
Campaign Update
Thanks to our donors, SLACC has been able to “instruct” Richard Buxton Solicitors and Cornerstone Chambers to progress the next stages towards a Judicial Review. The route to stopping the coal mine will become clearer, but we fully expect to need something like £50,000 for our legal challenge. So please keep sharing the fundraiser page. It is also important to increase public and media understanding of the planning application and why it is so damaging to the task of urgent reducing emissions. .
Richard Buxton Solicitors has, on SLACC’s behalf, sent a letter to Cumbria County Council and an email to the Secretary of State (SoS). These are initial steps in preparation for a legal challenge. See our Press Release here.
We needed to let the County Council and the SoS know that even the annual greenhouse gas emissions from operations of the Whitehaven Mine will exceed the “available emissions space” in the entire coal mining sub sector of the UK’s 6th Carbon Budget, recently released by the Committee on Climate Change. The UK Carbon Budget sets out the legally binding reductions in carbon emissions needed sector by sector for the period 2033-2037, however by 2026 the emissions from operations at the mine would be 3.7 times the total emissions available for all open coal mines (including unrestored old mines).
The 6th Carbon Budget projections are also incompatible with the County Councils conclusions that the need for coking coal in the UK will not significantly decrease over the coming decades to 2050. The projections from the Committee on Climate Change say that the use of coking coal in the UK steel industry needs to drop by approximately 2/3 by 2037. This is new information that the County Council did not have available on the 2nd October and Robert Jenrick does not appear to have considered either.
The letter to the County Council asks them to consider the new information before they issue the Decision Notice. The email to the SoS asks him to reconsider his decision NOT to “call in the application. This is still possible, because Cumbria County Council has not issued the DECISION NOTICE for the mine yet. In the lead up to COP26 it seems highly hypocritical to permit a mine that would jeopardise the UK’s ability to meet its own legally binding targets for carbon reduction. John Su
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Latest Post
- Keep supporting our FundraiserThere has been great public support for our CrowdJustice fundraiser, but we need to press on towards our £50,000 “stretch” target. Every pound counts. Please keep sharing the link with your contacts.
Current Submissions to Cumbria CC
Here you can find SLACC’s latest objection and letters. Previous submissions, including SLACC’s original and main objection, can be found at the bottom fo this page.
Other Independent Objections
Here is a selection of local and national voices united in objection to the WCM application. These views are independent of the SLACC legal case.
Summary of Issues
SLACC has submitted 2 objections to the Coal Mine as currently proposed, on 20 June and 1 October 2020. We have focused on planning policies and sound evidence to show why the application should have been refused.
Please see the supporting documents for a more detailed breakdown of the issues.
West Cumbria Mining Documentation
Key planning documents submitted by WCM. Feel free to read them and decide for yourself whether it’s a sustainable proposal.
The application can still be viewed at http://planning.cumbria.gov.uk/ Application Ref No: 4/17/9007.
Previous Submissions to Cumbria CC
Here you can find SLACC’s full objection and appendices to the WCM planning application.