SCOTLAND'S energy minister has renewed his call for his London counterpart to ensure at least some of the coal levies raised from coal produced in Scotland be made available to restore opencast sites here.
This is the third plea from Fergus Ewing to UK Energy Minister Michael Fallon after environmental and conservation groups warned there was a £200 million shortfall in the amount set aside by coal firms to restore former mines because insurance policies intended to pay for restoration work might be "almost worthless".
Mr Ewing, who has written to Mr Fallon twice on the issue and says he has yet to receive any reply, said: "As the chair of the Scottish Coal Taskforce, a key priority to move forward with restoration of opencast coal mines is engagement and collaborative working. Collaboration with Scottish and UK Government, agencies, local councils, community groups, coal operators, regulators and unions to work together and bring expertise to the table is vital to secure appropriate restoration.
"However with a financial shortfall in restoration costs it makes sense that the money collected by the UK Government over the years from coal mined in Scotland be put to good use to help with the restoration of opencast sites. We understand the levy income collected from Scotland to date is within the region of £15m.
"This money - or at the very least a proportion of it - should now be put to good use to help with the restoration of opencast sites."
Last month, the appeals division of the Court Of Session ruled that owners of non-operational opencast mines cannot abandon them without fulfilling obligations to clean them up. That left liquidators of the Scottish Coal Company facing huge costs after they were told they could not walk away from sites and use the money to pay off creditors.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article