Opencast plans won’t threaten Douglas hospital

Jul 31 2008 by George Topp, Lanark & Carluke

A CONTROVERSIAL opencast coal mine which is planned for the outskirts of Douglas village, poses little or no danger to the much-loved local hospital.

And, it is claimed, the Lady Home Hospital is simply being used as a "battering ram" to put forward the views of the 16 people present at an anti-coal development meeting.

Scottish Coal have lodged a planning application to extract coal and fireclay from a site at Mainshill, land on the outskirts of Douglas owned by Douglas and Angus Estates.

At a subsequent meeting organised to try and oppose the plans, and, it is claimed, attended by just 16 people, the opencast’s proximity to Lady Home Hospital was raised.

However, one prominent Douglas resident, who remembers the days of deep mining in the village, and who has strong links to the hospital, says people are wrong to use the hospital in any campaign.

Robert Wilson is founder and secretary to Friends of Lady Home Hospital, and a representative of the hospital on Clydesdale Locality Public Partnership Forum and South Lanarkshire Public Partnership Forum, both of which are supported by the NHS.

He told the Advertiser: “As a member of the Friends of Lady Home Hospital, I can confirm that this valuable community hospital is on a much sounder footing that it ever has been, and it has just had thousands of pounds spent on it to bring it up to accreditation standard.“

He went on to say: “Because some of the Friends’ members had some concerns on the development, we asked Scottish Coal to address our committee and advise us of the implication for the hospital.

"We had a member of the community council present, a member of Communities on the Edge and a member of the Douglas medical practice also in attendance.

“We were given the full outline plan of the development and asked questions. At the end of the meeting, the two doctors present were satisfied that ‘there was little or no danger to the hospital from this development.’”

Mr Wilson continued: “I’m sorry that Lady Home Hospital was used as a battering ram to put forward the views of the 16 people present at the anti-coal development meeting. To use the nearness to the hospital to the planned opencast as being unacceptable is also based on a false premise.”

He recalled: “When I was a boy, there was the Wilson Mine on one side of the hospital and the Glebe Mine on the other, both with their coal-bings. And when I say close, they were a stone’s throw from the hospital.”

A respected member of the local community, Mr Wilson said that the “nonsense” regarding opencast mining had gone on for almost 20 years, but the real target of the protestors’ ire were Douglas and Angus Estates, who owned Mainshill and much of the land around the village.

He explained: “Over those 20 years, Scottish Coal have poured millions of pounds into the South Lanarkshire Communities Trust based on the amount of coal taken from the Douglas Valley, but with very little being re-invested in the Douglas Valley.

“The present and future generations will not thank us for depriving the villages of much needed resources, and it is time this nonsense stopped and the ‘pros’ and ‘antis’ got together and fought for the good of their communities. Enough is enough.”

Born in Douglas West to a mining family, he recalled that at one time there were several deep mines in the area giving a great deal of employment to people.

“They are now trying to say that open-casting is more dangerous for health than the deep-mines. Since my father died at the age of 52, I would dispute their findings to the end,” stressed Mr Wilson.

“We have betrayed the youngsters of the Douglas Valley by not getting funding to make the Valley a better place in which to live. This time opencast money is ring-fenced for the Douglas area and if we let that go, we deserve all that we get from this and future generations,” he declared.