It’s great to protect it for future generations
PROTESTER CELEBRATES AS DRURIDGE OPENCAST IS REJECTED
Reporter AN 88-year-old environmentalist who has spent more than 50 years opposing opencast mining has hailed the decision not to allow surface extraction near Druridge Bay.
George ‘Pitch’ Wilson, chairman of the Durham branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, lives in the Derwent Valley in Gateshead and has attended 40 opencast public inquiries.
On the Government’s decision to block opencasting at Highthorn near the Northumberland bay, he said: “It’s wonderful – it’s such a special place of outstanding natural beauty there can be no greater feeling for everyone involved than helping protect it from harm.
“The Druridge Bay coastline has been part of Northumberland’s heritage and it’s a great feeling to think it is protected a little longer for this generation and hopefully future generations.”
At last year’s public inquiry, Pitch presented a report on why Banks Mining should be refused permission to create an opencast coal site from an area of 250 hectares near Druridge Bay.
In his submission he pointed out that mining would destroy increasingly rare ‘ridge and furrow’ landscape from medieval times.
He said: “The inspectors’ questions to me were all about the ridge and furrow on the eastern section of the site, which they asked me to mark out on the map.”
Ridge and furrow was once commonplace across the country – a legacy of the open field system of farming when individuals ploughed their own furrow.
Pitch said: “The distinctive furrows are part of the character of the landscape, a link to the country’s ancient past.
“But that would have been just one more thing taken into consideration alongside a whole host of evidence submitted by environmental groups in what would have been a hugely intrusive, environmentally development.
“Druridge is a particularly sensitive site - the popularity of this coastline is obvious and an opencast mine within the clean and peaceful environs would have been an unacceptable intrusion
“The Save Druridge campaign organised by local people was fantastic and it shows what people can achieve when they unite.
“It was something that was very hard for the authorities to ignore and it complemented efforts by other agencies like Friends of the Earth who were also heavily involved.”