London’s High Court ruled on Friday (13 September) that the 2022 approval of West Cumbria Mining’s deep coal mine was unlawful.
The mine was set to become the UK’s first new deep coal mine in decades until Friends of the Earth and the SLACC challenged the then-Conservative Government’s approval in early 2023.
West Cumbria Mining explained the Woodhouse Colliery project would be a “unique net zero mine” planned to extract coking coal for the manufacturing of steel as opposed to generating electricity.
A governmental U-turn on mining legislation following the general election seemingly pushed legal proceedings in favour of Friends of the Earth and the SLACC.
The ruling by the newly-elected Labour Government removed the defence of legal challenges after the Supreme Court ruled that planning authorities must consider the impact of burning and extraction of fossil fuels when approving projects.
West Cumbria Mining published the following statement in July: “Ahead of the general election, lawyers for the Government (on behalf of the Secretary of State, Michael Gove) submitted a strong defence against all of the grounds of claim on 1 July 2024.
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“On 10 July (less than a week before the hearing was due to commence), the new Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, radically changed position and conceded the claim.
“West Cumbria Mining did not agree with this extraordinary U-turn, and as a result continued to defend the case on its own.”
Friends of the Earth senior lawyer Niall Toru explained that the High Court ruling is the first to be decided under the new legislation and could have serious implications on mining companies internationally.
“There are cases abroad where challenges are being made against fossil fuel projects on a very similar basis,” said Toru.
Justice David Holgate, the judge residing over the case, determined that “the assumption that the proposed mine would not produce a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, or would be a net zero mine, is legally flawed”.
