Government under fire for approval of new coalmine in Cumbria
I’m delivering a seminar about rural economic development in Cumbria tomorrow! It will be interesting to see what people think about this. This story of rural resource exploitation creating 500 jobs tells us:
A new coalmine in Cumbria has been given the green light by the government in the same week that the Treasury launched a review into how the UK can end its contribution to global heating.
The developer, West Cumbria Mining, said the £165m mine would create 500 jobs.
The Cumbrian MP Tim Farron called the decision “a kick in the teeth in the fight to tackle climate change”.
Farron had asked the government to “call in” the decision after it received unanimous planning approval by Cumbria county council in March.
But his application has been rejected, with the local Conservative MP Trudy Harrison saying “sense has prevailed”.
Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, expressed his dismay, saying the government should “invest fully in zero-carbon energy” instead.
He said: “Cumbria has so many renewable resources to provide energy – water, wind and solar – and we should most definitely not be taking the backwards step of opening a new coalmine.”
The news came as the government announced its net zero review, which will assess “how we can cut our emissions without seeing them exported elsewhere”.
The mine, called Woodhouse Colliery, will be situated on the former Marchon industrial site near Whitehaven. It will extract coking coal from under the sea nearby, with access via the existing Sandwith Anhydrite mine portals, according to West Cumbria Mining.