Confining coal to history

Confining coal to the history books: campaigners celebrate victory over coal mine in Cumbria.

by Tony Bosworth (climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth)

Earlier this month West Cumbria Mining (WCM) withdrew its planning application to build a massive new coal mine, near Whitehaven in Cumbria.

The move marked the final chapter in a long-running campaign to prevent this highly polluting and unnecessary mine from being built, confining coal in the UK to the history books.

Whitehaven is a Georgian town on the coast of West Cumbria. The Lake District is only 20 miles away, but this isn’t a tourist hotspot. The town – a former industrial haven – has seen better days; the last coal mine shut in 1986 and the Marchon chemical works closed in 2005, leaving the Sellafield nuclear plant a few miles away as the main employer.

A proposal for the UK’s first coal mine in 30 years, to be built in Whitehaven, was first put forward by WCM a decade ago, to produce metallurgical coal exclusively for use in steelmaking (not to be burned in power stations to produce electricity).

Photo: Friends of the Earth EWNI

Opposition to the mine was immediate. Many locals did not want it, while environmentalists were aghast. Quickly, a campaign formed, consisting of a joint effort between local activists, notably from Cumbria-based South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) and national organisations, including Friends of the Earth and Coal Action Network.

In early 2021, shortly after Cumbria County Council had approved planning permission for the mine, the government decided to ‘call in’ the application, arguing that because of its national significance, they needed to make the decision themselves.

A planning inquiry was held in September 2021, at which WCM, SLACC and Friends of the Earth presented their cases. It took over a year of deliberation, but finally in December 2022, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Michael Gove, announced that he was granting planning permission for the project.

However, SLACC and Friends of the Earth saw there were serious problems in how the planning inspector had considered the evidence presented to him and how Mr Gove had made his decision. Together, the organisations made an application in early 2023 for judicial review, which was heard by the High Court a year later.

We argued that the emissions from burning the coal had not been properly taken into account, the Secretary of State had wrongly accepted WCM’s claims that the mine would be ‘net zero’ and that its coal would simply ‘substitute’ for coal that would otherwise have been extracted elsewhere, and Mr Gove was wrong to find that the mine would not have a negative impact internationally.

The Court’s judgment in September 2024 agreed with Friends of the Earth on all grounds, finding that Mr Gove’s decision was unlawful. It quashed the planning permission and returned the application to the new government for re-determination, in other words, they needed to retake the decision on whether to grant planning permission.

The current Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, wrote to the main parties in February this year asking them to submit new information. West Cumbria Mining didn’t reply and, after being chased by the government, decided late last month to withdraw their planning application, ending the decade-long saga.

The main arguments against the mine remained constant throughout the campaign:

• The mine would have big climate impacts, with lifetime emissions (including from burning the coal produced) equivalent to more than half the UK’s total emissions in 2022.

• There was no need for the mine’s coal - steelmakers in the mine’s target market were already moving away from coal use. This cast doubts over how long the promised jobs would last. Furthermore, it would never be used as a power station and therefore would not contribute to Britain’s energy security.

• There are better ways to create local jobs. For example, analysis by Friends of the Earth showed that a programme to insulate cold homes in West Cumbria could create as many jobs as the coal mine.

  

  Photo: Friends of the Earth EWNI

  Huge credit for this victory must go to the many local campaigners from SLACC and other groups, who have been fighting this destructive and unnecessary proposal for many years. This is how local and national environmental groups can work together to stop fossil fuel projects. We at Friends of the Earth worked successfully alongside local groups campaigning against fracking in England and Wales from 2012 to 2019, supporting local people’s passion, commitment, insight, love for their local area and tireless energy with our campaigning experience and expertise in land-use planning and legal work. We used the same collaborative approach in Cumbria to achieve, we’re delighted to say, another positive result.

  
  

  But even though the mine now won’t be built, our work won’t stop. We know that many people in Whitehaven and the surrounding area supported the proposed mine, not because they specifically wanted a return of coal mining, but because it offered the prospect of hundreds of jobs. We have said the government must now urgently work with the local council and with businesses to make sure that West Cumbria gets support and investment to create the new opportunities and the green jobs it needs, and we’ll support local people as they push to make this happen.