Opencast Mining (Lothians)
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S1M-2081, in the name of John Home Robertson, on regulation of opencast mining in the Lothians.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament endorses the terms of the Lothian Structure Plan in relation to opencast mining, as agreed by East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian Councils following local consultation and a public inquiry; notes the overwhelming public opposition to opencasting in inappropriate areas which would have detrimental environmental and social effects and where opencast proposals would blight valuable prospects for long-term economic development, and expresses extreme concern at the decision of the Scottish Executive to impose amendments to the structure plan which would designate substantial parts of the three counties as areas of search for opencast coal.
I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the motion and raise serious concerns on behalf of thousands in East Lothian, West Lothian and Midlothian about the decision of the Scottish Executive to impose an amendment to the Lothian structure plan that designates virtually the entire Lothian coalfield area as an area of search for opencast mining. In my constituency, that means that a massive area around the villages of Macmerry, Ormiston, Elphinstone and Pencaitland could be under threat. Drilling rigs have already been seen in fields in that area.
The minister will recall that all the Lothian constituency MSPs wrote to him on 20 June to support the agreed terms of the structure plan and to urge him not to make unwarranted concessions to opencast interests. I know that Mary Mulligan and Bristow Muldoon want to speak in the debate. I welcome the fact that all the Lothian local authorities and all political parties—including the Tories in East Lothian—support the case for reasonable restrictions and controls to protect the economies and environments of local communities against further threats of inappropriate opencast operations.
I have always accepted that there are places where opencast mining is acceptable and even beneficial to the local economy and the national interest. There has been a large opencast site at Blindwells in East Lothian for more than 20 years. The Oxwellmains limestone quarry at the Dunbar cement works and three aggregate quarries are also in my constituency. We are not being unreasonable. East Lothian Council is not prone to nimbyism—if I can use that term.
It has to be said that opencast mining was less unattractive when it helped to sustain jobs in Scotland's deep mines, but there are no deep mines left in the Lothian area. Cockenzie power station has not been dependent on local coal supplies for many years.
The fundamental problem is that opencast sites employ comparatively few people so that economic advantages are, at best, marginal. However, their disadvantages, in the form of heavy traffic, noise, dust and serious disruption of the environment and landscape can be very serious indeed. Those factors can blight whole communities and, perhaps worse, can make the area unattractive to other industries that could sustain far better long-term employment for a far great number of people.
The Labour Government was elected with an undertaking to do away with the presumption in favour of opencast mining, which had made it very difficult for communities to resist planning applications for opencast sites. That planning guidance had made it all too easy for opencast companies to ride roughshod over public opinion and over concerns about environmental, social and economic damage. We kept our promise to amend that pernicious national planning policy guideline and that action has been welcomed universally.
I move on to the structure plan. The Lothian local authorities took account of all relevant considerations in their consultations about the new structure plan. They sought to identify areas in which opencasting was acceptable or desirable and to make it clear and explicit that other areas were not appropriate for opencast mining. The draft structure plan went right through the long process of consultations and public inquiries. The line that East Lothian Council, Midlothian Council and West Lothian Council had proposed for areas for opencast mining was accepted and supported at every stage.
However, something very strange happened at the final hurdle. It emerged that opencast industry lobbyists might have bypassed the public consultation process by taking a short cut to officials of the Scottish Executive to expand the areas available for opencast mining. In reply to a parliamentary question on the subject, the department explained on 18 October:
"Executive officials … met with COALPRO on 23 February and 20 April 2001 … The members of COALPRO who attended included individuals from Scottish Coal, I and H Brown, ATH Resources and J Fenton and Sons (Contractors) Ltd."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 18 October 2001; p 323.]
While Executive officials were holding discussions with the opencast industry, it seems that other officials might have been advising the minister not to meet elected MSPs and councillors.
I want to follow on from that point. John Home Robertson will recognise that the parliamentary answer that he quoted made explicit the distinction—he might well wish to develop that point. There is a clear distinction between the officials involved in advising on the alteration and those officials involved in the review of strategic planning, which is a quite different matter.
I do not want to make too much of that, but it is a little worrying when the industry has access to the department and when elected councillors and MSPs ask for meetings with officials and ministers on broadly the same subject and problems arise. I hope that, in reply to the debate, the minister will help to redress the balance.
I cannot overemphasise the importance of establishing a proper framework of controls over opencast mining, which I fear might be lacking in the present situation. Even a risk of opencasting can blight completely the economic and social development of an area. The threat of traffic, noise and disruption of the landscape is bad news for the local housing market and valuable high-tech or science-based—
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, but I will run out of time if I am not careful. I know that several members want to take part in the debate. I must apologise.
There is a risk that valuable high-tech or science-based enterprises could be jeopardised. In the area that Lewis Macdonald has just designated as a search area for opencast coal in East Lothian, two major bioscience companies are genuinely alarmed by the implications for their businesses.
We must not forget the hassle, cost and uncertainty for community groups and local authorities when they are faced by serial applications from opencast operators followed by protracted public planning inquiries. Four applications have been made for sites near Tranent since 1995. We now find ourselves in the middle of yet another public inquiry. I submit that it would make a lot more sense to designate areas that are suitable for opencasting and to lift the threat of doing so from other neighbourhoods.
I understand that it may not now be possible for the Scottish Executive to revoke the decision to impose this potentially disastrous amendment on the Lothian structure plan, but I must put it to the minister that it would be intolerable to leave large areas, such as the west of East Lothian, under an indefinite threat of opencast mining. It appears that the only way of retrieving this situation may be to enable our local councils to amend their local plans to identify areas that are unsuitable for opencast mining.
This is important and urgent. I must appeal to the minister to take steps to enable East Lothian Council, Midlothian Council and West Lothian Council—and perhaps councils in other parts of Scotland—to adopt fast-track procedures to introduce appropriate amendments to their local plans.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important subject. I look forward to hearing the views of my parliamentary neighbours and colleagues in all parties. Above all, I hope that the minister will give us a positive response and lift this threat from a large number of my constituents.
I cannot extend this debate, but all speakers will be called if contributions are kept under four minutes.
I thank John Home Robertson for instigating this debate. The debate is essential not only for East Lothian, but for Midlothian and West Lothian as well.
I have two areas of concern. The first is simply the lack of democracy in what has happened in recent months. Clearly, all the councils in Lothian have taken a responsible attitude. No one is saying that there should be no opencasting at all. Rationally, reasonably and with a great deal of consultation, the councils put forward and agreed proposals, in the joint structure plan, that they would take on their responsibilities and accept opencasting for certain sites. Polkemmet in West Lothian is a classic example. In order to get remediation and to tackle, for example, the smoking bing, we knew that we needed to reclaim that land. However, for ministers, at the last minute, to overturn things by making the amendment was a real insult to the principle of local accountability and democracy. We need to know what happened to make the Executive turn round and reject what had been a cross-party and cross-council consensus in Lothian.
John Home Robertson is absolutely right: it is not only that certain sites will have opencasting, it is that other sites will be under threat. In recent months, we have had debates in this chamber on urban regeneration, and I have made the case that we have to open up central Scotland—and the west of West Lothian in particular—for opportunities in, for example, transport and housing. That cannot be done if a threat of opencasting hangs over those areas.
Fauldhouse is a village at the back of beyond. It feels forgotten, and it is forgotten when it comes to regeneration plans. Opencasting, quarrying and dumping would mean that that village would be lost, surrounded on all sides by dumps and mining activity. Are we prepared to leave Fauldhouse village in that position without speaking out and championing its cause? However, there is a strong case to be made for a specific presumption in favour of opencasting when councils are able to identify areas that can and should be available for it.
I do not know what happened in the past few months, or what happened in June, to make the Scottish Executive overturn an understanding and overturn democracy. What does all this mean for this Parliament and its relationship with the people of Scotland? I understand that moves are afoot to extend the centralisation of control and planning for the building of houses, so that local communities cannot have an input. I wonder whether that is part of a regular drawing up of local authority powers to the Executive. I hope that the minister will address that issue in his remarks.
What factors are open to the local community in areas such as Woodbank outside Armadale, where applications for opencasting have been rejected by the council, have gone to the Scottish Executive on appeal and that appeal has been rejected? Having fought off such an application once, does the community know whether it might come back again? It is extremely worrying from an economic point of view. We do not necessarily need to extend opencasting from an employment or energy perspective. We must take a responsible attitude that says yes to some opencast mining but ensures that the local community has input into that.
I hope that the minister can give us some reassurances on two counts: the impact of opencasting and the detrimental effect that it can have on communities, and, more important, the democratic deficit that has been laid open by the decision. Let us hope that this is not the end of the event.
John Home Robertson and Fiona Hyslop have taken a balanced approach, emphasising that opencast coal mining is appropriate and even beneficial in certain circumstances. It is worth bearing that balance in mind. There are energy reasons why we might think that opencast coal is positive in certain circumstances. It sustains employment, perhaps more enthusiastically in East Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire than in East Lothian. It is possible to argue that responsible operators will conduct themselves sensitively and will protect and, in some circumstances, enhance the local environment. It can also be argued that local authorities using planning conditions and agreements may be able to mitigate any adverse impacts.
I wonder whether Murray Tosh's constituents have similar concerns to those of some of my constituents, for example, that the regulation and bonding systems for restitution after the working of the coal are inadequate and that they are often avoided by various means. We need an effective system of prior deposition of bonds that cannot be interfered with. At least that will allow those communities where appropriate working is occurring a guarantee that their environment will be restored. That is not happening at the present.
I understand that point. The next point I want to make is that it is essential that the Executive signals today whether the work that it is undertaking on planning agreements—refining and strengthening the system of planning agreements—will give the opportunity for such agreements, including restoration bonds and lorry routes, to be adequately defined and properly enforceable. Those are the circumstances we can define that will allow us to live with opencast coal.
I do not think that John Home Robertson would disagree with anything that I have said so far, but I appreciate that his concerns about East Lothian are more specific. I agree with many of those points. I would like the minister to clarify what is meant when the structure plan lays down an area of search and says that the local plan can refine it. Does that mean that East Lothian Council or the other local authorities would be able to alter the suggested areas of search? I suggest that that is particularly important in East Lothian's case, because the point that John Home Robertson made about enterprises such as Inveresk Research being right in the defined area gives rise to concerns about the quality of the environment for a very important local employer.
We should ask why, given that the regional structure plan team defined and measured the areas in specific terms, the Executive has used different areas in defining the areas for search. In East Lothian, some of the areas that have been identified appear to be areas that were assessed as being of high landscape value.
That raises a further question about why there are areas of search at all. Does the area of search imply some degree of presumption in favour of opencast? Is the Executive committed to some kind of quantitative or spatial imperative that says that it wants a given amount of coal from a given area, that it will take it from the sites that might be worked and that there is a trade-off between the environment and the economic advantages?
Those things are not clear. If it is the case that all sites are to be assessed on their merits, we would benefit from having that stated. After all, one site in East Lothian—Smeaton Shaw—has been identified outside the area of search. If it is a question of assessing sites on their merits, we need clearer guidance from ministers on the trade-off between the environment and other implications.
It is important that we keep this issue in balance, but is clear from the local community that there is a desire for the area of search to be reduced, a desire to protect important industrial sites and a desire to protect the local authority from the hassle of continuous planning hearings. There is a need to clarify the issue of the acceptability and efficacy of planning agreements and conditions in future. The Executive has to do a lot of communicating with the local authority.
Many issues will arise in this debate to which the Deputy Minister for Transport and Planning will not have time to respond. I hope that there will be a written response on anything that he is not able to clear up in the course of his concluding remarks.
I welcome this debate on my colleague John Home Robertson's motion, which expresses extreme concern about the recent decision of the Scottish Executive to make extensive amendments to the Lothian structure plan as it applies to opencast mining. I recognise the role that has been played by the local authorities in the Lothians, and by the petitioners who submitted petition PE346, in drawing this issue to the attention of Parliament and ensuring that it is debated.
As Fiona Hyslop and John Home Robertson have identified, the local authorities in the Lothians have tried to take a balanced approach to opencast mining. They have conducted an analysis and identified areas that are suitable for opencasting, such as the large Polkemmet site in West Lothian, which was mentioned by Fiona Hyslop. However, the local authorities have also taken into account other coal-bearing areas where there are no substantial community or environmental benefits in allowing opencasting to take place. That analysis allowed the local authorities to frame the proposals that they put to the Executive. Also, the proposals had been subject to extensive public consultation.
The local authorities believe that the decision of the Executive to require wide-ranging areas of search to be introduced in the structure plan undermines the precautionary principle that underpinned their work, undermines local accountability and undermines local democracy. I wish the minister to address that issue when he responds to the debate. Specifically, I want him to say why he took the decision to override the proposals that were submitted by the local authorities.
Many of the communities in West Lothian that are faced with the potential developments that previous speakers referred to are concerned about the prospect of a blight on their communities. Many of those communities are communities on the western edge of West Lothian that have not benefited from the economic regeneration of the past 15 years in the way that Livingston, Broxburn and Linlithgow have. They want to benefit from the renewed prosperity of West Lothian, and their concern is that the potential developments place a further handicap on their ability to attract new investments and jobs.
In addition to the question that I have already posed to the minister, I want him to address two concerns that have been raised by the communities and local authorities. First, the local authorities recognise that the minister cannot revisit the structure plan. However, they are still concerned about the strength of national planning policy guideline 16. They are keen to meet the minister to discuss their concerns about NPPG 16, with a view to revisiting it. Secondly, when the minister meets the local authorities or corresponds with members on this issue, what reassurances can he give us that we can pass on to our constituents so that they understand that the Executive is not in favour of the opencast industry, but in favour of opencast developments only where there is a community or environmental benefit?
John Home Robertson's motion is a little ambiguous, if not a little confusing. On the one hand, it seems to support the views of East Lothian Council, West Lothian Council and Midlothian Council that opencast coal mining would be permitted in designated areas within their jurisdictions. That is quite appropriate and is their collective responsibility—I have no argument against that.
The motion goes on to suggest that opencast operations should not be permitted
"in inappropriate areas which would have detrimental environmental and social effects and where opencast proposals would blight valuable prospects for long-term economic development".
Again, I have no problem with that, but strict regulations and effective planning controls are already in place to restrict and control all industrial, commercial and private developments wherever they are situated. Some would suggest that those controls are far too restrictive—that is a matter for debate.
As I understand it, the particular problem in the Lothians is that the area designated by the joint councils does not and did not have any coal deposits to extract. Members can imagine the difficulties that that presented to those who had an interest in developing the area. That is why the Scottish Executive has decided to extend the search area for coal. The situation will be viewed and regulated against much tighter planning controls to comply with national policy guidelines. That will ensure that only responsible and appropriate developments are approved, which will take care of any concerns that people might have about inappropriate developments; any such developments will be controlled and regulated rigidly. On top of that, there is the possibility of a section 28 agreement, which is a regular feature of planning approvals, whereby a financial bond is extracted so that, at the end of the development, the land is reinstated to a satisfactory standard.
Does John Farquhar Munro know about the normal practice after opencast? In Greengairs, a village surrounded by opencast, the next venture will be landfill and all the health problems that go along with that.
That might be a problem in certain areas but I am sure that it is not a run-of-the-mill situation in the areas that we are talking about.
I am trying to work out whether the member is being deliberately provocative. We take great exception to many of the statements that he has made. Communities in areas such as Fauldhouse, which I mentioned, are concerned about the possibility that opencast mining will be followed by landfill. I am sorry to say that John Farquhar Munro's experience does not reflect the experience of people in the Lothians.
I am not sure about the situation with landfill, but I know that environmentalists are very strict on such developments. I am sure that there are sufficient regulations to govern any activity in former opencast mines, whether it be landfill or another development.
The hard facts of the matter are that, for the foreseeable future, Scotland will require coal for its thermal power stations. That must come from somewhere, which means that at least some opencast mining will be necessary—there is no doubt about that. The great danger is that we will export the problem to other countries with lower environmental standards, with disastrous results.
That is why I am pleased to support the Executive's position, to ensure that we have a viable opencast coal industry that is strictly regulated. That will allow us to create a strong economy in the areas for which the developments are proposed and to maintain their viability.
The landscape of central Scotland, particularly of the Lothians, has been attacked successively by shale mining, coal mining, expanded low-density townships, roads, quarries and dumps. Does the Executive have an overall concept of carrying capacity for the central belt? Irrespective of individual applications, does the Executive have a notion of when it will say, "That's enough opencast mining"?
Figures from 1997 show that Scotland had 40 per cent of opencast mining in the UK and the figure was increasing. In Scotland, 87 per cent of applications for opencast mining were accepted, whereas in England and Wales, only 11 per cent were accepted. I would welcome hearing whether the Executive views with equanimity the extraordinary difference between the levels of acceptance of opencast mining in Scotland and in England and Wales.
Robin Harper quoted figures from 1997. Does he accept that that was before the introduction of our present planning policy?
I accept that, but I would like to know whether the Executive's planning policy has affected those trends.
The issue is one of environmental justice. Almost without exception, it is small rural communities that are affected by opencast and other such developments. Those communities find it difficult to defend themselves against such developments and do not have a right of appeal against decisions. Will the Executive, in the fullness of time, introduce legislation for a third-party right of appeal?
I cannot help but make the observation that if we had given more attention to developing renewables in the past 20 years, the pressure for opencast mining might not have developed in the first place.
First, I will make three quick points. I can speak only for West Lothian Council, but I assure John Farquhar Munro that it would not have identified a site that did not contain coal. It is clear that Polkemmet contains coal.
The bonds that were adopted in the past did not work and did not protect sites. Companies have preferred to go into receivership than pay to restore the land that they have devastated.
Landfill has generally followed opencast mining and has proved equally difficult to regulate. That has blighted communities even more.
On the strategic plan, I accept to an extent what the Executive says about acknowledging where coal deposits rest, but I wonder how local authorities can deal with the local and specific implications of those sites when they feel strongly that their initial representations on the strategic plan were ignored. How much weight will local authorities' views be given in future?
Has not the strategic plan given opencast companies much more advantage? During the summer, a member of the opencast industry said in the industry's journal that it was easier to come to Scotland, because its planning legislation was lax and it was much easier to develop opencast in Scotland than it was in England. We must deal with that issue if we are to respond to the points that local communities raise.
Local communities have problems when many applications are made. We ask people who give their time freely and voluntarily to pit themselves against professionals. Opencast companies have planning consultants, Queen's counsel, public relations experts and lobbyists. You name it, they have it. The local communities are at a huge disadvantage in counteracting that. The Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament must go some way towards redressing the balance.
The planning process has not been as responsive to local communities as it should have been. I welcome the announcement by the Minister for Transport and Planning, Sarah Boyack, that there will be further consultation on the planning process. That is not before time.
The only saving grace for local people is that, if they get the support of their council, an application may end up at a planning inquiry. Fiona Hyslop referred to a planning inquiry at Wester Torrance, south of Blackridge. I am pleased to say that last week it came to a positive conclusion, in that it was turned down. One of my constituents, Bill Allison, who is unfortunately no longer with us, as he died in the summer, spent two weeks of his time last May at the inquiry, trying to defend the local community. Two weeks might not seem a long time, but it was the second local public inquiry that Mr Allison had had to attend because the Executive reopened the question of allowing opencast at Wester Torrance. It is unacceptable to expect that kind of response from local communities.
It is important to have thorough monitoring of opencast sites once they are in operation. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency tries hard, but it is difficult for it to monitor opencast mines on a daily basis. That means that those mines are not managed in the best possible manner. The proliferation of sites and the number of opencast applications can lead to developments not going ahead at the identified site, but at one that is less acceptable. In West Lothian, Polkemmet is an identified site, but if another site gets permission, the Polkemmet site might fall by the wayside. That is not the way to manage the situation.
I welcome the fact that the minister met people from Fauldhouse in my constituency. I hope that he took on board the points that they made. Nobody will come to an area that is blighted by opencast nor will the developments provide the kinds of job that local people in those areas are entitled to expect. Local people put up with mining in their areas because it provided jobs. As has been said, opencast mining provides few jobs. We must redress the balance of the argument on opencast. We must start to listen to our local communities.
I endorse everything that was said by Mary Mulligan. I also add my congratulations to John Home Robertson on securing the debate. I support the motion.
A fortnight or so ago, I was giving evidence to a local public inquiry in East Ayrshire on an opencast coal subject plan. East Ayrshire is the part of Scotland that has been more affected than any other by opencast mines, often to the detriment of local communities. I return to the point that was made earlier, that landfill follows opencast mines as night follows day. I do not know where John Farquhar Munro gets his information, but he should check his sources.
I was, in East Ayrshire, especially concerned that the coal subject plan should be shaped so as to reduce the impact of opencast mining on the environment and to protect the amenity of local residents and communities from the adverse effects of opencast operations—we heard earlier about the adverse effects. In arguing that, I thought that I was arguing with the grain of the Executive's national planning policy guidelines, in particular with NPPG 16—after all, there are few more environmentally destructive activities than opencast mining. I prefer to use the term strip mining, because it describes more accurately what happens to the land during the extraction process.
To be frank, opencast mining is not an industry that I care to promote. If alternative economic opportunities are available to local communities, I favour a general presumption against opencast operations.
Local authorities in East Lothian have established clearly that opencast coal mining is appropriate in only a few areas. They have rightly resisted designating wider areas for opencast mining, because that could inhibit new investment or the expansion of industries that range from high-tech to low-tech industries, including tourism.
In that context, the decision by Scottish ministers to modify the Lothian structure plan can be regarded only as perverse and I cannot envisage that national interests will be served by that exercise of ministerial powers. Scotland demands less coal than is being extracted. I reckon that we need about 3 million tonnes per annum, which is mainly for the Longannet and Cockenzie power stations. More than half of Longannet's needs are met from the last deep mine in Scotland, which is at Longannet. However, according to recent figures, Scottish opencast coal production exceeded 7 million tonnes in 2000. That is almost 50 per cent of total UK production. Why is the minister riding roughshod over public opinion in the Lothians and elsewhere in Scotland and promoting opencast coal mining when there is no legitimate justification for doing so?
I congratulate John Home Robertson on securing this evening's debate and for giving me the opportunity to explain the matters that he has raised and perhaps develop some discussion around them.
There is no doubt about the depth of feeling on opencast mining in his and other constituencies. I reassure members that I share the view that has been expressed that opencast coal developments should not be allowed to proceed if they will cause unacceptable damage to local communities or to the environment. That is the policy of my party and it is, and will continue to be, the policy of Scottish ministers.
My party's view, when we came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997, was that for too long communities and the environment had not been adequately protected from the adverse effects of opencasting. That is why we made a clear commitment to replace the guidance that we inherited with new and much tougher planning policies. In March 1999, Scottish Office ministers introduced national planning policy guideline 16 as a statement of national planning policy and as a guide to local authorities on implementation of the policy. It is not the job of the planning system, planning policy or planners to manage or predict demand for coal. There is no plan for them to take on that role.
The planning policy guideline sets a robust framework that puts the protection of communities and the environment at the heart of the decision-making process. It states clearly that
"proposals which pose a potential risk to the amenity of communities or to the local environment generally will not be acceptable"
and sets clear tests against which proposals must be considered. First, it asks whether a proposal is environmentally acceptable. Secondly, if a proposal is not environmentally acceptable, it asks whether there are local or community benefits that sufficiently outweigh any material risk of disturbance or damage. Only proposals that pass one or other of those tests should be approved by a planning authority. The only exceptions that can be considered are those in which opencasting can repair existing degradation or environmental damage, or can help in the recovery of derelict land.
Is the minister saying that if a proposal fails one test and passes another it can still go ahead?
Yes. The guideline says clearly that environmental damage will not be accepted unless it is outweighed by benefits to the communities that are involved. That is a measurable test of what is in the public interest. That policy position is understood.
Can the minister give us an example of potential community benefit where there is environmental damage?
Those things cannot readily be separated. The fact that the two tests are set together is a significant barrier to overcome for any proposal. One of the local authority's duties in judging the policy and in seeking to implement it is to require an environmental impact assessment and judge for itself what the balance of consideration should be. Even if operators come up with proposals that pass the tests, they will still require to go to the planning authority to obtain planning permission. They must then abide by the environmental standards that the planning authority sets.
I look forward to meeting the Lothian authorities collectively, as Bristow Muldoon suggested I should. When I do that, I will be happy to discuss the contents of the policy. However, my starting point for that discussion will be that a policy that has been in place for only two years requires more time to test its effectiveness before we consider revising it.
The minister is right to say that local authorities will judge applications on the bases that he outlined. However, does he understand that the designation of a large area as an area of search carries an implicit invitation to explore and to attempt to develop that area, which blights such areas? That is the point that I wish he would address.
I am conscious of that matter and will address it.
I will respond to the point about trends. Since the policy was introduced, the trend has significantly changed. Of the 18 applications that were the subject of a study over the first two years of the policy, 10 were refused, which represented two thirds of the tonnage of coal in question. There is a clear change in the trend.
As has been said, the structural plan alteration that was carried through on 19 July is now operative. The reasons for the modifications have been explained to the authorities in question and I shall return to them. However, it is important that everyone is clear that legislation requires that decisions on planning cases should be final, and that they should be subject to challenge only in the courts. That long-standing principle must be upheld.
Will Lewis Macdonald give way?
I wish now to turn to the reasons for the modifications—I will be happy to take an intervention should members require any further clarification. When NPPG 16 was published, we issued a direction requiring planning authorities to review their development plans and to bring them into line with the revised guidance. The first part of that process was to identify in structure plans the broad areas of search where future work might be acceptable. As has been described, it is the usual practice at that stage to begin with the areas of accessible coal that have been identified by the British Geological Survey. That is the starting point.
Those areas should then be considered in two stages by two sets of criteria and conclusions should be reached about where individual applications will be considered. Stage 1 is the structure plan, where the appropriate criteria are strategic—for example, those concerning national land designation, green belt designation and areas of future housing growth. That stage should not define precisely where opencast mining proposals might be considered, but should identify only broad areas of search that do not have specific boundaries and where coal-bearing land is not constrained by strategic considerations.
Could we extend the green belt parallel a little further? Local plans take the concept of green belt, narrow it down, define it and specify it. Is the minister saying that East Lothian Council would be able to redefine the broad area and exempt the industrial sites, the landscaped sites and the vulnerable villages?
I am saying that the process of defining the boundaries of the areas of search is for the next stage in the process. That stage is the responsibility of local authorities, which must at that point define the appropriate areas of search with specific reference to local settlements and green belt. The answer is broadly yes, but in the terms that I have outlined.
Our difficulty with the structure plan alteration that was put forward was that it appeared to compress the structure plan stage and the local plan stage into a single process and to take into account specific local considerations, which we did not feel was appropriate at that stage. In some areas, that included defining specific sites rather than broad areas of search.
Members who have taken an interest in the review of strategic planning will know that I believe that we need to streamline and improve the system. Future strategic plans should identify specific sites and should work on that basis. However, we are obliged to work with the planning system that we have, not the planning system that we want. It is a statutory planning requirement that there be a two-stage process, with strategic and local stages. It is important to make that point.
The next stage of the process is for the relevant planning authority to define the broad areas in more detail in local plans that deal with local issues. It is not appropriate for me to get into a debate about which sites in the Lothians are suitable for opencasting. Indeed, as a decision maker in the planning system, it would be quite inappropriate for me to do that. It is a matter for the relevant planning authority. However, we expect planning authorities to take a tough line on implementing NPPG 16. They should reflect that planning policy in their local plans. As Murray Tosh suggested, the nature of the business will lead to smaller areas of search.
I apologise for the fact that I do not have enough time to respond to all the points that have been made. Mary Mulligan, Robin Harper and others asked about public participation. We are consulting on that and I encourage all interested members to respond in that consultation. The onus is on councils to bring forward local plan alteration proposals as soon as possible. They can do so in a way that allows public consultation. There can be public inquiries as part of that process, although there were no public inquiries as part of the structure plan alterations process. A public local inquiry must be held if there are unresolved objections to finalised planning proposals.
John Home Robertson asked what we could do to fast-track the process. We will deal with that as a priority. A local inquiry would need to be chaired by a reporter. I can also give an assurance that the Scottish Executive's inquiry reporters unit will treat Lothian local plan alterations as a high priority. That will help greatly to move matters forward.
The law requires councils to set out appropriate reasons if they wish to expedite the process and reduce the number of weeks for consultation from 70 to 26. Again, I cannot prejudge a decision, but I encourage councils to think hard about taking that course.
Once the local plan alterations are in place, NPPG 16 can be given full effect in the context of the development plan structure. At that stage and for the first time, its impact as a material consideration can be fully taken into account and fully assessed.
That will demonstrate that there has been the right balance of policy to prevent unacceptable damage to local communities or the environment. Planning authorities should act on the basis of that national planning policy, as Scottish ministers will continue to do.
Meeting closed at 17:52.