This mainly consists of a letter published in the Ashby Times dated 7/5/10 questioning claims made by UK Coal's Media Spokesperson about his company having an 'honourable record' when it comes to restoring sites.

Private Eye investigates the activities of UK Coal at Lounge, Minorca and Cutacre.

On this page is information about:

The most recent Press Releases

The most recent issues of The Minorca Protest News

What is the Minorca Opencast Protest Group?

How you can join MOPG

Contacting members of the Coordinating Committee

Roles of the Officers of the Coordinating Committee.

Newsletters 1-10

Newsletters 11-20

Press Releases no 1-10

Press Releases no 11-20

Press Releases no 21-30

Press Releases no 31-40

A link to our own MOPG Web Site.

A link to the Minorca Forum web pages on the Coal in the UK web site

This set of documents will eventually contain information on the result of consultation meetings over the Minorca Application with the following statutory bodies(i.e.those that are elected):

Measham Parish Council

North West Leicestershire District Council

Leicestershire County Council

MOPG is in the process of preparing reports on how to better understand the current planning situation and produce new planning arguments to counter those utilised by proposers of opencast mines. Our first report is now published here.

RESEARCH REPORT 1) COAL COLLUSION AND COMMUNITIES October 2009

RESEARCH REPORT 2) OPENCAST /SURFACED MINE COAL: IT'S ROLE IN PROVIDING UK ENERGY SECURITY. January 2010

RESEARCH REPORT 3) UK COAL: AN ALTERNATIVE REPORT. March 2010

In order to enable people to be kept up to date with developments affecting the Minorca Application, a series of Briefing Notes are under development. Check here to see if any new Briefing Notes have been issued or if any existing Briefing Notes have been updated:

Briefing Notes Series A: Notes on the Minorca Application Process.

A1) New Developments in the Application (25/7/10)

Briefing Note Series B: The 500 Metre Buffer Zone Bill

Briefing Note B1: Origin of 500 Metre Buffer Zones. 29/6/10

Briefing Note B2: Arguments in Favour of a 500 Metre Buffer Zone (Outlines 7 arguments why 500 Metre Buffer Zones are needed in England).

Brifing Note Series C: Aspects of the British Coal Industry

C1) UK Coal plc's Financial Situation 19/7/10

C2) The Declining Need for UK Produced Coal, 20/7/10

This now contains our two sets of objections with the accompanying press releases.

Campaign dates to put in your diary. Keep checking as this will be updated regularly.If you are now fed up with waiting for UK Coal plc find out what to don about it here.

Last updated on 14/5/10

If you want to write letters to either parish, district or preferably your County Councillor about this planning proposal this page contains some ideas about what to put in your letter. It also contains a list of persons to whom such letters should be addressed in addition to your Councillors.If you do write a letter can you please email a copy to our Secretary Lena Guyan at swedishlena@yahoo.co.uk.

The current membership of MOPG's Co-ordinating Committee

A list of news stories that have appeared in newspapers and local newsletters to do with the campaign. You can link directly to some of the news stories that are still on line.

Minorca in the News, Part 1 August 2008 - June 2009.

MInorca in the News Part 3 - October 2009 - January 2010.

Minorca in the News Part 2 - July 2009 - September 2009.

A proposal such as this generates a lot of controversy. This page answers, from MOPG's point of view, many of the questions that have been asked about this proposal.

If after reading through these questions and answers and you find yourself in agreement with many of MOPG's points then please consider either contributing your views to the discussion page on the Minorca Protest on this village web site and or joining MOPG

Steve Leary,MOPG

This page contains information about the following meetings organised by the Minorca Opencast Protest Group:

1st. Inaugural Meeting 23/10/08

2nd. Meeting with the Mineral Planning Officers of Leicestershire County Council 24/3/09.

3rd Campaign Meeting after the Planning Application had been submitted. 5/8/09

4th. MOPG AGM 2009 7/12/09

As the date approaches for UK Coal's Planning submission (now expected by 14th March) here is a reminder of what they were originally planning in October 2008

A list of documents being held in the reference section of Measham Library relevant to UK Coal's proposal to apply for planning permission to have an opencast mine at Minorca. 28/10/10

MOPG's letter to the Chairman of UK Coal challenging UK Coal on the reasons it is giving for the delay in submitting their planning application

UK Coal has now given us this reply to our Open Letter. MOPG will be commenting on this later this week

This page contains a new ordering of the files in the On Line Minorca application so that they correspond to the sequence of pages in the actual planning application.

This gives you access to the web address for the full on line version of UK Coal's application to mine at Minorca.

On Wednesday 28th October the Ashby Canal Trust issued a press release stating that they were in favour of UK Coal's proposal for an opencast mine at the Minorca site. Two news stories were subsequently published the next day, one in The Leicester Mercury (Ashby/Coalville edition which is not on the web) and another in The Burton Mail which you can read here:

http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/burtonmail-news/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=460117

MOPG'S 36TH Press Release published today calls on the ACT to publish the results of all contacts, correspondence meetings and decisions relating to restoring the Ashby Canal in relation to UK Coal's Minorca Application.

The letter David Taylor wrote to Ed Milliband on the 20m tonne coal target issue

A short summary of our UK Coal: An Alternative Report document is attached