A three-week standoff at the site of a new open-cast mine is coming to a head in South Lanarkshire.

About 30 determined protesters have been on the site aiming to thwart Scottish Coal from beginning work on the mine. The group object to the clearing of trees at Mainshill Wood and the location of the mine, about a mile from Lady Home Hospital in Douglas.

South Lanarkshire Council - of which some members are said to back the protest group - has received about 700 letters of objection to the plans. On June 29, Lanark Sheriff Court approved an eviction notice to remove the people from the area, which is owned by Lord Home, son of the former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

The activists - the self-proclaimed Mainshill Solidarity Camp - have remained on the site since June 18 but the standoff appears to be reaching a breaking point.

Strathclyde Police moved in on Wednesday morning to allow Scottish Coal to remove heavy machinery aimed to drill for coal seams. It is expected this could set the stage for evictions or arrests of the protesters later in the day.

Scottish Coal has not commented on the matter.

The company believes the mine will extract about 160,000 tonnes of fireclay over the next five years and create about 100 jobs.

Scottish Coal is the largest surface coal producer in Britain and extracts about four million tonnes of the material annually from four other mines across Scotland.