2/12/2014

Steve George

Clerk to Petitions Committee

Welsh Assembly Petitions Committee

Welsh Assembly

Cardiff Bay

Cardiff

CF99 1NA

Re-United Valleys Action Group (UVAG) Views to

Petition Committee on Ministers second response to

P-04-575 Call in on all Opencast Mining Applications over

10 yearsDuration or 350 Hectares in Size.

Petitions Committee

UVAG’s reply to the Ministers second response is that UVAG would like to reiterate their initial response as justifiable reasons to call in all opencast mining applications over 10 years duration or 350 hectares in size.

UVAG would like to inform the petitions committee that the Welsh Government planning bill proposed for 2016 in actual fact, in part supports our petition because the planning act intends to take energy planning decisions including opencast mining away from Local Authorities, which in fact supports our petition, so therefore we are surprised that the minister response does not take this into account.

The response from the Environment and Sustainability committee would be interesting and hopefully welcome for our petition.

UVAG would like the petition go to Plenary for debate and with the purpose of them adopting the petition in principle

Terry Evans

Chair, United Valleys Action Group (UVAG)