§ Mr. TrickettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) in which parliamentary constituencies there are opencasting sites in operation; [2216]
(2) in how many parliamentary constituencies there are opencasting sites in operation. [2249]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordThis information is not held centrally.
§ Mr. TrickettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many acres of land are currently the subject of opencast methods of extracting coal; and what proportion of this land was formerly green belt; [2210]
(2) how many acres of land are currently subject to planning applications for opencast coal extraction; and what proportion of this land is currently green belt. [2209]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordThis information is not held centrally. Statistics are published annually for the County Planning Officers' Society by Durham county council.
§ Mr. TrickettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimates he has made of the cost to public funds(a) of local authorities and (b) of his Department of planning applications for opencast mining. [2214]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordMy Department has no information about the costs to local authorities of processing planning applications for opencast coal mining; costs to the Department would occur only in the event of a planning application being called in for determination by the Secretary of State and this is an extremely rare occurrence.
§ Mr. TrickettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many, and which, parliamentary constituencies have opencast applications(a) pending and (b) at the appeal stage. [2213]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordInformation about opencast planning applications is not held centrally. Information about appeals is recorded only under the local planning authority and not parliamentary constitiuencies. The current outstanding appeals are as follows
Cheshire 1, Staffordshire 1, Wakefield 1, Nottinghamshire 1, Durham 3 and Derbyshire 1.
§ Mr. TrickettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many appeals have been heard by his inspectors in which opencast developers have sought to reverse local authority refusals of planning permission in each of the last five years; and what is his Department's estimate of the cost to public funds of these appeals. [2215]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordThe figures are as follows: 1992, 11; 1993, 12; 1994, 20; 1995, 4; and 1996, 9. Information concerning the cost of these appeals to the taxpayer is not available.