Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Berwick has given a cautious response to, and said that residents require much more reassurance on, plans to build the largest open cast mine in England in the Druridge Bay area.
Anne Marie Trevelyan was invited by Banks Group and the 'Save Druridge' Campaign group to go to the public workshop at Widdrington Station Community Centre to hear more about how plans are progressing with the Highthorn open cast planning application process.
The plans, for an opencast mine to extract five million tonnes of coal between 2016 and 2024, have caused controversy amongst many residents of the Druridge Bay area,
Anne Marie Trevelyan said “I have been involved in this proposal with the community for the last two years, and it was reassuring to see that all our campaigning to explain to Banks Group why using the area of land north of the C116 was a bad thing have been listened to and they have changed their initial plans considerably to take these concerns into account.
I will be continuing to work with local residents on the impact issues and the restoration options which could leave an improved legacy for the area. The reality is that Banks Group, a development company, are entitled to put in an application but we are being asked as a community to feed in all our local knowledge to try to make that application as good as possible, so that impact on residents is reduced. This area has suffered for decades from poor restoration commitment by UK Coal and the community are understandably anxious about any new open cast, even though I have seen first hand that the Banks methodology is much more resident-considered than other coal miners.
If the application does not provide adequate protections and an excellent restoration programme, I will not be supporting it when it comes to County Hall later in the year. .”