“Open cast coal mining does not bring jobs to the area. They employ only about 10% of the workforce of a deep mine and instead of building communities they destroy them. Most of the workforce comes with the company as it is specialist labour used to drive the big diggers and trucks that are used in destroying the countryside to find the most carbon intensive form of energy generation there is. And on the point of the green belt, the planning application that was put in in 1995 at Shortwood farm was a smaller version of that put in for the same site in 1993 when it was called Robinettes and included green belt land. However do not assume that just because the planning application is for a small open cast mine it will stay small. The people at Smalley opposed a big application and got a smaller one but are waiting for another planning application to be put in. The coal is down there and UK Coal will not rest till it is all dug out and they have made their fat profits at the expense of the countryside and the climate. Joe Henshaw is right. we need to look at long term sustainable solutions for our energy needs as well as using less. If the UK Government committed itself to meeting its renewable obligations we would more than meet the energy demand currently provided by coal. We need more clean green long term jobs for Nottinghamshire not the rape of the countryside and communities with nothing given back. We cannot allow UK Coal to take, take, take. We also need to demand that Hazel Blears as CLG Minister introduce the 500m buffer zone that Joe mentioned. It has really scuppered UK Coal's operation in Wales. It is an easy thing to do and she must be desperate right now to get in the voters good books. And Meeki PPS2 did not serve to protect the greenbelt at Cossall in 1995. We need to use PPS1 supplement which is concerned with climate change and as it says in the introduction overrides all other PPS's. We should fight this all the way. You only have to look at the nearest open cast mine to us at Shipley Country Park (Lodge House) to see what open cast looks like. We have not had open cast in Nottingham for years and years. lets keep it that way”

“It reminds me of school in the 70's, the thicko's left school on the Friday with no further ambition other than to hack away at the coal face.”

“UK Coal shareholder or similar, with no social conscience...therefore no problem when you don¿t live near the thing, I expect...”

“Probably has a direct or indirect undeclared financial interest in the matter, that's the usual reason anyone supports horrors like this. I note he won't have to live with it if it goes ahead...”

“How did Devon get mixed up in Notts politics???”

“What man in his right mind wants to spend his working life in semi darkness a mile below ground ?Bury the past along with these hell holes and look to the future.There ARE alternative forms of energy out there.It has taken nearly a century to clear up the mess left by KING COAL”

“What is wrong with people in Notts, can ypou think of nothing else but the mining past and when we are going to start digging it again? forget it and change jobs, please dont tell me there are none because there's loads of them.”

“I was born in Ilkeston from a mining background; I am not an incomer. I repeat, just because the coal exists, it does not mean that it has to be mined, particularly as the main motivation is the profit of a private company. We live in more enlightened times than 300 years ago and understand the local and global impacts better. In this area, most people have had enough of it, and as it was once said by a senior politician, opencast mining represents the final insult to the former mining communities. Unlike your rainfall, it is hardly a natural phenomenom, and it is now apparently making people ill, an outcome also not recognised 300 years ago.”

“Joe Henshaw

You surely did not believe it was safe just because a Government (of any complexion -I am not being political) said so?

Yes, it is a mining area and has been for perhaps 300 years in one sense or another.

I now live in an area with the heaviest rainfall in the UK, few facilities and little public transport. I knew that before I moved.

You must have known about the possibility of mining.”

“suppose so, no future so no point in talking.”