Labour is opposing the UK’s first new deep coal mine in 30 years. Now Robert Jenrick must do the same

The destructive scale of the UK’s proposed first new deep coal mine for 30 years is staggering. Its potential lifetime carbon emissions of 420 million tons would be more than the entire 2019 UK economy’s domestic carbon emissions of 350m tons.  

Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Local Government, now faces a moral dilemma over this proposed huge new UK Woodhouse Colliery coal mine, which will not only determine the future of coalmining in the UK but whether the UK will have any modicum of integrity as the host government for the crucial COP 26 climate summit next year in Glasgow. 

If the UK government gives the go-ahead for the proposed new Cumbrian Woodhouse Colliery, it would signal to the world that the UK is utterly duplicitous when claiming to be tackling the carbon emissions already causing horrific impacts across the globe.

But if they choose hope instead and keep the Cumbrian coal in the ground, it would send a signal that humanity is finally facing up to the stark reality that we cannot open any new coal, oil or gas fields because it would push global carbon emissions well above the dangerous limits they have already passed.  

Cumbria County Council unanimously approved a previous planning application for the mine last year.  

But following a campaign from a group called Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole, the High Court agreed to hear a judicial review of that decision and West Cumbria Mining withdrew the successful application and submitted a new altered plan.  

On October 2nd, the council’s planning committee voted 12 to 3 to back the altered plan, seeming to value 500 new local jobs over the catastrophic impact of its carbon emissions.  

One councillor from each of the major parties, including the chair and deputy chair of the planning committee, voted to keep the coal in the ground.

The national Lib Dems, along with local MP and former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, have called for Jenrick to reject the mine.  

And in a major positive development, the Labour Party told this column that it is calling on Jenrick to reject the application. This is especially encouraging, as when this column wrote about the campaign to block the Woodhouse coal mine last December, Labour shockingly refused to take an official position.  

Opposition locally has been led by both anti-nuclear and pro-climate action groups.  

The anti-nuclear Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole group’s spokesperson Marianne Birkby pointed out that potential coal mine-related earthquakes posed a significant threat to the toxic nuclear storage tanks at the nearby Sellafield Power Station and also could disturb the large amount of accumulated leaked radioactivity that has settled offshore in the Cumbrian mud-flats.  

The South Lakes Action on Climate Campaign spokesperson Maggie Mason told us that should Jenrick give the go-ahead, they would immediately seek to file a judicial review on the grounds that the decision would break the UK’s legal commitments to reduce carbon emissions under the Paris Climate Accord. 

A previous judicial review filed by Plan B against the government’s decision to approve expansion of Heathrow Airport was successful in the Court of Appeals on similar grounds that it contravened the UK’s responsibilities under the Paris Accord, although that is now being appealed at the Supreme Court.  

Just over 10 years ago, courageous climate protectors took direct action to block the Labour government from building a new fleet of coal-powered power stations, beginning with Kingsnorth in Kent. Despite the large politically-driven crackdown by the Kent Police and mass arrests at the climate camp set up to carry out peaceful direct actions at Kingsnorth, the campaign succeeded in blocking it.  

No new coal power stations have since been built in the UK, with even the Tory government now pledging to close down all remaining coal power stations by 2025.  

Coal will amazingly then have gone from 41 per cent of UK electricity production in 2012 to zero in just 13 years.

And the light of hope that the victorious Kingsnorth climate protectors lit burns to this day.  

There is now a possibility, with enough pressure, that the UK will do the right thing and keep the climatically-genocidal Woodhouse coal in the ground. It would end not only all UK coal-powered electricity but end all UK coal mining, even for heavy-industrial purposes, which can be supplied by green hydrogen.  

Jenrick has already issued a holding notice to stop the council issuing the planning permission, until such time as he decides whether to call in the decision.  

This is encouraging, as Jenrick refused to issue a holding notice for the previous successful application.  

If Jenrick decides to call in the application and requires a planning inquiry overseen by a senior planning inspector to consider the application, he then has the power to accept or reject its recommendations.

If he does block the mine, it will fuel the beacon of hope lit at Kingsnorth.  

Hope that our government and the governments from around the world assembling for the COP26 in Glasgow next November understand that the minimum first step to tackling the climate emergency must be to not do more harm by investing trillions of dollars in opening and expanding new coal, oil and gas fields across the world.  

COP26 must implement a ban on all such new fields globally.  

Woodhouse, like Kingsnorth before it, represents a crucial crossroads for the UK and humanity.  

You can encourage Jenrick to choose the correct road by messaging him using this form and calling on him to keep the coal in the ground.  

Woodhouse Colliery must not open.