried out and carried out on time. If there is doubt about the money, if there is doubt about who will be around to see it through if a company goes bankrupt, or if there is doubt about whether the planning authority will be able to enforce the terms, permission should not be given in the first place.

Residents need cast-iron assurances. There is a huge burden of worry for people who have already borne the burden of surface mining near their homes, which presents a great many practical problems. The mining is quite important for the economy and for our energy supplies, and it generates some employment, but it is very difficult to live alongside, and those people have had to live alongside it because permission has been granted. The very least that they deserve is for restoration to be completed, and for the process to be guaranteed.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—