West Cumbria Mining Judicial Review withdrawn

A guarded welcome to this week's news that the Judicial Review application into Cumbria CC's decision to grant planning permission to West Cumbria Mining has been withdrawn.

The reason I describe it as a guarded welcome is that, if the reason given to the Whitehaven News for their decision to drop by action by the protestors who brought the Judicial Review request is the real one, they have based it on a fundamental misunderstanding of the implications of the latest application on the site.

West Cumbria Mining has submitted proposals to modify the original application. These are currently out to public consultation, which will last until 15th June. The company is proposing a change in the way it plans to process coking coal, meaning only premium metallurgical coal will be processed.

Marianne Birkby, of the group behind the judicial review request, is quoted in the Whitehaven News as saying that the reason the judicial review was dropped was that:

“The point of the judicial review was to get Cumbria County Council to look at the plans again. Since WCM submitted the new details, there was no point in carrying on with the judicial review because they will reconsider it anyway.”

I am far from certain this makes sense.

Cumbria County Council is not supposed to - indeed, legally cannot - revisit the principle of the entire original application when it reviews the proposed change. The application before the council is whether or not to approve the amendment to the proposal.

If it is refused, West Cumbria Mining could still go ahead on the original basis, or come up with a different proposed amendment with a compromise which addresses any valid reason which might be given for refusing the application.

I hope this does not become the "Hokey Cokey judicial review" - put in when the objectors failed to get the application called in, taken out when the applicants put in an amendment, put in again if the application is approved - in, out, in out, waste a fortune of taxpayer' money in legal costs and hold up hundreds of new jobs in West Cumbria.

Anyone who wants to find out about the planning application and the proposed changes can find the documents submnitted to Cumbria County Council at:

https://planning.cumbria.gov.uk/Planning/Display/4/17/9007.

Comments

Gary Bullivant said…
West Cumbria Mining has submitted proposals to modify the original application in ways that seek to address the points that were used to justify the judicial review. Of course the review has been withdrawn and it will be interesting to see if and why costs are awarded to either side.
12:17 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
If that were the reason for withdrawing it, why didn't they give that reason to the Whitehaven News?

It would certainly have made a lot more sense than the reason they did give.

Awards of costs in planning cases are comparatively rare and unless the review were to be resubmitted I would be very surprised if one were made this time.

They are generally only made if one side is seen as having acted totally unreasonably in a way which imposed costs on the other and it is usually a high bar to jump.
2:37 pm
Gary Bullivant said…
Well, I don't know why Federica Bedendo and Marianne Birkby have chosen to present this in the way they have. What I do know is that the case for conducting a judicial review was successful because there were legitimate questions about the consideration of the middling coal, the greenhouse gasses and the project contribution to the carbon offsets necessary for the net zero target. Were that not the case the judge would not have scheduled a hearing and it is very unlikely indeed that WCM would have spent more money on studies and proposals to address the issues. Mr Justice Dove has the conch shell when it comes to costs.
7:27 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
You may possibly be right.

What you say certainly makes a lot more sense than the quote from the campaign group in the Whitehaven News does.
11:48 pm
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