UP to 150,000 more coal lorries a year will be forced on to Scotland's roads, risking a repeat of last week's crash that left a woman dead in her home, the industry has warned.
The influx of vehicles will not only raise safety concerns, but also impact on emissions and congestion and cost up to 4000 jobs in Scotland after new charges are imposed on freight companies from 2016, according to The Freight Trade Association (FTA).
On Thursday, carer Catherine Bonner, 55, died when a lorry laden with coal ploughed into her flat in Fairlie, North Ayrshire.
Local community leaders have warned of the dangers of lorries using the A78 road that runs through the village.
The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), which sets charges for operators using the rail network, is to introduce an additional charge on coal being used for electricity generation from 2016 of £4.04 a tonne.
This is expected to increase the cost of transporting coal from Scotland to power stations in England by up to 40%.
Chris MacRae, freight policy manager for the FTA, which represents road haulage and rail freight firms, said: "We've got coal-sector members investigating shifting their coal traffic from rail to road.
"Indicative figures mean there could be an extra 148,000 lorries producing 16,000 tonnes of CO2. How does that fit with Governments' environmental agenda?"
Up to 4000 well-paid jobs – concentrated in rural parts of Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Fife and Dumfries & Galloway – are believed to be at risk as exporting coal from Scotland to England becomes uneconomic.
Philippa Edmunds, manager of the Freight on Rail lobby group, said the move was contrary to government targets to increase the amount of freight transported by rail and could result in "the closure of the Scottish indigenous coal industry in the medium term".
She added: "It could put Scottish miners out of work and lead to higher levels of imported coal. Effectively the ORR plans could export employment in the mining sector from Scotland to Russia."
Despite the widespread closure of deep pits in the 1980s, opencast mining still accounts for 1500 jobs, supports a further 3000 jobs and is thought to be worth more than £450 million to the Scottish economy.
Of the nearly five million tonnes of coal extracted per year in Scotland, about half is exported by rail to power stations in the Aire Valley.
A leading industry source, writing in a trade magazine, said: "(The ORR's) new charge will make much of this trade unviable, possibly from 2016, certainly from 2018, so most, perhaps all, of the mining businesses in Scotland are effectively facing extinction within the next three to five years."
The proposals, which were reported by The Herald last year, were opposed by the Scottish Government.
A spokesman for its agency, Transport Scotland, said: "Our initial representations led to a number of concessions being made by the ORR in their policy statement, including a phased introduction.
"However, we are still disappointed with the ORR's decision to increase track access charges to this extent.
"While the effects of these charges on Scottish markets is still uncertain, we remain concerned that they could have a disproportionate impact on the coal industry and electricity sector in Scotland."
The regulator said the move was necessary to cut the level of subsidy given to the rail freight industry, saying transport firms only pay about a quarter of the £280m to £400m annual bill for using the rail network. The remainder is funded by passengers and taxpayers, it said.
Most, perhaps all, of the mining businesses in Scotland are effectively facing extinction within three to five years
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