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Your support makes all the difference.We are in a period of landmark planning decisions. On 29 June, after much deliberation, Lancashire councillors voted to block proposals for the UK’s first fracking site – despite clear advice from legal and planning advisers that the project should go through. When it came to it, they just couldn’t bring themselves to allow widespread fracking on their doorstep.
The spotlight has now fallen upon the North York Moors National Park, whose planning committee must decide on 1 July whether to allow one of the world’s biggest potash mines to be built in the protected area. It too faces a difficult vote, made even tougher by the knowledge that this is essentially a test case – if it waves it through, further applications for major National Park developments are expected.
It is complicated by the fact that many locals support the proposal, which they believe would bring much-needed jobs and money to an area that is still scarred by the decline of coal mining and heavy industry. The plan’s opponents – many of them campaign groups – argue that the development would ruin a unique treasure and, in turn, slash valuable tourist revenues.
Then there is the North York Moors National Park Authority, whose recent report concluded that such “a heavy industrial development” would do “unacceptable harm”. The scheme was “fundamentally in conflict” with national planning policy, the report added.
For these reasons – and because it would be wrong to encourage further National Park development – we urge the councillors to follow Lancashire’s lead and block the proposal.
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