Durham’s green champion

UK Coal land reclamation team wins county council’s top environmental award for sixth time

UK Coal’s land reclamation team has won Durham County Council’s top environmental award for the sixth time in 13 years.

The award was in recognition of the high standard of land restoration at Stony Heap, near Stanley, where the company’s restoration scheme saw 257,000 tonnes of coal removed from a 49ha site that was part of Eden Colliery, which closed in the early 1950s.

For many years polluted mine water from the site had discharged into the nearby Newhouse Burn, turning it bright orange and making it one of Co. Durham’s top environmental blackspots.

But now the once despoiled area has been replaced by a new 26ha nature reserve and 7ha of woodland and wetland, together with new footpaths and cycle tracks.

As part of the mining scheme, derelict surface buildings were reclaimed and a water-treatment scheme was introduced to deal with the polluted water, using the proceeds from mining the coal that was causing the pollution, at no cost to the public purse.

The site was restored using a unique method of stripping and re-instating the soils. This was achieved by preserving the top layer of seed-bearing soil and returning it to the site during restoration in order to re-establish the existing wide-ranging indigenous flora.

In addition, the water bodies that have been created to provide habitats for visiting wading birds are linked together to form a manageable surface drainage scheme that ultimately discharges into the newly cleaned up Newhouse Burn.

‘It is right that we recognize the importance of landscapes and their value to society, said UK Coal’s land rehabilitation manager Trevor Hind (pictured). ‘Just look at what has been achieved in this part of Durham – an extraordinary transformation that is contributing on so many different levels.’