Members, desperate to block the mine planned for Mainshill, outlined their latest protest plans at a meeting in the St Brides Centre last Tuesday night.

MORAG chairperson Kenny Sludden told the Gazette: "As a village we rely on people passing through and tourists heading off the motorway and if the first thing they see is this development they will turn their cars round and leave.

"There are a lot of people who are concerned about this. Every time Scottish Coal put another application in we hear the same things like jobs for the village. Claims of 93 new jobs does not mean 93 local jobs!

"This industrial development is only one kilometre away from the Lady Home Hospital, a vital service to the local community.

"It is a minor accident unit and also nurses elderly and terminally ill people who will be subject to the noise, dust and blasting, from the development.

"Ironically the hospital is named after the Home family who have given permission to opencast the site."

Morag members' next step is to distribute information leaflets warning about the potentially harmful impact of the mine to every house in the village.

After that, they will get as many signatures as possible onto a protest letter and send it to land owner the Earl of Home.

"I'm very confident we can block this proposal," Kenny said. "The people of the village are united against it."

Currently there are four opencast mines near Douglas with another three planned.

Douglas Community Council opposes the mine plans ''in the strongest possible terms'', given the close proximity of earlier opencast mines at Glentaggart and Dalquhandy.

Community councillors feel the proposal is environmentally unacceptable and encroaches the health and well-being of Lady Home patients.

And MORAG's campaign has been endorsed by Clydesdale MP David Mundell.

Mr Mundell said: "If this goes ahead Douglas will be surrounded by opencast mines and I believe that will be too much for most local
people to accept.

"One mine should be finished before another is started. I have already made my concerns clear about the proposed opencast mine's proximity to the Lady Home Hospital and I back the community's call for this application to be rejected."

But Colin Ortlepp, head of planning at Scottish Coal, believes the new opencast will be an asset to Douglas and the surrounding area.

He said: "Our planning application is to extract 1.7million tonnes of coal together with 160,000 tonnes of fireclay over a five year period.

"We envisage that this would create up to 93 direct jobs together with a number of indirect jobs in areas such as haulage and engineering.

"Once extraction operations are completed, the land will be restored ensuring that final topography closely matches existing ground levels.

"The final restoration scheme will restore the landscape to woodland and agriculture reflecting its current land use."

Scottish Coal plan's have also been endorsed by local Labour councillor Danny Meikle.

Mr Meikle said: "I am 100 per cent behind the opencast mines and the introduction of new jobs to the area.

"These people need to look at the bigger picture and the bottom line is that the coal has to come out.

"The benefits that the development can bring in terms of jobs are fantastic. We have to attract more companies like Scottish Coal to the area."

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