Cumbria coal mine shows planning is the next battleground in UK climate policy
The new minister for local government, Angela Rayner, has announced that the government would withdraw its support for a new coal mine near Whitehaven in Cumbria, which had been approved two years ago by the then Conservative government.
This intervention follows a recent landmark Supreme Court ruling making it harder for new sites of fossil fuel extraction to be approved.
Now the government needs to show that it understands what it means to decisively put the UK on a path towards clean energy while still recognising the importance of economic and social justice. It must draw a much clearer connection between decarbonisation and planning policy when it revises the national planning framework this summer. This would remove ambiguities about new fossil fuel extraction and would mean putting in place strong policies for new, green industries like the government has already done with onshore wind.
Read more here.