Earlier this year Coal & Allied lodged an application to modify the consent conditions of the mine, which is planned to be built about four kilometres north-west of Muswellbrook adjacent to the company’s Bengalla mine.

If approved, changes to the mine’s approval would include a two-year extension of the life of the development consent until December 31, 2022.

The company also wants to install a new conveyor and service corridor between Mt Pleasant and Bengalla mines so Mt Pleasant can use Bengalla’s rail facilities instead of building its own.

The application was on public exhibition in October, with the NSW planning department accepting submissions on the proposal.

In its submission, Muswell-brook Shire Council opposed

the plan, stating that the council would be unable to adequately maintain the public road network that would be affected by the proposal.

The council also said it was unreasonable to approve the project without requiring air quality monitoring.

“(Council) considers that the extension of the project without conditions requiring the monitoring and regulation of PM2.5 particulate matter at locations reasonably assessed by council to be suitable to be unreasonable and notes that the project is up-wind of the prevailing wind corridor affecting the township of Muswellbrook,” the submission stated.

The effect on the sustainability and diversity of the local community was also of concern to the council, highlighting the strain approval would place on the local labour market, health services, community services, water, land and accommodation.

The NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change (DEWCC) was also unable to support the proposal, identifying that no fauna survey and only a limited flora survey had been carried out in the modification area.

Its submission also said the “DECCW is of the opinion the Biodiversity and Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Assessments provided in the Environmental Assessment document are inadequate for the proposal”.

Development consent for the open-cut Mt Pleasant mine was granted in 1997, providing for the extraction of about 197 million tonnes of run of mine coal over a 21-year period, however the mine has never started operation.

The modifications are being proposed as part of a move by Coal & Allied to start mining at the site, creating around 700 jobs during construction and 300 jobs

during operation.