The eviction of protesters at Mainshill solidairty camp began last week.

The South Lanarkshire camp has been in this place for over seven months, in opposition to the Scottish Coal’s plans to extract 1.7 million tonnes of coal from Mainshill Wood near the village of Douglas.

Barry Cada, one of the group said: “There’s about fifty people still in the camp.

“The bailiffs started work evicting people on the frontiers yesterday, 19 people were arrested, and one person was evicted from the ground. Many people are still down in the tunnels, and they’re dug in pretty deep”.

About 700 villagers in nearby Douglas and Glespin objected to the proposal, but their criticisms were rejected by South Lanarkshire council.

Many camp members remain behind barricades, fortified towers and tree houses. The two main barricades, the bunker, and the communal area have been knocked down.

Numbers at the camp have grown in the past week as people arrive from across the country to support the protest. Although exact numbers aren’t available, there are still many protestors chained high up in the trees.

Mr Cada said: “The entire point of taking a protest is to cost the company money, and waste them time so it becomes economically unviable to them to remain; we hope that ultimately this site will not be successful for them.”

Mining in the Douglas Valley is expected to help feed Britain’s dependency on coal as an energy source. Opposition groups say that the Mainshill site, along with other proposed mines in Scotland, could impede Scotland’s environmental targets to cut CO2 emissions by 42 percent by 2020, and contribute to climate change.

Another objection to the site is its proximity to the Lady Home Hospital, a minor accident unit, which also functions as a nursing home for elderly and terminally ill people.

The hospital is named after the Home family who have given Scottish Coal permission for the use of the site.

“Realistically there is a potential that it could take 3 weeks to completely evict the site, at the quickest a week," said Mr Cada.