A NORTH-East MP has called for tougher protections for local people whose lives are being “blighted” by an open-cast coal company.

Pat Glass, the North West Durham MP, launched a fierce attack on UK Coal for running a “bizarre Ponzi scheme” with repeated bids to mine an attractive valley.

During a Commons debate, the Labour MP warned the company was making offers to later restore the site – in the “beautiful Pont Valley” – that it might be unable to fulfil.

In that way, the practice resembled the notorious Wall Street investment schemes which promised returns from profits that never materialised – leaving investors ruined.

Ms Glass said: “Some legislative protection is needed to ensure that companies such as UK Coal cannot just keep coming back, blighting lives and threatening surroundings.

“There is a huge question mark over UK Coal’s financial status, which totally undermines any certainty that the company can meet its obligations to restore the site after the coaling phase is complete.

“Yet it continues to pursue further planning applications, knowing full well that it does not have the finance to develop or restore its existing sites - but arguing that it needs to open-cast more sites to restore those already complete.”

Ms Glass said UK Coal – “in its various manifestations” - had applied four times to open-cast the Pont Valley, at Leadgate, near Consett, over the past 20 years, with the result of the latest public inquiry still waited.

The MP contrasted UK Coal with a company called Banks, which went to “great lengths to disturb residents as little as possible” and successfully restored all of its sites.

She added: “I am not against open-cast per se. I know that there is more coal under Durham county now than was ever taken out.

“There are companies like Banks - and then there is UK Coal. Pont Valley is a real amenity for local people and it is under threat.”

Wansbeck MP Ian Lavery echoed the warning that cowboy coal companies are “blackmailing” councils by promising to restore exhausted opencast sites if they get planning permission for others.

The former president of the National Union of Mineworkers said it should be illegal to rip open land like a “proverbial sardine can”, take the coal and then simply leave the area a wasteland.

In reply, business minister Matthew Hancock said he would look at proposals to allow vetting of new applications for open cast mining licences, to block companies that do not clean up behind them.

He said: “I can't give you the full commitment on policy today, not least because it was the first time it had been raised with me directly, but that is a very sensible proposition.”