Workmen today moved on to the site of an open-cast mine in the shadow of The Wrekin to start making preparations to excavate the area.

Officials at UK Coal have secured an area of the site at Huntington Lane, in Little Wenlock, and will start removing top soil and preparing the site for the major excavation of about 900,000 tonnes of coal. They will also speak to campaigners staging a protest in a camp on another area of the site.

They will be explaining their actions and warning campaigners not to trespass on to the area where work is taking place.

But the company said today it had no immediate plans to evict the protesters from their camp as they can carry out mining work on part of the site, described as area A, without being disturbed.

A number of protesters said about 20 vans, 4×4 vehicles and police cars had moved on to the site at about 8am and a number had feared the gathering was forming an “eviction team”.

A spokesman for UK Coal said: “This morning UK Coal moved on to the Huntington Lane site to start operations.

“These operations are now in an area which has been secured by ourselves and the location of the protesters does not impede our mining operations at this time – we are on area A, they are on area B, and there is a corridor between the two areas.

“We have started stripping top soils and working to prepare the site.

“At some point during today we will be speaking to the protesters. We will be advising them that we have secured the area and that we have no intention of evicting them at present.

“But we will also be making the point that if they do move on to area A they will be trespassing, and we will look to take whatever action is necessary if that happens.”

Police were also at the site and Telford press officer Chris Ammonds said: “Officers in Telford are aware visits were being made at the site today and had resources on standby as a precaution.”

By Lisa Rowley