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Shotton coal mine plans approved

PLANS to extract an additional two million tonnes of coal from the Shotton Surface Mine in Northumberland have been approved by the county council.

The mine has been active since May 2008, and reportedly injects over £15m into the North East economy every year through jobs on site and payments to supplier companies.

North east company Banks Mining, part of the Banks Group, submitted proposals to extend the life of the mine, which is located on the Blagdon Estate to the west of Cramlington, by two years to enable the additional coal supplies to be recovered.

Northumberland County Council’s planning committee has now reviewed and approved the proposals after acknowledging that the site’s operation achieves high environmental standards. Extraction will now finish on site in 2016, with full restoration of the site to be complete by 2018.

The newly-approved additional work will not require any land outside the existing site to be mined or any increase in daily traffic movements.

Mark Dowdall, Banks’ environment and community director, said: “Banks has made a significant investment in south east Northumberland over more than two decades, and is now one of the biggest industrial employers in the area.

“We continue to provide employment for our 140 operational employees on site and support for the 150 other people employed by Banks Mining in the North East.”

Banks and the Blagdon Estate are also behind the landmark £2.5m Northumberlandia project, which is being built on land near to the Shotton site and which will provide a 29 hectare public park containing the world’s largest sculpted human landform when it opens in 2013.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .