A PUBLIC inquiry into whether to allow opencast quarrying for coal and brick material near Chester-le-Street has begun.

Planning permission for an opencast site at Wheatley Head was refused by Durham County Council last year and this week the appeal against the decision was opened by Government planning inspector Brent Mundy on Tuesday.

Clay Services and Ibstock Building Products want to extract brickshale, fireclay and coal from the site, which lies between Great Lumley and West Rainton.

Clay Services argue that there is a need for the brickshale to keep Throckley Brickworks sustainable, but Durham County Council felt that there was no evidence to suggest the future of the brickworks would be threatened without the quarrying.

Paul Taylor, defending Clay Services, said the county council's denial that mineral extraction was needed implied that it would only be seen as essential if the brickworks were in danger of closing.

At the hearing at Fence Houses Community Centre, Stewart Provan, assistant team leader of Durham County Council's development control team, said the council had received 83 objections to the plans from people living in the village. All of them objected to the impact of traffic taking the mineral from the site. Already noise levels in the village exceed recommended levels and the opencast mine would result in much larger lorries passing through the village.

He said: "The impacts felt by residents will add to an already unacceptable situation. The prolonged, uncoordinated and piecemeal way in which the reserves in this area have been exploited has progressively increased the impacts to residents of Woodstone Village while providing little in the way of planned mitigation."

Mr Taylor refuted the council's claim that the company wanted to extract low carbon shale from Wheatley Head simply for economic reasons so they could increase the speed they produced bricks.

He said Throckley Brickworks received most of its raw materials from another quarry. "It's just there's material that doesn't get used if it isn't mixed with shale from Wheatley Hill, so a great pile of unused material is growing."

The hearing was expected to last four days.