West Cumbria Mining application to be determined today.
The West Cumbria Mining planning application for a new coal mine in the Whitehaven and St Bees area comes to the CCC development control committee today at County Hall in Kendal. The meeting starts at 10 am. The report to the committee can be read on the County Council website here.
I will be attending the meeting as one of the two local members in whose divisions the application is located, and have registered to speak.
Council officers are recommending that the application be approved, subject to a submission from Natural England which is still awaited, with a section 106 agreement and a long list of conditions.
Comments
The great majority of applicants respect the vast majority of conditions, or come back and negotiate a reasonable variation.
There are cowboys who will ignore conditions and there are ineffectual planning authorities who let them get away with it.
This is a trap to be avoided, but certainly not a good reason not to put on planning conditions where they are neede.