Woodhouse Colliery is a proposed coal mine near to Whitehaven in Cumbria, England. The proposal is for the first deep coal mine in England since Asfordby pit in 1987. The coal mine has been advertised as bringing jobs to a deprived area but has also come in for criticism by green campaigners. In 2019, Cumbria County Council granted the planning permission for the venture. It is not to be confused with the former Woodhouse Close Colliery in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, which operated between 1835 and 1934.
History
In June 2014, West Cumbria Mining announced its intention to invest £14.7 million in a venture to explore for premium quality coking coal underneath the sea off Whitehaven. The project had started before as a plan to find and gasify the coal for energy use, but when the quality of the coal was discovered, it precipitated a shift into mining the coal for steelmaking. It is intended to use the coal only for coking rather than for the electricity supply industry. The fall in the price of ESI coal in the world markets also precipitated the closure of mines using coal only for ESI. If approved, the mine would be Englands' first deep coal mine since the Asfordby pit was sunk in 1987. The inferred resources suggest that the mine could produce over of coal per year from across a section underneath the Irish Sea. Backers of the scheme point out that Britain imports of coke per year, of which none is sourced in Europe, with most being from Australia and the USA. The mine would use former but extant tunnels from previous mining ventures for coal and anhydrite. The mine head would be located on the former Marchon chemical works site close to Haig Colliery and the suburb of Woodhouse just south of Whitehaven town centre in Cumbria. The proposal would be to mine the carboniferous coal seam up to a maximum depth of. In 2017, a geological team were working offshore from St Bees Head drilling into the rock below the sea bed to a depth of. This will determine the quality of the coal and check for any geological conditions that could affect the planning of the mine. The mine is expected to have a life of 50 years and employ 500 workers with the possibility the area contains over of coal in its reserves. 80% of the output from the mine has been promised to be railed out of the area to Redcar Bulk Terminal on Teesside for export. A conveyor would move the coal from the site to a loader away. Trains would number up to six per day including Saturdays, though the company acknowledge that the increase in traffic on the railway would require signalling improvements on the Cumbrian Coast Line. Additionally, West Cumbria Mining have applied to install a solar farm on the estate that would cover and provide 40% of the electricity needs of the mining operation. West Cumbria Mining is owned by EMR Capital, a company based in Australia that has injected over £20 million into the venture by June 2017. A further £200 million was projected to be spent in final testing, acquisition of rights and the implementation of the mine. The facility itself is expected to cost in the region of £165 million. The prospect of England's first new coal mine in over 30 years has prompted anger in parts of the local community with an action groupstarting up with the slogan Keep Cumbrian coal in the hole. The protesters have pointed out that the underground workings would extend to within of the nuclear ponds at Sellafield and they also cite the proximity of the mine to a proposed new nuclear facility at Moorside. Another concern is that of the prevalence of methane in the Cumbrian Coalfield. The protest group have pointed out that the dangerous levels of gas made the region an ideal test-bed for the Davy Lamp in 1816.
Approvals and appeals
In March 2019, a meeting of Cumbria County Council's planning committee voted unanimously in favour of the project citing "the desperate need for jobs, particularly in deprived wards close to the proposed new mine". Green campaigners announced that they would launch a legal challenge. A spokesperson for South Lakes Action on Climate Change, said that the mine would "totally undermine Cumbria's chances of hitting emission targets". In November 2019, the government decided not to intervene in the appeals process and stated the "... Council should take the decision". Work on the site is expected to start in 2020, with coaling operations starting in 2022.
