[Cc-webedit] [Fwd: Post article that community council members are threatened for linking to?]

[website at climatecamp.org.uk]

I think this should go up. Thoughts?

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Post article that community council members are threatened for
linking to?
From:    "ruth" <ruthe at allwomencount.net>
Date:    Wed, September 1, 2010 10:54 pm
To:      website at climatecamp.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello, website team, have you considered doing this?  (Sorry about the final
highlight below– unintended but I can’t get rid of it).

Love,

Ruth (London neighbourhood)



  _____

From: ftp-bounces at freedomtoprotest.org.uk
[mailto:ftp-bounces at freedomtoprotest.org.uk] On Behalf Of dave
Sent: 31 August 2010 10:27
To: ftp at freedomtoprotest.org.uk
Subject: [ftp] Bullying Council Takes Anti-Open Cast Community Council to
Court - activists call for defiance



http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/08/457844.html


Bullying Council Takes Anti-Open Cast Community Council to Court


Indymedia 30.08.2010

South Lanarkshire Council threatens Douglas Community Council after they
reveal corruption. Coal Action Scotland demand that South Lanarkshire
Council end all legal proceedings immediately, issue an apology to the
Community Council, and ask people to stand in solidarity by posting up the
original article on their websites and blogs.


The on-going battle over open cast coal in the Douglas Valley has had a
shocking development, with South Lanarkshire Council issuing each member of
the Douglas and Glespin Community Council with legal notices that
proceedings against them are to begin at Lanark Sheriff Court over alleged
libel claims. This move is seen by the community as an attack on their
freedom of speech.

This latest dispute, where South Lanarkshire Council under the auspices of
Archie Strang, council Chief Executive, are taking primary school teachers
and pensioners to court in an effort to silence their dissenting voices,
comes because of a logo reading “South Lanarkshire COALcil” and an article
titled “South Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Coal Hand-in-Hand at
Community LIE-aison Meeting”. The logo superimposes the Council's logo with
that of Scottish Coal, and the article was a repost, linked from the Coal
Action Scotland website.

The article described a liaison meeting between the community, Scottish Coal
and South Lanarkshire Council. At this meeting, the council made every
effort to exclude the community from it, misrepresented what was said in
minutes and council workers were indistinguishable from Scottish Coal
representatives.

Coal Action Scotland are demanding that South Lanarkshire Council end all
legal proceedings immediately and issue an apology to the Community Council.


Fiona Reed from Coal Action Scotland said today: “It is unbelievable that
the Council would take legal action over what is essentially a link, and not
even contact the original authors of the article. This is nothing more than
an attempt to limit the Community Council's freedom of speech. The community
has to put up with ill health, environmental and economic degradation from
open casting, and now the politically-motivated bullying of this deceitful
council. Take it back and say sorry Archie.”

Coal Action Scotland are also asking people to stand in solidarity with the
Community Council and post up the controversial logo and article on their
websites and blogs.

- The original article can be found here:
http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1635 [See below]
- Douglas Community Council have been opposing the decisions by South
Lanarkshire Council to allow numerous open cast developments throughout the
valley for close to 20 years, with the campaign against Mainshill Open Cast
Coal site, where over 650 letters of objection were submitted to the council
and a survey by MSP Eiline Campbell found that 70% of residents opposed the
mine.
- Coal Action Scotland works with communities affected by coal mining and
infrastructure and takes direct action in support of campaigns, such as the
recent 7-month occupation of Mainshill Wood in South Lanarkshire
- South Lanarkshire Council is renowned in the area for being pro-open cast
coal and for putting the interests of Scottish Coal before those of the
people in South Lanarkshire. Indeed, the council has never refused an
open-cast application by Scottish Coal, despite overwhelming community
opposition.

-----------------------------------------

http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1635


South Lanarkshire <http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1635>  Council and
Scottish Coal Hand-in-Hand at Community LIE-aison Meeting


May 30th, 2010

Anti-open cast residents of the Douglas Valley were subjected to the same
old lies from South Lanarkshire Council (SLC) and Scottish Coal in the most
recent Poniel and Mainshill Open Casts Community Liaison Meetings, both held
on 27th April 2010. With it being practically impossible to distinguish
members of SLC from Scottish Coal, the meetings demonstrated the council and
corporate corruption which has blighted the Douglas Valley, where open casts
are pushed through to the detriment of local health and devastation of the
environment.

In the Poniel Community Liaison meeting Roger Dick, SLC’s Minerals
Enforcement Officer, noted that the restoration work at Poniel had
temporarily ceased due to the bad weather in recent months. Given the mess
that Dalqhuandy has been left in, it is unsurprising that the community
remains unconvinced by Dick and Scottish Coal’s assurances that restoration
will be finished by the end of summer 2010, especially since the extraction
of 600,000 tons of coal from Poniel had finished by Christmas 2009. Poniel
currently employs zero people from the local area and Scottish Coal could
not guarantee any jobs for local people from the restoration work which is
being subcontracted.

SLC and Scottish Coal’s reluctance to provide a forum in which communities
can articulate their concerns about 20 years of open casting in the area is
apparent in the restrictions placed on attendees to the Mainshill Community
Liaison meetings: just 6 members of the local community are allowed to
attend, and they must live within 3 miles of the centre of the Mainshill
site, a distance even Scottish Coal admits is arbitrary. The company’s
commitment to the local community is similarly minimal when it comes to
providing local employment. At the time of the community liaison meeting
there were 39 workers on the Mainshill site operating single shifts.
Scottish Coal are hoping to introduce two 8 hour shifts a day, running from
6am-2pm and 2pm-10pm. Scottish Coal boasted that 29 of the employees live
within a ML postcode but with this postcode meaning Motherwell and not
Mainshill, these workers may come from as far as 25 miles away from Douglas.
Ian Gardner, Site Manager at Mainshill said, ‘The employment thing is a
seasonal thing’ and acknowledged that during soil extraction the numbers
employed fluctuates. Scottish Coal revealed that coal was programmed to be
lifted from the site on May 15th and that the dispatch date was not yet
known but the coal from Mainshill will be taken to Ravenstruther.

Despite the constant deflecting of questions, members of the community
persisted in grilling Scottish Coal and SLC about coal lorries on Douglas’
roads. Coal from Broken Cross Open Cast is currently being transported
through Douglas to Ravenstruther and on a return haul basis to Ayrshire.
Scottish Coal’s typically evasive response was that, ‘Quality issues have
necessitated that we do it’ and ‘Nothing precludes us from taking coal
through Douglas’. However, legal agreements between Scottish Coal and SLC
state that, under Section 96, extraordinary wear on the road due to open
cast mines is restricted to within a ½ mile to 1 mile stretch from the site
entrances. When asked how this is monitored and when Scottish Coal would be
required to sort out such wear and tear, Roger Dick said that the only
monitoring is carried out by him as he ‘observes lorry movements if I’m in
the area.’ When pushed further and asked by a local resident, ‘How do you
monitor it?’, Dick replied ‘I don’t’. SLC and Scottish Coal both refused to
acknowledge the role of coal trucks and heavy machinery entering and exiting
the site in causing extraordinary wear and tear on the A70 just outside
Mainshill. Frustrated residents were angered by this shirking of
responsibility and the lack of warning given for the recent closure of a
section of the A70 for resurfacing.

Damage done to road surfaces is not the only thing going unmonitored. The
Mainshill site manager Jim Gardner said that The Coal Authority licence for
the extraction of coal is expected to be granted soon. Even before coal is
extracted from site dangerous Particulate Matter is being released into the
air from diesel consumed by vehicles on site. When quizzed by local
residents about dust monitoring, Scottish Coal answered that exposure levels
are being monitored according to PAN 50 guidelines but were embarrassingly
revealed not to be measuring Particulate Matter (PM) sizes or quantities,
the information required to monitor the impact of the open cast on local
health. When asked by angry residents if they would start monitoring PM
sizes and quantities, Scottish Coal said they would advise the next
community liaison meeting of their decision on this matter. Despite not
collecting any useful data regarding dust at Mainshill, Scottish Coal have
released their own health report alongside the application for an extension
to the open cast at Glentaggart, provoked by the ‘Coal Health Study:
Douglasdale Edition’ produced by members of the local community in
conjunction with the Mainshill Solidarity Camp. Given that they aren’t even
monitoring the particles which have an impact on health, how can we be
expected to trust the information in their health report?

When pushed to declare the diesel consumption at Mainshill, Scottish Coal’s
Colin Ortlepp answered: ‘It’s not information that I’ll be passing on to
this committee.’ The application to mine Mainshill was submitted under
SPP16, which obliges Scottish Coal to declare diesel consumption, but
members of SLC admitted that they had chosen not to ask for this information
at the time. Under new planning policy that superceded SPP16 in February,
there is now no obligation for Scottish Coal to declare diesel consumption.
Planning legislation is becoming increasingly convenient for greedy
companies such as Scottish Coal, and SLC places no pressure on the company
to increase transparency.

Demonstrating the same level of transparency as Scottish Coal and SLC, the
Douglas & Angus Estates manager Ian Flemming managed to completely avoid
answering locals’ questions about the long plantation. The ownership of this
woodland is meant to be being transferred back to the Estate to prevent open
casting as part of the deal to mine Mainshill. Flemming simply said: ‘I
don’t think I’ll comment on that at the moment’.

As well as skirting around the questions asked by local residents, SLC,
Scottish Coal and Douglas & Angus Estates revealed that the community fund
which is supposed to go some way to recompensing those who live around these
open casts has not even been established yet. The ‘Mainshill Trust’ will be
made up of a donation from Scottish Coal of 25 pence a tonne which will be
‘topped up’ by the Douglas and Angus Estate at 12 ½ pence a tonne.



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