About Us
We are a group of diverse individuals with varied experiences and backgrounds. We understand that as people we don’t always communicate with each other that well. We might disagree or agree with each other for many reasons but we share one thing in common: We all live or have lived and care for Pont Burn Valley. We recognise its unique heritage and natural beauty and are prepared to work hard to preserve it. This website, www.pontvalleynet.co.uk is our chance to help the many organisations, clubs, groups, and individuals who have the same love, commitment and enthusiasm for our area. Helping everybody in all of our villages to start working together, for whatever reason we choose, using the pages of our website as a shared space to learn how to do this and promote our causes, whatever these may be. The Pont Valley Network supports the campaign against open-casting and this should be clear. This website is about more than one campaign, important though this one may be. Our website - yours and mine - is here for anyone in the Pont Burn Valley, for our Community Partnerships, Associations, Churches, Clubs, Hobbies, Interests, Activities - in fact for any people, young or old, as individuals or members of any of these, that care enough about the place we all share to want to be involved. We invite you to join us. |
Open-cast Mining
As a group we feel passionately that it would be wrong to resume open-casting so close to our villages, in an area so clearly visible and close to the woods of Pont Burn Valley. This area is only just beginning to recover from centuries of iron and coal working and is becoming, once again, an area of quite outstanding natural beauty with a rich flora and fauna as well as now, a unique industrial heritage which we value highly. The Pont Burn Valley has elements of local history and industrial archaeology of great significance. These have yet to be fully researched and explored. Further, despite the transient nature of the open-casting which threatens again to undo fifty years and more of hard work and natural recovery, we believe that we would lose the very real and sustainable benefits of tourism forever if open-casting is resumed now, even for a short period. For these reasons and many others we oppose open-casting. Whether you share our views or have different views of your own we welcome you to use our site and understand this is of course your choice. Although we have a shared belief that more open-casting now would be a disaster, we seek to be objective and unbiased, presenting clear, reasoned arguments against open-casting throughout our pages. We hold regular meetings and communicate openly and honestly about our views, making no apology about our campaign of objection to open-casting. |