A decision to give the go-ahead for an £160m coal mine off the coast of Cumbria have been quashed.
At the High Court, judge Justice Holgate said environmental assumptions underpinning the development at Whitehaven were legally flawed.
The Government pulled out of defending the plans at the High Court hearing in July, after admitting West Cumbria Mining’s proposal was permitted unlawfully.
It said there was an error in law in the Conservative government’s decision to grant planning permission for the mine in December 2022.
It was due to defend the ruling at the High Court in legal challenges brought by Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action Against Climate Change.
The Government instead informed the court that the decision to grant planning permission should be quashed.
It is understood that the planning application will now return to the Government for a fresh decision.
The Government’s move followed the result of the Supreme Court’s June judgement on the Finch v Surrey County Council case, which ruled that emissions from burning fossil fuels must be considered in planning applications for new extraction projects – not just the impacts of the emissions produced in extracting them.
Combustion emissions from the inevitable burning of the Cumbrian coal should have been assessed in the developer’s climate assessment.
Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland & Lonsdale, said after the ruling: “It’s extremely welcome news that these environmentally backwards plans have finally been consigned to the dustbin where they belong.
“The environmental case and business case for this mine were deeply flawed, giving false hope to the people of West Cumbria. Rather than pushing this false hope, the previous Conservative Government should have been planning for long-term high quality renewable jobs on this site – but they failed to do so.
“What we need to see now from the new Government is to swiftly make up for the Conservatives’ failure and provide immediate significant investment into long-term jobs in renewable energy in West Cumbria such as tidal.”
