Last Friday (5th March) West Cumbria Mining lodged formal papers with the High Court to challenge Cumbria CC’s decision to refer the planning application back to the Development Control and Regulation (DC&R) Committee. This looks like a desperate attempt by West Cumbria Mining (WCM) to avoid the Council properly considering new information about the climate impacts of the mine, including from the Government’s own expert advisors. See the Statement on WCM’s website.
Readers will recall that SLACC’s lawyers wrote to the Council twice in January to suggest it needed to consider new information that had arisen since it last resolved to grant planning permission in October 2020. The Council’s lawyers presumably advised them that this was necessary, and that issuing the decision without further consideration might be unlawful. Our Council would not be in this difficult decision if Robert Jenrick had called in the decision, which is evidently of (at least) national importance.
SLACC lawyers are now considering the situation, and in the meantime we will continue to prepare a “toolkit” to help those who want to make representations to the planning committee in advance of the 29th and 30th April DC&R Meeting (in faith that this will still happen). Please bear with us as we re-configure this webpage to include information and signposting to help you make your voice heard.