AN MP has welcomed moves towards tax breaks to help the restoration of abandoned opencast mines.
Sandra Osborne, Labour MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, said the Chancellor's intention announced in the Budget Red Book to work with the Scottish Coal Taskforce to deliver a solution for restoration of abandoned opencast mines in Scotland, the majority of which are in her constituency, would mean around 1,000 jobs are secured.
She believes it would allow the UK's largest coal company, Hargreaves, to continue mining and restore old sites.
The exemption in Carbon Price Support duty, set on coal used for electricity production, would make it economical for the Durham-based coal firm to employ its workers to restore landscapes ruined by past opencast developments as well as extract coal from brownfield sites.
Ms Osborne has been pressing the UK Government to explore alternative options for healing the scars left on the landscape by abandoned opencast mines.
She said: "This follows a debate I held in the House of Commons in January in support of an exemption to Carbon Price Support to help fund restoration.
"If this is delivered it will go a long way to solving the disastrous environmental damage as well as creating around a thousand jobs.
"The proposal received cross party support at this week's Scottish Coal Taskforce meeting in Cumnock.
"This commitment in the Budget is undoubtedly a positive step forward and I am looking forward to meeting the Minister Mathew Hancock to discuss how this can be taken forward."
She said earlier that "the local community has been let down in the past and that our priority to bring jobs to the local area has been manipulated and planning extensions applied for in the full knowledge that planning conditions would not be met".
"I bow to no one in the anger I feel about this and I will continue to seek justice for the community regarding those who were guilty of this.
"However Hargreaves is the only show in town and if there is even a chance that this could provide a solution I am willing to grab it with both hands."
The Scottish Open Cast Mining Taskforce that involved affected councils, unions, the Scottish Government and its agencies, environmental agency SEPA and the UK Government was set up after the collapse of Scottish Coal in 2013 and has been working to remploy 500 who lost their jobs elsewhere in mining and restoration.
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