Background to the Just Say No To Lignite 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.

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.

(Continued from front page) The entire community was horrified and galvanised into action. The late John Ramsey, a local councillor, who had always kept a watching brief on the lignite issue, convened a meeting in Bushvale in January 2003. A steering committee of representatives of the local churches was formed and this committee convened a meeting in Roseyards. This gave the wider community an opportunity to hear of the likely impact that such a major project would have on their homes, their health, their habitat and their heritage.

There was a massive ground swell of support for the anit lignite campaign. In a series of public meetings over the ensuing weeks, several thousand people turned out to register their opposition.

A large team of volunteers canvassed for the signing of letters of protest over all of North Antrim and beyond. The response was phenomenal and in the end 37,500 people voiced their opposition, the largest objection against any planning application in Northern Ireland. All of the political parties pledged their support for the campaign, a rare showing of accord in our province (download the letters of support). There was alarm too on the west coast of Scotland and in the Republic of Ireland about possible health implications for residents.

Meanwhile the steering committee decided to form a company limited by guarantee to continue the campaign and from here the Collective Objectors to Lignite Development (C.O.L.D.) was formed, the directors being:

• Joe Patton CBE, Chairman
• Ian Gregg, Secretary
• Gerry Doran, Treasurer
• The Late John Ramsey
• Canon Johns
• John Leitch
• Willie Peden
• Donald Pinkerton
• Bob Richmond

In April a delegation from the company accompanied political representatives from North Antrim to meet the Minister Responsible for the Environment, Angela Smyth MP to convey the concerns of the community about the rape of the North Antrim countryside and its horrific consequences. A coach load of supporters accompanied the delegation and mounted a demonstration in Belfast City Centre. A few weeks later another coach load travelled to Belfast to hand over the thousands of letters of objection to the Chief Planning Officer.

Earlier in the spring of 2003 the company, with the help of local primary school children launched the "Just Say No" campaign. The Just Say No logo has since been an effective symbol identifying the concerns of the entire community. As spectators travelled to the North West 200 motorcycle races a massive presence of banners spread the message to large numbers of people.

Also in April a BBC Spotlight team accompanied some members of the group to Aachen in Germany, in order to see at first hand the effects of open cast lignite mining. The scenes of deserted villages and lunar landscapes reinforced us in our efforts to combat this project.

During the summer months the opportunity was taken to have a presence at many public events. The selling and releasing of balloons was well supported and the impressive float built by Kilraughts YFC added greatly to getting the message to more and more people. One of the balloons travelled nearly 250 miles, vindicating our claims that pollution of the atmosphere was likely over a very wide area.

At the end of June Auiron Energy announced that it had up to that time been unable to attract a partner to build the power station and was preparing to write off its expenditure on the project to date. The public perception arising from this announcement was that the whole issue had gone away, but the reality was that the planning application was still alive and that Ballymoney Power, whose parent company had recently changed its name to Felix Resources, had been asked by the planners to reply to deficiencies and queries related to their Environmental Impact Statement. The campaign group also made their own written community response to this statement.

Meanwhile the campaign group had not been slowing down their efforts and had remained focused, with regular meetings taking place between our planning advisors and the group. At this stage this website was launched to help keep both locals and those further a field up to date with the group's progress.

The campaign has cost money. The board of directors is especially grateful to those companies and individuals that have subscribed to the fighting fund, some with four figure donations. We know that we have the moral support of the entire community, we have had a great deal of voluntary support and if you wish to support us financially we will be most grateful.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill during World War 2 "It is not the beginning of the end, it must be the end of the beginning".