Crusade for coal by Tory MPs 30 years late – Yorkshire Post Letters

I FEAR Redcar MP Jacob Young has left it rather late (The Yorkshire Post, December 9) to call for a plan for coal after over 30 years in which UK users found it far cheaper to import coal and were encouraged to do so, by mostly Conservative governments.

While I didn’t like the way the coal industry was run down, reviving it on any substantial scale is now impossible.

Whether much UK coal is suitable for steel making is doubtful.

When Durham’s Horden pit finally closed the coal wasn’t good enough for coking but had to go to power stations.

Redcar continued to use imported coal for its coking plant.

Mr Young could have mentioned that Britain’s preserved railways also rely on overseas coal.

Oakdale colliery in South Wales, producing most of the best locomotive coal, had considerable reserves 
remaining but was closed down simply to make it easier to privatise the rest.

Also he seems rather out of touch with Boris Johnson’s environmental aims.

He should be aware that the Environment Secretary recently turned down plans for an opencast mine near Druridge Bay, despite a planning inspector’s recommendation that it should proceed.

Few mines – and certainly no opencast pits – could now open without facing major objections.

From: Dick Lindley, Altofts, Normanton.

I ONLY hope Boris Johnson stands up to the EU this weekend like a true English gentleman to regain our sovereignty and take back control of the UK from foreign nations.

Please tell them, Boris –absolutely no more fishing in our territorial waters. They are reserved exclusively for 
UK-registered vessels only.

Please tell them any tariffs the EU imposes on our exports to Europe will be reciprocated by identical tariffs on EU goods entering the UK.

Please tell our European cousins we will be welcoming Google, Amazon etc to our country and there will be a world-beating low-taxation regime to entice large numbers of multilateral corporations to make their bases in the UK.

I realise Boris will be under tremendous pressure from the EU bureaucracy to surrender 
but total independence is exactly what the majority of British people voted for in the Brexit referendum.

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