RESIDENTS are preparing to fight plans for open-cast coal mining on farmland between three villages.

A consortium called the Eco Energy Group is seeking Durham County Council's permission to extract about 750,000 tonnes of coal, over three-and-a-half years, between the A1(M) Interchange, at Bowburn, Coxhoe, and Old Quarrington.

The applicants are offering to stabilise a small stretch of the corridor for the proposed Bowburn to Wheatley Hill link road.

Their restoration plans include putting up three 60-metre wind turbines some distance from the site, and a "mixed use'' development.

Residents, who have revived the Bowburn Opencast Action Group, which fought mining schemes in the 1980s and 1990s, fear that the application could lead to further mining in the area.

They are worried about dust, noise and pollution from the site, and the 100 lorries each day that will carry the coal to power stations in Yorkshire.

They say that the site will come up to the cemetery at Old Quarrington, and that some houses are less than the minimum 200 metres from the site boundary.

There is also concern that the work of the Five Villages Project, which is restoring the area's landscape after years of mining and quarrying, will be undone.

Action group chairman Richard Cowen said: "Opencasting is the most environmentally devastating form of coal mining, and we hope that this application will be refused."

Cassop-cum-Quarrington Parish Council chairwoman Maggie Robinson said: "Nobody knows what the plans for the mixed use development are.

"It could include a range of industrial and commercial uses unsuited to the area.

"No impact assessment has been carried out, and villagers are seriously concerned about hundreds of lorries driving past their school every day."

Old Quarrington resident Steve Raine said: "Mining operations are to be suspended during funerals.

"However, we consider this totally impractical, and working will continue at all other times.

"How would you like to visit the grave of a relative only tens of metres from a major excavation?"

A county council spokesman said: "We are the mineral planning authority and will consider the opencast application. We are consulting.

"The wind farm and the mixed use development will be matters for Durham City Council.''