Fears that Scottish Coal will walk away from opencast mess

ANGRY claims have been made that Scottish Coal will “walk away” from its Clydesdale opencast mines without clearing up the mess.

This was the bitter reaction by enviromentental campaigners to a ruling by the Court of Session, apparently allowing the defunct company to abandon its former opencast mines without having to meet its environmental and planning promises, made when given planning permission to start mining at locations such as Mainshill and Glentaggart.

According to the Scottish Opencast Communities Alliance, the court upheld “the claims of Scottish Coal’s liquidators that they should be allowed to abandon ‘onerous sites’ and to ignore statutory obligations that forced companies to restrict dust and water pollution and to restore the land afterwards”.

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The Alliance also claimed that the court ruling meant that Scottish Coal’s liquidators could pay themselves their fees from the company’s remaining funds and assets “before meeting claims from local planning authorities to restore abandoned mines.”

For more see the Carluke and Lanark Gazette.

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