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Home | Friday 3rd July 2009 | Issue 682

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DON’T COAL HOME

Mainshill Solidarity Camp in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, (See SchNEWS 681) are calling for volunteers to help guard an ancient woodland from being turned into an opencast coal mine. The landowner, Lord Home - son of Sir Alec Douglas-Home the former PM - is happy to sell off to Scottish Coal - the UK’s largest open cast producer - for an undisclosed (huge) sum. The site is only 1000yds from a local hospital and nearby town of Douglas. 

In a farcical court hearing on 29th June in Lanark Sheriff Court, the eviction order brought by Lord Home and Scottish Coal against the occupiers at Mainshill Wood was granted. Despite being given just two working days to seek legal advice and prepare a defence, the Sheriff refused the group’s reasonable request for more time. The local council had prepared a statement to present to the court which supported the occupation and raised concern about the time-scale of the eviction order. The Sheriff, however, would not even allow the statement to be heard, saying only: “Given that you’re a lay person, I’ll cast my eyes over it”.

* For details on how to get there and more call 07806 926 040 and see www.coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=415

* While Home wants to dig up the woods, here’s a bit of dirt on Homes himself: He is a hereditary peer elected Conservative member of the House of Lords, and also the current President of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. Shooting and conservation?

Or is that shooting the conservationists! He is also chairman of Coutts & Co, the private banking arm of the infamous taxpayer-money sucking bank, RBS. Coutts is currently going through one of the biggest and longest running criminal conspiracy corruption cases and the subject of major criminal allegations of conspiracy to defraud, racketeering, and money laundering - see www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carroll-trust-case-0

Keywords: coal, direct action, environmentalism, mainshill, solidarity camp


 

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