From where will we now buy our coal?
WIDESPREAD dismay throughout the heritage railway sector has greeted the decision by Newcastle City Council to refuse planning permission for a new surface coal mine – with fears that the cost of importing supplies from abroad may force some lines to cease operation.
On December 18, the Labourcontrolled council’s planning committee concluded a three- hour hearing by unanimously turning down a joint application by Banks Mining and Ibstock Brick to extract 800,000 tonnes of high quality coal and 400,000 tonnes of fireclay for the brick- making industry from an opencast site at Dewley Hill near Throckley. The mine would have had a lifespan of just three and a half years.
The 11- 0 refusal came in the wake of September’s Government decision to reject a controversial application for an opencast coal mine near Northumberland’s Druridge Bay following a report which said it would “not be environmentally acceptable”.
Speaking after the Dewley Hill decision, Steve Oates, chief executive of the Heritage Railway Association, said: “The decision is a huge disappointment.
“We spoke at the planning committee meeting and we had argued a strong case. UK- produced coal generates a fraction of the CO2 emissions created by extracting and then shipping coal halfway around the world to the UK. And it costs less in money terms, too.
“Keeping Britain’s heritage railways running with affordable locallyproduced coal would secure the future of a sector which sits at the heart of the country’s industrial and cultural heritage, and generates millions for the leisure and travel sector. Without domesticallyproduced coal, the heritage steam sector will have to find ways to import, store, handle and distribute the coal it needs.”
Steve added: “Maintaining consistent and reliable supplies of coal is difficult and expensive. That burden will now fall on our members, whose finances have already been hardhit by the Covid- 19 pandemic. The inevitable increase in the cost of coal may well be too much for some of our members to bear.
Supplies
“Naturally, we will watch carefully whether the applicants choose to lodge an appeal. We’re also awaiting the outcome of the Welsh Government’s consultation on its draft coal policy. Meanwhile, we now have no alternative but to press ahead with our work on developing a coal importing operation, while also supporting US research and development work on biocoal.”
HRA figures show that heritage railway coal burning produces only 0.02% of the UK’s CO2 emissions, and just 2.5% of those from all the flights each year between Heathrow and New York.
Heritage lines use 26,000 tonnes of coal annually, producing 74,360 tonnes of CO2, while the UK annual consumption of barbeque charcoal is 60,000 tonnes producing 156,000 tonnes of CO2.
The 108 operating railways and 60 steam centres in the UK and Ireland attract nearly eight million visitors annually, with a turnover of £ 42,950,000. They employ over 1000 people backed by around 23,000 volunteers.
Jeannie Raine, community relations manager at the Banks Group, said: “Newcastle City Council identified Dewley Hill as the only minerals site in the city less than six months ago. It is outrageous that, in the height of the worst economic crisis of our generation, its planning committee has decided to dismiss over 200 existing, well- paid North East jobs and has not grasped the opportunity to support a £ 75 million investment in the regional economy which would secure local supplies of much- needed minerals at the lowest environmental cost.
“The committee heard, but did not listen to the indisputable fact that there will be continued demand for industrial coal and fireclay for use in UK steel, cement and brick manufacture. We remain firm in our belief that these minerals should be mined locally in the UK in the safest, most efficient and most environmentally responsible way possible.”
It was claimed that opening the mine would see the equivalent of
£ 56 million remain in the UK economy as opposed to spending it on buying the coal from abroad.
Banks was looking at grounds for an appeal as HR closed for press.
Representations to Newcastle’s planners were made by operators of steam railway locomotives across the UK, the National Traction Engines Trust, the Heritage Fuels Alliance, the Heritage Alliance and the Association of British Transport and Engineering Museums . Backers of the scheme, which had received more than 1400 letters of support, repeatedly argues that rejecting the mine would simply lead to the UK importing more fossil fuels from overseas, leading to greater CO2 omissions in the process.
Backing
Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy, who called for the Dewley Hill scheme to be given the go- ahead, said: “Steam on the main line attracts tens of thousands of spectators, warming the market for our railways in general, and the two Science Museum Group museums in the North East, Locomotion at Shildon and the National Railway Museum at York attract 750,000 visitors per year lured by the romance and operation of steam locomotives.
“With the remaining stocks of English coal, this should supply UK steam locomotives until early 2021. The financial burden loco operators and heritage railways would face in adapting their steam locomotive fleet to burn alternative fuels would be impossible to overcome.”
The Unite union’s national officer for construction, Jerry Swain, also spoke in support of the mine, saying that 200 jobs were “on the line” at the time when the North East economy had been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.