First New UK Coal Mine in 30 Years Approved to Ire of Environmentalists

A general view of the former Woodhouse Colliery site where West Cumbria Mining (WCM) is planning to once again extract coal, in Whitehaven, England, on March 16, 2021. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The UK government has granted planning permission for the country’s first new coal mine in 30 years, provoking anger from environmental campaigners.

The coking coal mine on the edge of Whitehaven in Cumbria, which is expected to extract nearly 2.8 million tonnes per year, is expected to create more than 500 jobs.

But climate activists claim it will increase emissions and damage the UK’s effort to reach “net zero” emissions by 2050.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said on Dec. 7 that the coal will be used for the production of steel and not for power generation.

Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Gove “agreed to grant planning permission for a new metallurgical coal mine in Cumbria as recommended by the independent planning inspector,” DLUHC said in a statement.

Michael Gove, minister for levelling up, housing, and communities, pictured in Downing Street, London, on Dec. 7, 2022. James Manning/PA Media

“This coal will be used for the production of steel and would otherwise need to be imported. It will not be used for power generation,” the statement read.

“The mine seeks to be net zero in its operations and is expected to contribute to local employment and the wider economy.”

Stephen Normington, the planning inspector who recommended the site’s approval, wrote that the development would “have an overall neutral effect on climate change.”

He said the amount of coal used in steel making would be “broadly the same” with or without the mine.

“Consequently, I consider that the proposed development would have a broadly neutral effect on the global release of GHG (greenhouse gas) from coal used in steel making whether or not end use emissions are taken into account,” he wrote.

Polarised Views

Mike Starkie, the Conservative mayor of Copeland in Cumbria, said the project enjoys overwhelming support among local people.

He said he was “absolutely over the moon” with the decision to approve the coal mine, which he hailed as “the biggest announcement in generations.”

“It is going to bring jobs, prospects, and opportunity to the people of west Cumbria and the people of west Cumbria are going to be grateful for generations,” he said, adding: “This project enjoys 90 percent support right across west Cumbria.”

But the project has been condemned by environmental activists. Friends of the Earth campaigner Tony Bosworth said the decision is “a misguided and deeply damaging mistake.” And Greenpeace UK policy director Doug Parr said the UK government “risks becoming a superpower in climate hypocrisy rather than climate leadership.”

Lord Deben, the Conservative chairman of the advisory Climate Change Committee, also condemned the decision, which he said had “diminished” the UK’s “hard-fought global influence on climate.”

The view is shared by the main opposition parties.

Labour’s shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband said that it is “no solution to the energy crisis, it does not offer secure, long-term jobs, and it marks this government giving up on all pretense of climate leadership.”

Tim Farron, the environment spokesman of the Liberal Democrats, said: “This decision cancels out all the progress Britain has made on renewable energy. The government’s environmental credentials are yet again left in tatters.”

‘Indispensable’

Defending the decision to approve the coal mine project, Gove told the House of Commons on Dec. 8 that it is important to restate the proposal for the production of coking coal is “for use in steel production.”

He stressed: “It is not an energy proposal. Our net-zero strategy makes it clear that coal has no part to play in future power generation, which is why we’re phasing it out of our electricity supply by 2024.”

He said the inspector’s report “demonstrated a continued demand for coking coal for a number of decades to come,” but the UK is “currently almost wholly dependent upon imports of coking coal to meet its steel manufacturing demand.”

He added that the European Commission also recognises the “indispensable role of coking coal during the steel industry’s transition to climate neutrality.”

But Labour claimed that opening the new mine will lead to “environmental vandalism.”

Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow communities secretary, said the government’s decision is “bad policy” and “bad politics.”

“This mine will produce coking coal used for steel, not for electricity generation, so as he has had to admit today, to claim it helps safeguard our energy security is a nonsense,” she said.

She said the demand for coking coal has been falling and said the decision “flies in the face of Britain’s net zero objectives.”

But Gove insisted that the new coal mine would be “net zero,” as he encouraged MPs to read the official report underpinning the decision.

According to Gove, the inspector said the mine would “support the transition to a low carbon future as a consequence of the provision of a currently needed resource from a mine that aspires to be net zero.”

PA Media contributed to this report.