The UK High Court has revoked the permit for the first coal mine in 30 years

High Court in London on Friday canceled a planning permission for Britain’s first new coal mine in three decades, ruling that the permit was illegal because it had failed to take into account emissions from burning the fuel.

Earlier this year, climate campaigners, including Friends of the Earth, challenge approval of the coal exploitation project.

Britain’s previous Conservative government approved Woodhouse Colliery in December 2022 design in Whitehaven, North West England, developed by West Cumbria Mining.

The project to mine metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel, will be needed to support steel production during the transition to Net Zero over the next few decades, WCM said at the end of 2023.

However, Britain’s new Labor government in July withdrew its support for the project and said it would no longer defend the case at the High Court. The UK’s new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, he accepted there was an “error of law” in the December 2022 approval.

The government’s move to drop its defense of the project follows a the reference judgment of the Supreme Court in June 2024, which ruled that a local council had unlawfully given approval to an onshore oil drilling project because planners must have taken into account emissions from the future use of oil as fuel, in a landmark case that would could disrupt new UK fossil fuel projects.

Today the High Court he agreed with legal challenges that the lifetime emissions of the proposed Whitehaven mine, largely from burning coal, were not properly accounted for and the approval was unlawful.

“We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground and build a cleaner, brighter future that will cut emissions, lower bills and create the well-paid jobs of tomorrow that areas like West Cumbria so urgently need.” said Niall Toru, Senior Advocate at Friends of the Earth.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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