Quote of the day 9th December 2022

"Objections are met with a shrug on the streets of a town desperate for inward investment and regeneration.

"That is because the main objection to West Cumbria Mining's scheme has always been about image rather than substance. 

'What sort of a message does it send to the world,' the critics ask, 'if Britain opens a new coal mine?' 

To which Whitehaven's response could be summed up as follows: 

'What sort of a message does it send to the people of the North West if Westminster politicians would rather leave them jobless and just carry on importing the very same stuff from Australia, America and even Russia?' 

As they instantly point out here in Cumbria, this is not about digging up grubby old thermal coal.

This will be quality coking coal for making steel. We are still going to need steel (not least to build all those wind turbines and electric cars). That means we are still going to need coking coal. So what is preferable? Producing (and exporting) our own? Or buying it off other countries who have to ship it halfway round the world?"


(Robert Hardman, from an article about West Cumbria Mining's proposed new mine at Woodhouse Colliery in the Whitehaven and St Bees area. The article can be read in full here.)

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