Acland mine

DO WE have the first casualty of the current rejection of the Acland mine expansion? The application for the big motel proposed for Bridge St has been withdrawn, possibly on the fact that if it happens there will be no new miners and in due course no old miners either.

To the SMS in The Chronicle on Saturday; no I hadn’t until the recent visit been to Acland for many years, but the surrounding country side shows the natural nature of the area. We were also driven through a lot of the land adjacent to the mine and owned by New Hope.

The fact that New Hope owns most of, if not all of the stage three area, very little, if any, disruption will occur. Yes I wouldn’t prefer to live right at the mine site, but some do and work at the mine and are quite happy to do so.

No one can deny that New Hope has done much for the area, is very supportive of local causes and going by the 91% in favour of the extension, as shown in the recent Chronicle online poll, tells us all that most hold New Hope in high regard and and realise the benefits the mine affords the Downs in many ways.

Regarding the 800-odd water bores. Many would be only used intermittently and there is no absolute certainty that any problem will actually occur. And New Hope, from memory, has promised to provide alternate water if this should ever be the case.

The amount of land that will actually be mined on the scale of things is small.

New Hope’s pastoral group is already using it, so there is little loss of production and will undoubtedly be continued on all of the land it owns.

The concern is actually only of importance of the nearby farmers, not radio jocks and persons with no actual interest in the area. — RAY HARCH, Toowoomba