Cumbria County Council has given the green light for a 21st century deep coal mine in Cumbria requiring around £175m of investment.

To be known as Woodhouse Colliery, the new underground coking coal mine will be located on a brownfield site near Whitehaven in West Cumbria.

Radical designs for surface infrastructure will minimise any potential impact from noise, dust and light.

Once construction of the mine is completed and Woodhouse Colliery moves into the operational phase, the company plans to extract and process around 2.5 million tonnes of high-quality coal for use in the steel industry.

Over the coming months, The West Cumbria Mining Company will continue to work with the council to finalise conditions, enabling the project to progress to the pre-construction and construction phases.

It is anticipated that site work will start before the end of 2019, with coal production commencing around 24-months from the start of construction.

WCM will move mined coal via a buried 2.2km long conveyor to a train loading facility, with its own dedicated siding, on the Cumbria Coast railway line.

Mark Kirkbride, CEO of West Cumbria Mining said “Today marks a very important milestone in our journey to develop a world class mine in Cumbria and is the culmination of five years of hard work and determination by the WCM team to realise our vision.

“We now look forward to moving towards the construction of Woodhouse Colliery and harnessing the extensive mining history and knowledge in West Cumbria to operate a state-of-the-art mine, including the highest levels of health and safety and technology to ultimately realise our vision of becoming a leading European producer of high-quality metallurgical coal for steel making”.

Source: Construction Enquirer