The Scottish Opencast Action Group works with a number of village communities in the south of Scotland who are protesting the development of opencast coal mining operations around villages in the region. They claim the huge environmental scars left on the landscape by opencast mining undermine the value of houses in villages and have a depressing effect upon local communities. While many of these villages were origonally based around village coal mine operations, local protestors claim the small fraction of jobs created by the opencast sites only creates further division within communities between those benefitting from the employment and the rest of the community forced to live with the consequences. The protestors further warn of health risks from opencast works, a claim supported by local doctors who report an increase in chest complaints, asthma and respiratory illness.