BRITAIN'S biggest coal producer was given permission to start work on a new opencast mine in the heart of County Durham yesterday.

At a planning committee meeting at Durham's County Hall, councillors voted to accept revised plans for a UK Coal Mining facility on the outskirts of Shildon.

The company was granted permission to extract half-a-million tonnes of coal and 180,000 tonnes of fireclay over 28 months from its Southfield site, off Brusselton Lane.

As well as declaring it a "once and for all" development, the company also signed a legal agreement that committed it to no future working, extended aftercare beyond the obligatory five years and setting up a community fund.

Despite the applicant's success, not all councillors were fully behind the scheme. County councillor Keith Henderson for Shildon North East said opencast sites have hung over the region like the Sword of Damacles.

Councillor John Quigley, for Shildon South West, admitted the revised plans were the lesser of two evils.

After a less environmentally-friendly application was turned down last year, the resulting appeal and public inquiry meant a no vote yesterday could have let in the original plans.

Coun Quigley said: "We are between a rock and a hard place with this one. We have had opencast mines for the last 40 years - we need a break. I am against them all in principle because they are environmentally disruptive."

A report prepared by the council's head of planning, John Suckling, said any direct economic consequences of the opencast site were likely to be small, given its relatively short timescale.

The council's backing means 50 jobs have been safeguarded, which in turn could help regenerate the area.

Councillor Bob Pendlebury told the meeting: "Opencast sites do create disturbance, destroy trees, wildlife and hedgerows, but we do not operate in a vacuum. We have to act along government guidelines. If we refused this application we could be faced with a poorer scheme. We are getting the best deal we can out of an opencast proposal."