THE reasons for not developing the Cinderford Northern Quarter keep growing. I attended the Planning Inspectors meeting in October and one of the first items raised was by the Coal Authority to advise the development area contained up to 130 (yes 130) mine entrances and shafts that needed stabilising before development commenced.

This week in the local papers I see that a giant pit appeared alongside the Cricket Club grounds only a few hundred metres from the proposed Northern Quarter development so this unstable ground issue is not just of marginal concern. At the planning meeting the council brushed the issue aside advising that they had a contingency budget to cover these costs.

The costs would appear to be potentially quite large as this one instance at the cricket club took the Coal Authority who are responsible for making these things safe, a full week of pouring concrete and levelling the site to stabilise the ground. Multiply this by over 100 and the costs must stack up.

Our council should come clean about the possible financial implications involved in groundwork for the northern Quarter.

This already massively flawed project on environmental, recreational and planning grounds now seems to have additional financial hurdles as well.

– Simon Glover.