West Cumbria mining update

Since the planning application by West Cumbria Mining was approved last week I and other members of Cumbria County Council have been getting lots of emails from all around the country from people who are unhappy about it. Precisely one of those emails has come from someone who lives anywhere remotely near the planned mine.

In spite of the fact that the application was unanimously supported by the councillors who had sat and listened to hours of reports and presentation from professional officers and representatives of both sides of the argument - including the Lib/Dem chairman of the committee and both the other Lib/Dem councillors on the committee - former Lib/Dem leader Tim Farron, who represents a constituency an hour's drive away on the other side of the highest mountains in England, has taken it upon himself to try to get the application "called in" by the Secretary of State.

This is a procedure which can be triggered by the government at the suggestion of the local planning authority, of objectors, or on ministers' own initiative if they consider that a planning application which a local authority is "minded" to grant raises serious issues of national or local planning policy. It is most often used if a council wants to do something - or is being strongly encouraged to do something - which is a clear breach of an important policy such as the Green Belt.

If the application were to be called in there would be a stop on the issue of planning permission while a public inquiry was held which would make a recommendation to the Secretary of State, currently James Brokenshire, who would then decide whether to grant the application. 

Effectively, after the process of deciding on the proposal has already taken nearly two years during which officers of the county council have considered in massive detail every aspect of the plans, a "call in" would delay the decision by a further year so that the government could do the whole thing again.

Is this reasonable?

I am quite certain that the overwhelming majority of the residents of my division and of Copeland would give the same answer as I do - a big, resounding NO.

The report to committee on the checks and investigations and negotiations which have already taken place between Cumbria County Council and West Cumbria Mining ran to 188 pages - and that was just a summary. Putting the applicants through the whole thing again so that the government can repeat the work amounts to refusal by delay.

Many of those who are supporting a call in, most of whom are either from the other end of the county or the other end of the country, appear to misunderstand the application, as they talk a bout leaving "fossil fuels" in the ground. This application is not about coal to burn for fuel, it is for metallurgical coal for use by the UK steel industry to save them having to import coal from the other side of the Atlantic and will reduce, not increase, the release of greenhouse gases.

At the meeting a speaker called David Douglas gave a very effective demolition of the supposedly "green" argument against a mine to produce coking coal specifically for making steel. As he pointed out, you cannot make wind turbines, cars, buses or trains without steel. The same applies to many other things which a modern economy depends on. To make steel you need coking coal. 

While we are using steel there will be a steel industry and it will use coal which must be mined somewhere. At the moment the UK steel industry uses coal mined in the USA using methods which do far more damage to the environment than the new mine proposed for West Cumbria will.

I believe the committee was right to grant permission: I believe it would be a great mistake to call it in. I have written to the Secretary of State urging him not to do so.

Comments

Gary Bullivant said…
Objectors will warm to the idea of refusal by delay because delay usually means increased cost, which will no doubt impact on the balance of investment as presented in the definitive feasibility study - there is one isn't there? In fact, were I to look at the CCC decision from a WCM investor's perspective I would say it looks quite like refusal by condition and legal agreement.

On top of that it can't be comfortable for WCM investors to know that the Shadow Environment Secretary is the MP for Workington and a Copeland resident who has just announced a "climate emergency" on behalf of one half of the new government of national unity.

And finally, the more delay the more chance the Prince of Wales will end up being owner of the coal in the offshore hole and we all know he has a different public view on these green things from his mother and brother.

Still, if the "approval" helps to get the non-political Mayor re-elected then some good will have come of it, eh?

Chris Whiteside said…
Refusal by delay is the worst kind of cowardice - if you want to refuse you should do so because of a valid planning reason for refusal and let everybody know exactly where they stand.

There was a long and, yes, an onerous list of conditions but these were necessary to minimise the impact of the proposal on the environment. I don't believe that these will kill the scheme.

I do not think that the Prince of Wales will either.

If that they thought that the arguments Mike Starkie put forward in his speech made sense for the community that could quite possibly and legitimately have influenced councillors on the committee.

I very greatly doubt that the issue of whether approving the application would help him get re-elected was of any interest whatsoever to them. Nor should it be.

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