Protesters set to lose fight over coal reclamation at former tip

Doncaster-based Recycoal has drawn up plans for the Hesley Wood site, near Chapeltown, Sheffield, and a special meeting of councillors has been called over the controversial scheme.

They will have to consider hundreds of representations made against the proposal, and are also likely to be faced with protests both inside and outside the meeting at Sheffield Town Hall.

A report prepared for the meeting runs to more than 130 pages, and while hundreds of objections are listed, the final recommendation from planning officers is to allow the operation to go ahead.

Recycoal first unveiled its plans last summer, and argues its experience on other former coalfield sites, including Grimethorpe, near Barnsley, show it is capable of dealing with the objections.

The firm is also running an operation on the site of the former Rossington pit, near Doncaster, and said in all cases sites are returned to the public.

But residents of the Cowley Residents Action Group (CRAG), set up by people living close to the tip, which shut in 1972, say the Hesley Wood site is different.

A spokesman for the group said: “This land has regenerated for 40 years and has a great diversity of trees and wildlife. Recycoal intends to remove all the trees.

“With the loss of all the trees, fauna and flora, what is left to stop water run-off and the noise from the M1? Chapeltown already suffers from flooding and noise from the motorway, which is reduced by the trees, will get worse.

“After completion, the company says it will be planting 41,000 trees and relandscaping. But the trees to be planted are only 700mm high – in other words saplings.

“The Grimethorpe site was completed in 2008. The trees have died or not grown, it is just a poor grassy wasteland.”

Health concerns have also been raised, with CRAG saying that dust from the excavation process could travel more than three miles and cause conditions such as asthma, heart disease and lung cancer.

Other objections listed by the group include the fact that the washing plant, which will wash through the soil from the site to reclaim the coal, will run 24 hours, six days a week.

Campaigners also claim that over the projected four year life of the project, almost 90,000 lorries will travel from the site to Eggborough Power Station, near Selby, where the coal will be burned.

CRAG has been supported in its objections by the national Coal Action Network, which has co-ordinated several opposition campaigns to open-cast mining projects from Scotland to the south west of England.

Other representations have been made by Sheffield’s director of public health, Dr Jeremy Wight and local MP Angela Smith, who both call on Sheffield Council to ensure health risks are addressed.

In their advisory report to tomorrow’s meeting, planning officers discuss all the objections in detail, but finally conclude that there are “no unacceptable adverse impacts” either on the environment or on human health.

The officers also report that Recycoal owns the site and its plans to restore the site will result in a new and more attractive section of green belt land, which cannot be sold for housing.

It is advised that the company and the council sign a so-called section 106 planning agreement, and that an “ insurance bond” be signed with a reputable firm to pay for restoration work to be completed should Recycoal go out of business.

The report concludes: “ The development accords with policy and there are no considerations to indicate it should be refused.”