Challenge to Cumbria Coal Mine

A 3-day hearing has been ordered by a High Court judge to consider challenges against the decision by Secretary of State Michael Gove to grant permission for a new underground coal mine near Whitehaven, Cumbria. The mine would extract approximately 2.8 million tonnes of coal per year until 2050, generating approximately 220 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. Richard Buxton Solicitors represents South Lakes Action Against Climate Change (SLACC), one of two claimants challenging the decision.

(For our summary of the work done during and before the inquiry relating to the mine, see here.)

SLACC challenges the decision on four grounds, which are in summary:

1. that the Secretary of State erred when concluding that the climate impacts of the mine were “neutral or at worst slightly beneficial” (this unclear phrasing is from the decision letter) because there would be “potential for a significant degree of substitution” (i.e. for some of the coal from the mine to displace coal which otherwise would have come from other mines) when the evidence before the Inquiry had been that if even 1.1% of the coal was not subject to substitution, the emissions from the use of the coal would lead to a net increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions;
2. the Secretary of State erred in failing to address or even mention undisputed evidence before the inquiry that permitting the new coal mine would have a negative effect on the UK’s climate diplomacy and would send a signal that the UK is not serious about its climate ambition, resulting in reduced ambition from other countries and increased global GHG emissions;
3. The Secretary of State applied the wrong legal test in considering whether downstream emissions (i.e. the emissions from the use of the coal) should have been considered; and
4. The Inspector applied disparate standards to the evidence of the applicant coal mining company and the objectors, consistently resolving matters of uncertainty or evidential gaps in the applicant’s favour despite it being for the applicant to produce evidence to a standard to satisfy the Inspector that relevant policies were met. The Secretary of State adopted the findings of the Inspector, failing to correct this erroneous approach.

A full hearing of these grounds as well as the claim by Friends of the Earth, the other claimant challenging the decision, will now take place in the latter half of 2023.

For a summary of Friends of the Earth’s legal grounds against the mine, see here.