Public Exhibitions For Shotton Surface Mine Additional Coal Extraction Plans

Wednesday 03 February 2010

Details of plans to extract an additional two million tonnes of coal from within the existing Shotton Surface Mine in Northumberland will go on display for the first time next month at three public exhibitions.

Banks Mining is set to submit a request to Northumberland County Council to extract the additional coal from the mine, which is located on the Blagdon Estate to the west of Cramlington.

All the exhibitions will take place between 3pm and 7pm, and will run on three consecutive days in the second week of February.

The first event will take place on Tuesday 9 February at the Beaconhill Community Centre, with East Hartford Community Centre hosting the second exhibition on Wednesday 10 February and Stannington Village Hall hosting the third on Thursday 11 February.

Members of the Banks team will be on hand at each exhibition to answer questions about the proposals and gather feedback from visitors.

The Shotton mine, which has been active since the beginning of 2008, now employs 125 people on site, and injects over £12m into the regional economy every year.

Around 3.4 million tonnes of coal, two million tonnes of shale and 750,000 tonnes of fireclay were originally approved to be mined over the eight-year lifetime of the scheme, finishing in 2016. Banks will now be asking for an extension of the overall life of the site by two years to enable the additional coal supplies to be recovered.

If the proposal is approved, this will mean that extraction will finish on site in 2016, with full restoration of the site to be completed during 2018.

Banks will operate within the current Shotton site boundaries to extract the extra coal, and site operations will be carried out on only a further three per cent (around ten hectares) of the site area, because most of the resources are under land already in operational use.

The new proposal will also not require any increase in daily traffic movements.

Mark Dowdall, Banks’ environment and community director, adds: “These exhibitions are a key part of the ongoing public consultation that we are carrying out around these new plans, and the feedback we receive will be taken into account as we draw up our final planning submission.

“We have maintained open, productive relationships with the communities around our operational sites in this area since the 1980s, and are committed to continuing to work with them around these new proposals.

“We believe there are strong operational, environmental and economic arguments for recovering this additional coal, and look forward to discussing our plans with as many people as possible at these exhibitions.”

A planning application is scheduled to be submitted to Northumberland County Council during 2010.

Anyone who is unable to attend the exhibitions, but who would like more information on the proposals or to express their views about them, can contact community liaison manager Bob Swainson on 01740 658500 or via shotton@hjbanks.com

Last updated: Monday 08 February 2010, 12:51 PM