Welcome to the website of the Just Say No To Lignite Campaign. Last updated 17/03/2009.
COLD Notice of Annual General Meeting
Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the members of C.O.L.D Ltd will be held at 8 p.m on Tuesday 7th April 2009 in Bushvale Presbyterian Church Hall, Bushvale, Stranocum, Co Antrim.
The business to be conducted by the meeting is as follows:
- To receive Report of Board of Directors
- To receive Financial Report of the Board
- To elect four directors to the Board
Nomination forms are available from UFU Office, Silversprings, Market Street, Ballymoney and should be completed and returned to The Company Secretary, COLD Ltd., c/o, 54 Drumadoon Road, Cloughmills, BT44 9LJ on or before 1st April 2009.
By Order of The Board of Directors.
Recent News
September 2008 : COLD Respond's to Belfast Telegraph Columnist Eric Waugh on "proposed coal mine in north Antrim"
Belfast Telegraph Columnist and former advisor to AuIron Energy, Eric Waugh, has blamed opposition to lignite mining in north Antrim for recent rises in energy bills here. Read the response from COLD's Herb McKeown here.
May 2008 : Ballymoney Council 'Extremely Concerned' About Licences
Public representatives have again registered a hard-hitting rejection of lignite mining in the area. The Council stance has remained resolute in line with public opinion in the area. Read the story in full in the Ballymoney Times.
Lignite - The Background to the Campaign
In the early 1980's test drilling for a water supply in Ballymoney revealed that a lignite deposit of a substantial nature was present in North Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Australian company Meekathara began to investigate and present their proposals
to the local community. There was little intrest from those living in the area;
this development might be little more than a quarry.
On the right, the countryside around Ballymoney, at risk of destruction by open cast lignite mining.
Auiron Energy (now known as Felix Resources) became the parent company of Meekathara in 1990 and announced ambitious plans to mine the lignite. The local newspaper carried the headline "2000 lignite jobs coming to Ballymoney" through their proposal to build a 500MW power station to process the 660 million ton lignite deposit.
The Clerk of Ballymoney Borough council stated "If this project is going to bring 2000 jobs to Ballymoney, I think we as a council should be welcoming it with open arms".
The community did not share this euphoria; indeed there was a muted reaction of general dibelief. A local meeting of about 60 persons heard an independent speaker state that until crude oil was $80 a barrel the project would not be viable. At that time oil was about $20 a barrel, the audience went home satisfied that all the statements by Auiron were bubbles of froth.
However in the new millenium Auiron Energy, against a background of rising oil prices, announced plans to exploit the lignite resource in North Antrim. It formed a subsiduary company called Ballymoney Power and announced it was lodging an application with the Planning Service for the open cast mining of 5,500 acres in the Bushvale, Kilraughts and Roseyards areas with the construction of a mine mouth power station near the Topp Walls. Read more