Some of the YANC team outside Leeds Town Hall before the planning meeting
Good news in from Leeds last week, where a group of energised anti-coal campaigners with the marvellous acronym YANC (Yorkshire Against New Coal) pulled off a fairly stunning coup by persuading the local council to turn down plans for a climate-wrecking open cast coal mine.
Despite a planning officer's report which heavily favoured Banks Developments plan to rip 875,000 tonnes of coal out of the ground from an open cast site directly opposite the Fairburn Ings Nature Reserve near Castleford, YANC galvanized local opposition by submitting 1,100 objections to the proposal, based on the threat to the climate from the greenhouse gases which would be emitted.
Not only did YANC succeed in getting this project rejected, it also lobbied successfully for the idea that climate impact should be an integral consideration in all future planning decisions.
YANC spokesperson Chris Mackins says that "this is a victory for common sense and for climate protection". As a direct result of this decision more than 2.57 million tonnes of CO2 will be prevented from being released into the atmosphere. The new mine was estimated to have caused more than £133 million in associated climate change damage, if it had gone ahead.
"This is a victory for common sense and for climate protection"
Chris Mackins, YANCThis is just so good to see. Although Greenpeace has been campaigning hard against new coal fired powers stations over the past three years, we don't have the staff or resources to take on all the battles which need to be won, and have made a conscious decision not to challenge new open cast mines as a result.
It's great that other groups are springing up, getting stuck into the issue, and successfully challenging the status quo. Let's face it, Yorkshire is traditionally about as pro-coal as any region of the country, so if the climate change message can make this kind of impact there then it surely means that the times are indeed a-changing.
So just remember, if there's an open cast mine planned for development near you, you can oppose it on climate change grounds as well as the negative impacts on the local community and environment. Open cast is one of the most destructive ways of accessing the most climate damaging of all fossil fuels - coal. Happily, it looks as though that message is finally starting to get through.
