SLACC lawyers have today written to the Planning Casework Unit , the department that is managing the coal mine planning application for Angela Rayner, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). On the 6th February 2025 the PCU had sent a letter , called a “Rule 19 letter” to West Cumbria Mining. inviting them to write backto say what they want to do about the planning permission for the coal mine, which is currently “in limbo” after The High Court quashed their planning consent last September.
Friends of the Earth have also responded to the government letter, but as of 7.30 pm, we do not know if West Cumbria Mining has responded.
We might not be told immediately whether the mining company has responded, or exactly how Angela Rayner is going to manage the process. How, if WCM do decide to oersist and try to gather enough new evidence to make a convincing case, will she decide whether to approve the coal mine planning application.? Will she re-open the Public Inquiry, which would give other members of the public and other organisations, the opportunity to get involved ? Or might she try to decide outside the glare of publicity.?
Will she , as SLACC has requested, insist that the Coal Authority share the information about the type of coal, before they refused the extraction licence? Will the public get to know about the actual sulphur content of the coal, or why the Coal Authority had concerns about subsidece? Will advice from civil service experts to Michael Gove before he approved it in December 2022 be made fully public? But also, if WCM fail to make any submissions at this stage, what will Angela Rayner do? Would that be the end of it all, with a queit refusal of the application?
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