Prospects for Cumbria mine plan ‘bleak’ as public inquiry is called

THE PROSPECTS for a new coal mine on the Cumbrian coast look bleak, according to a leading northern lobbying group, after Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick decided to hold a public inquiry about whether it should go ahead.

In a letter to Cumbria County Council, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said Mr Jenrick was “calling in” the application rather than letting the local authority decide, as he believed the application had raised issues of “more than local importance”.

It said he had decided that a public inquiry should be held to explore the arguments put forward by both supporters and opponents of the proposal by West Cumbria Mining (WCM) to open the deep mine near Whitehaven.

It follows intense pressure by scientists and campaigners who warned it would undermine the Government’s hopes of progress when it hosts the international

Cop26 climate change talks in Glasgow later this year.

Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Tony Bosworth said it was “a startling, but very welcome U-turn” after Ministers had previously resisted calls to intervene in the application.

“It was not possible for the Government to maintain, as it claimed only two months ago, that this was just a matter of local importance and the decision will now rightly be taken at national level,” he said.

However the decision is likely to dismay some northern Tory

MPs who were banking on the project to bring much-needed jobs and investment to the region.

Workington MP Mark Jenkinson accused Ministers of a “capitulation to climate change alarmists”. “This represents a risk to significant private sector investment in Cumbria and the Government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda,” he said.

Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “It is now clear that the prospects for the West Cumbrian Mining project are bleak.

“In the last Parliament the NuGen scheme for a nuclear reactor at Moorside was allowed to collapse. This current Prime Minister cannot fail West Cumbria again as his predecessor did.

“No mine means we need an even clearer commitment to creating green jobs as we work towards Net Zero 2050. Workingclass communities should not see this as a binary choice between jobs and the environment – we must do both.”

The council said last month it would reconsider the application by WCM to mine for coking coal for use in steel production. This prompted the company to declare that it was commencing judicial review proceedings.

For Labour, Shadow Business Secretary and Doncaster MP Ed Miliband said Ministers had been forced to act following months of pressure.

The PM cannot fail West Cumbria again like his predecessor did. Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.