The Pont Burn Valley
Once, anyone could google in a search for anything Pont Burn Valley related and you would learn something out about us, what was being done and how hard we were trying to make some difference. Now, all that hard work has been expunged and it is as though www.leadgatevillage.com never existed.
The Pont Burn Valley Network
The Pont Burn Valley Network is a group of individuals, of no particular political persuasion, religion, age, sex, color, or anything else who believe 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 this one thing in common at least: we all live, have lived, or might live around the Pont Burn Valley and recognize its unique heritage and natural beauty.
Our Website
This website, www.leadgatevillage.com, is our gift to see if we can’t help our many organizations, clubs, groups, individuals, interests, and activities 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 better how to do this and promote our particular causes, whatever these may be.
Opencast Debate
Some of us feel passionate 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 rich flora and fauna as well as now, a unique industrial heritage which we value highly.
Local History
The Pont Burn Valley has elements of local history and industrial archaeology of national and probably international 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 they open casting is resumed now, even for a short period. For these reasons and many others, we oppose open casting.
The Residence
Those people that use our site may or may not agree with us. This is, of course, their choice and this website, even though managed and maintained by those of us that believe that more open casting now would be a disaster, seeks to be objective and unbiased, presenting clear, reasoned arguments against open casting on our website pages. We hold regular meetings and communicate openly and honestly about our views, making no apology about our campaign of objection to open casting. Whether you agree or not, you are free to make use of our website and forum.
We Support
The Pont Burn Valley Network supports the campaign against open casting and this should be clear. But please be equally clear that this website is about more than one campaign, important though this may be. Our website – yours and mine – is here for anyone in and around the Pont Burn Valley, for our Community Partnerships, Associations, Churches, Clubs, Hobbies, Interests, Activities – in fact for many 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.
Click on this link to see our beautiful countryside in all its splendor and its plight involving the surface mining taking place
