Sponsored by
Death of a beauty spot
Fairburn Ings is an oasis for wildlife in West Yorkshire's Aire Valley, but its peace and tranquillity may soon be dramatically disturbed. Grant Woodward reports.
IT is home to one of the nation's most celebrated birdwatching spots, boasting scores of ducks and geese in the winter and terns and swallows in the summer.
Yet a controversy has whipped up around Fairburn Ings, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds nature reserve on the outskirts of Castleford.
Engineering firm Banks Developments wants to extract coal from land off nearby Newton Lane and, despite vocal local opposition, it is expected that Leeds City Council will today give the company the go-ahead.
If it's given planning permission, the firm will spend up to the next three-and-a-half years mining 875,000 tonnes of coal and 200,000 tonnes of 'other minerals' from an opencast mine on the greenbelt site. It would then spend a little under two years returning the land to agricultural use.
However, to say the scheme is unpopular would be something of an understatement.
According to Leeds City Council it has received 1,635 letters of objection from members of the public, most notably those living in the nearby villages of Fairburn, Ledston and Ledsham.
A local opposition group, RAGE, which stands for Residents Against Greenbelt Exploitation, has been formed, while opposition has also been voiced by ward councillors and MPs, including the parish councils of Fairburn, Ledston, Ledsham, Allerton Bywater and Kippax.
Their objections centre on the increased traffic and noise the mining would bring and the overall environmental impact it could have in this quiet, rural corner where West and North Yorkshire meet.
The prospect of hulking great trucks juddering down their narrow lanes fills the villagers with dread.
But there is a deeper fear too – the fear that the mineworks may result in irreversible damage to the Fairburn Ings nature reserve.
"We're worried that when they start digging the Ings will start draining," says Rita Stephenson, who lives in a pretty cottage in the middle of Fairburn and is the chair of its parish council.
"Not only that but a lot of people come out here for a little bit of relaxation and then there's going to be all this going on. It's absolutely disgraceful.
"Perhaps the coal and stone is there but at the end of the day it's been there for centuries so why haven't they taken it out before? For the amount of coal they're going to get out and the time it's going to take them I think it's ridiculous."
Critics say the coal would only be enough to keep the Ferrybridge, Drax and Eggborough power stations running for less than a fortnight.
Campaigner Roy Wilson revealed locals have dubbed it the 5-11-50 project. "Five years to mine, 11 days to burn and 50 years for the landscape to recover," he said. "We think it should be taken to a public enquiry so everyone can have their say."
A spokeswoman for Banks Developments said the issue of the amount of coal that would be mined from the site was "not an argument we enter into" as it did not form a condition of the planning application.
However, some believe there is another reason for the firm's interest in the site – namely the 'other minerals' they are looking to extract from it. Banks denies this, saying it is a combination of these and the coal that attracts them to the site.
Still, some are not so sure.
"It's the limestone, gravel and sand they're after," said Philip Begley, from Castleford, who was enjoying a day's birdwatching at Fairburn Ings with a pair of binoculars slung around his neck.
"All this area is just one big limestone ridge. But a lot of people come here for peace and quiet and I think it would spoil the tranquility of the place.
"You can sit here for 20 minutes and all you hear is birdsong. We get Whooper swans coming back from the Arctic and pink-footed geese in the spring and winter. But if this goes ahead a lot of passing birds might just go elsewhere."
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is remaining rather more tight-lipped about the row.
A manager at the visitors centre at Fairburn Ings said she was not allowed to make any comment and instead handed over a copy of a press statement issued two years ago.
In the statement, RSPB Northern England regional director Laurence Rose says the organisation "would never have chosen to have an opencast mine either so close to one of our nature reserves or to a community of which we feel such an integral part".
However, following discussions with Banks Developments he says the organisation is confident the mining operation will pose no threat to the reserve and therefore the RSPB is not making a formal objection, a decision that has disappointed locals.
Mark Dowdall, environment and community director at Banks Developments, sought to reassure the public by pointing to the firm's track record.
"Banks has worked and restored more than 100 surface mines in the UK including 20 sites in Yorkshire, and our experience makes me confident that the Newton Lane mine would be worked in a sensitive and environmentally acceptable way," he said.
"We have conducted a full hydrological and geotechnical investigation and liaised closely with the Environment Agency to ensure that appropriate precautions are taken to maintain the quality and levels of water in Fairburn Ings."
The firm says that in the event of any water being lost from the Ings it would be replaced.
Should the proposal go ahead, a buffer zone, to be managed by Leeds City Council, will be created to protect the reserve from disturbance and safeguard its water quality from any agricultural run-off that may result from future use of the land.
But not everyone is convinced.
Villagers formed RAGE when the plans were first mooted more than two years ago and have so far spent 35,000 on geological and traffic studies to challenge Banks Developments' own data.
Rob Pudney, acting chairman of the group, said RAGE's hydrology expert believed the mining operation could cause the movement of 10 times as much water as Banks had bargained for.
"They can't prove beyond reasonable doubt that there isn't a risk of the Ings being de-watered," he said.
"Not only that but the 15-metre-high spoil heaps they leave behind will obliterate views of a designated area of natural beauty.
"It won't be returned to how it was before and that has upset a lot of people. We see it as nothing less than rape and pillage. Our loss is their profit."
Nagging concerns also remain that the increased levels of traffic could combine with poor sightlines to cause accidents at the main junction in and out of Ledston village, despite Banks assuring villagers that lorries will not use the route at peak times.
"We set out to fight this thing to the best of our abilities and we feel we have done that," added Rob.
"All we can hope now is that the com-mittee at Leeds City Council realise it's not cut and dried and that there's enough doubt not to approve it."
However, it's not looking good from the protesters' point of view. The Leeds City Council report being considered by its planning panel points out that a number of applications for opencast mining refused by local authorities have been overturned by the Secretary of State.
Should the villagers' pleas fall on deaf ears today, Fairburn Ings may not be the haven of tranquillity they know and love for some time to come.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
