PEOPLE fighting plans for mining on 111 acres of farmland are likely to get a heavy-weight ally next week when Durham County Council weighs in on their side.

More than 2,500 people have signed a petition against Hall Construction's proposal to work a site at Byermoor Farm, Fellside Road, near Whickham, Gateshead, close to the northern border of the county and the village of Burnopfield.

The company is proposing a three-year operation in which 480,000 tonnes of coal and up to 100,000 tonnes of fireclay removed from the ground over two years. The remaining two months would be used for site preparation and, after working, a restoration scheme.

Restoration would include returning the site, which is close to the National Trust's Gibside Estate, to farming and creating woodland, ponds, wetlands and improved access.

The site would operate five-and-a-half days a week, from 7am to 7pm, Mondays to Fridays, and to 1pm on Saturdays. An estimated 96 lorry journeys would be made each day on roads in Gateshead.

The application has provoked strong opposition on both sides of the border.

Gateshead Borough Council will decide whether to give planning permission and it is seeking the views of the county council, which has received more than 100 letters of objections from residents.

The county council's planning committee meets on Wednesday when it will be recommended to urge its counterpart in Gateshead to refuse permission.

The grounds of objection include the visual impact the mining would have in the Burnopfield area and the impact of noise, dust and blasting on homes in the village's northern outskirts.

Derwentside District Council's development control committee has agreed to tell Gateshead it opposes the plan on the same grounds.

Derwentside council's acting director of environment, David Miller, concludes in his report to councillors: "The proposal has the potential to have an adverse environmental impact.

"This does not appear to be outweighed by the restoration strategy, which fails to offer any substantial benefits to the local landscape or local communities, which might outweigh the demonstrable impacts of the operational site.

"In particular, the proposal is considered to have a substantial impact on the locality generally, being open to view from properties in the Bryan's Leap and Crookgate Bank areas, from where it would be visually intrusive, and in views from the roads and footpaths serving Burnopfield and other nearby communities.

"I recommend, therefore, that the county council submit an objection to Gateshead council on visual impact grounds.

"In addition, given the close proximity of the proposed site to Burnopfield, I recommend that the council should express significant concern over the proposal's potential amenity impacts and request that Gateshead council carefully considers the potential impact of dust, noise and blasting upon the residential amenity of Burnopfield.''

Thomas Charlton, one of Burnopfield's Derwentside councillors, said people in the district were fed up with opencast mining.

"The worry is, that if you approve this application, it would be the thin end of a very thick wedge and others would follow. It has taken 30 years to rid Derwentside and other parts of Durham of the blight of deep mine and opencast mining.

"You have the Gibside tourist attraction nearby, but if you start allowing opencast mining around it, it will knock the tourism on the head. Any economic benefits of opencasting are very short-lived, whereas tourism and the environment encourages more long-term benefits.''