ENVIRONMENTAL protesters started a 250-mile bike ride protest in Derbyshire.

The campaigners are fighting plans for new coal-fired power stations across England.

The protest ride, organised by the group Climate Camp, set off on Saturday from Shipley opencast mine, near Heanor, on a nine-day trip around sites earmarked for 33 new opencast mines.

The Shipley mine was the first stop on a tour that is planned to end on May 4 in Blyth, on the north-east coast.

Last year, nine environmentalists staged a protest at the Shipley site in their bid to stop UK Coal's plans to extract more than a million tonnes of coal from the 334-acre site over the next four-and-a-half years.