Members are elected, by vote from the residents of the village at general and specific Council elections. They are volunteers who receive no payment for their service to the community and attendance at meetings. Members have statutory duites which they are legally bound to carry out and this is scrutinised by the Standards Board, National Audit Office and Department for Communities, amongst others.

Anyone wishing to become a member should take the opportunity to stand for election when these are advertised and also be prepred to be identified in public, accept training to enable compliance with the legal framework (sounds daunting I know but it is more time consuming than arduous) and attend the monthly meetings.
I hope this helps,
Paul.

We are in a protracted examination of the problem. The crux of which is that the Coal Authority have a statutory right to discharge this waste into our burn to protect the aquifer from which we all draw our drinking water. This is a sensible precaution to guard the water supply but the historical permission to pollute and destroy our local environment is what we are fighting against. At present we are engaging with:- the Environment Agency, Durham Counct Council, The Coal Authority, Bournmoor Conservation Group and the Department of the environment.

Chester-le-Street District Council Oversight and Scrutiny Committee are looking to investigate the state of watercourses within their area and we hope this will act as a catalyst for change locally. I will keep you informed.

What has not been mentioned in this reply is that the Environment Agency require the water discharged into the Lumley Park Burn to be of 'tolerable quality'. This implies that the water may have to receive treatment before discharge.

Have any enquiries been made to the Environment Agency to see if the discharged water is of tolerable quality?

If so, it would be interesting to see what they have to say.

Alan Vickers.

Yes regular reports of effluent and discharges are made to the Environment Agency. They sample and test the water/discharge in response to these reports and so far have described the levels of pollutants as "not likely to cause significant damage to the watercourse". The Council and Conservation group find this very hard to accept, as the visible ochre and obvious decline in plant and animal life belie this assessment. The Council have challenged this many times and will continue to do so. There is a new European Water Directive coming in so Council and the Conservation Group are trying to advance the early application of the new strictures that the regulation will enforce.

Any suggestions or further comment on this, and any other environmental issue are very welcome.

Thanks,
Paul.

Environment Agency are probably saying that the level of pollutants is not likely to cause significant damage to the watercourse because the quality cannot get any worse than it currently is. That, however, does not imply that the discharged water is of 'tolerable quality'.

I would have thought that Chester-le-Street District Council would be interested in this problem because of the possible harmful effects to the River Wear.

Alan Vickers.

As to anything further that you can do can I suggest that you ask Environment Agency why it is that other pumped minewater discharges are required to have substantial 'active' or 'passive' treatments before being discharged into the river or to the sea where there is much greater dilution than can be provided by Lumley Park Burn.

Examples of this are at Horden, Dawden, Kibblesworth and possibly also at Chester Moor.

If, in the future, minewater flows out as a gravity discharge at Chaterhaugh it will be presumably required to have treatment before going into thr river Wear.

What then makes the discharge into Lumley Park Burn so different as to not require treatment.

Environment Agency may reply that this is due to the levels of the actual pollutants, in whuich case they should be asked to produce the recent analyses of all of the minewater samples that heve been taken.

A point to remember is that if there is an outflow at Chatershaugh this does not necessarily mean that there will be no further discharges into Lummley Park Burn as the output at Chatershaugh may be insufficilent to prevent the underground levels rising.

Alan Vickers.

The Community Association could no longer afford to occupy the building. Debts were in danger of piling up so Durham County Council, who owned the old school, have had to demolish it and are probably going to sell the site.