UK Coal workers remove Wrekin protesters’ treehouses
Monday 18th October 2010, 11:07AM BST.
Can’t see video? Update Adobe Flash Player
Video may take a moment to load. Return to Video Index
Officials have dismantled treehouses on the site of a planned opencast coalmine near Telford and stopped protesters from rebuilding them, it was revealed today.
Environmental activists have been cleared from part of the site in Huntington Lane, Little Wenlock, and they say they have been threatened with arrest if they return.
The action is the first to be taken against the campaigners who set up camp on site seven months ago in protest at plans to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal on the land.
Workmen from UK Coal moved onto the southern most part of the land last Wednesday to secure it and start removing top soil ready for the excavations.
No eviction notice has been served on the protesters but they believe one will be served imminently.
A spokesman for the activists said: “Police officers and members of the National Eviction Team arrived on Site A to find the treehouses sadly unoccupied. The treehouses have now been removed and branches lopped off the trees so they can’t go back up.
“Protesters have been threatened with arrest should they trespass upon Site A.
“An eviction notice is yet to be served but this chain of events would appear to suggest its imminent arrival.”
The campaigners are now calling on sympathisers to rally to the protest camp either to bolster numbers or help out with “defences”. The spokesman added: “Food and supplies to take underground would be very useful.”
No-one from UK Coal was today available for comment. But a spokesman for UK Coal said at the time that the current location of the protestors did not impede the firm’s mining operations at the moment.
Most Commented
- Shropshire Council will face £8m redundancy bill
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Little do these coal miners know that they are about to dig up and through one of the biggest set of lay lines in the UK…. should be interesting.
Report abuse
Oh My, what will happen Darren will it all implode on them, no thought not.
Report abuse
If you mean ley lines,which i presume you do,why would that be of any significance?
I hope these ridiculous protesters are treated very harshly,i hope arrests are plentiful and i hope other nutcases across the country realise that it is a complete waste of time trying to stop coal mining.Coal production is to continue to grow until 2028 and then steadily decrease for the following decades,whether idiots sit in soon to be ripped down trees or not.
P.S 900,000t is the very minimum yield from Huntingdon Lane,Coal companies do not take over sites without extension plans already in place for at least another 50% of the proven reserves.So hopefully the site will be active for a fair few more years than expected.
Report abuse
Hope you realize one day just what you are spouting. You should be forced to live next to it.
Report abuse
Scary Dairy! What will happen then?
Report abuse
probably exactly the same as when they dug it up before……..nothing.
very poor argument
Report abuse
“Little do these coal miners know that they are about to dig up and through one of the biggest set of lay lines in the UK…. should be interesting.”
Really – why?
Report abuse
Yer glad things a starting to happen Z0la well said to it’s been a long time wateing hop thing hdont go without to much trouble
Report abuse
Did you type that with your feet?
Report abuse
Would UK Coal be allowed to strip mine near any other AONB? Like Stonehenge, for example?
Report abuse
i realy wishh peple coud sphell proply on this forerum like.
Country bumpkins!!!
Report abuse
Again, a shame the Star didnt report accurately about the work to remove 6 wooden pallets, and No protesters from a tree Look out point, no more, no less.
The South site Never was defended, or expected to be, the Haul Road and camp – totally.
Again, needed Police reserves were used to remove 6 pallets, were they extremely violent pallets – or did they expect the pallets to resist arrest?.
The Chief Constable who sanctioned use of Officers to protect Bailiffs from pallets, should show some Gumption and ensure the roads around Huntington, and Dog in the Lane/Lawley approaches, are not blocked again for periods of time by Uk Coal lorries delivering heavy plant.
This was witnessed by Ian Perry of Radio Shropshire, and mentioned on air on Wednesday,shame West Mercia Constabulary are focussing on pallets in trees, and not law abiding people using the roads that they have paid tax to be on.
Magister.
Report abuse
If the protesters weren’t there then the police wouldn’t be blocking the road.
And its a bit hypocritical to have a bunch of tresspassers banging on about tax paying, law abiding people. Don’t you think.
Report abuse
Well the had to come down sometime to collect their giros. Who are these dossers going to harass now?
Report abuse
i know lets go and build tree houses on the quantum leap in Shrewsbury. No mines there….yet.
Report abuse
These protestors started with the best of intentions and gained considerable suport initially.
After recently speaking with some Environmental Activists, they say that this site has now ben plagued by a trouble element who are not at the site for the right reasons.
They have now lost support from locals and their fellow activists.
Report abuse
Apathy is what is going to destroy our perfectly created environment.
Man has become convinced he must subjugate and tame the Earth for profit. We have moved even beyond that to where everything is in a mess, and either people don’t care or haven’t a clue how they can help solve the problems caused. Have any of you that have made feeble comments actually walked through the wrekin and marvelled at the ancient yews,abundant bird and animal life, bluebell glens and ancient springs which sympathises with the concrete jungle surrounding it? Probably not…perhaps a barren wasteland or worse still, another megatropolis of high density concrete and bricks to disguise the destruction left behind once UK coal have satisfied their shareholders is your fancy. As an Aussie that visits the Wrekin each year, I am saddened that another area of significant history and beauty will be gone forever.
Report abuse
“Apathy is what is going to destroy our perfectly created environment.”…..”As an Aussie that visits the Wrekin each year”
So how do you get here – solar powered 747 or perhaps you walk?
Report abuse
Rob, we have these marvellous new inventions called ‘aeroplanes’.
Report abuse
So Wilbur and Orville finally got it to work???
I was actually suggesting that perhaps an annual return flight from the other side of the world is slightly at odds with her environmental concerns….
Report abuse
The first flight by Wilbur and Orville Wright took place on December 17, 1903 and covered a distance of 120 feet along a beach in North Carolina.
Wilbur’s luggage still ended up in Spain.
Report abuse
“Wilbur’s luggage still ended up in Spain.”
He should have flown with this lot:
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGa9433PrjE&feature=related
Report abuse
I get the point Rob, just one more eco maniac preaching environmental disaster whilst making pointless journeys around the world in a huge ( very environmentally unfriendly ) aeroplane.
Its like banging on about a local environmental catastrophe when the alternative is bringing in dangerously ( 26 deaths in one incident in China last week ) mined coal from the other side of the world via road/rail/tanker when the alternative is extracting it locally and transporting it no more than 80 miles..
Report abuse
Actually, “transporting it no more than 80 miles” is NOT an alternative, it will be mixed with imported coal because the quality is so bad.
The protestors are all there for a very good reason and not “dossing”. They have families, jobs and actual lives and are actually very friendly people – perhaps if some of you ventured away from your computers and visited them instead of needlessly slagging them off and listening to other peoples opinions you would find this out for yourselves. Oh but that might mean you actually doing something constructive – we can’t have that now can we. What would the Shropshire Star website do without your witty repartee??
Report abuse
So very true Rainbow!
However I for one believe the Shropshire Star would manage very well without such “witty” repartee as has been seen above.
Report abuse
Utter nonsense,the coal quality is fine,CV 21250-24750,ASH 17900-22900.Perfect for power station use and domestic use,no blending will take place on site or at destination.
Report abuse
Hear hear rainbow!!
Report abuse
If, as you said Rainbow, these protesters have jobs, then they must have very understanding employers to take 7 months off work to climb trees and make themselves feel important. I suspect that the hardest thing they do is make the trek to the local dole office each week.
Report abuse
A number of posters have implied that there is ‘no alternative’ to burning coal.
This is false.
What about wind energy, concentrated solar energy (imported from the Sahara desert), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave energy and hydroelectric energy?
How is UK plc going to get ahead in the worldwide race to produce the vital green industrial technologies of the future if central government overrides local opposition and supports the most polluting way of mining the most polluting fossil fuel of them all?
Out of interest, who do you think is ‘preaching environmental disaster’, twisting my melon?
The protesters, who want to protect the environment and who are demanding climate-friendly alternatives to opencast coal?
Or the cheerleaders for opencast coalmining in Shropshire, who are so indifferent to local concerns about dust and pollution and climate concerns about burning coal?
Report abuse