Woodhouse Colliery

Overview

Woodhouse Colliery, near Whitehaven, would have been the UK's first new deep coal mine in over thirty years -- a proposed coking-coal mine fought through a decade of planning battles before its developer withdrew the application in 2025 following a High Court ruling.

History

Woodhouse Colliery was proposed by West Cumbria Mining (WCM), backed by the Australian company EMR Capital, on a coastal site near Whitehaven, Cumbria, on the former Marchon chemical works. First announced in June 2014, the mine was designed to extract high-volatile, hard coking coal for steelmaking from two seams -- the Bannock Band and Main Band, each averaging 2.4 metres thick -- beneath a 77-square-mile area of the Irish Sea, at a projected output of around 2.5-3 million tonnes a year, some 85% destined for export. Cumbria County Council granted planning permission in March 2019 and reaffirmed it twice more, but the Secretary of State intervened repeatedly: Robert Jenrick directed the council not to grant permission in September 2020, then called the application in for his own review in March 2021, before Michael Gove approved it in December 2022, making it briefly the UK's first new deep coal mine to be approved in three decades. That approval was quashed by the High Court in September 2024 for failing to properly consider the mine's downstream carbon emissions -- estimated by the Climate Change Committee's chair at some 8.4 million tonnes of CO2 a year, more than the projected emissions from every open UK coal mine to 2050 combined. West Cumbria Mining withdrew its planning application on 31 March 2025, ending the project without a single tonne of coal ever raised.

Workings

Designed around two shafts and undersea drivages to the Bannock Band and Main Band coking-coal seams beneath the Irish Sea, with a buried conveyor to a rail-loading facility for onward transport to Redcar Bulk Terminal; none of this was ever built.

What remains

No mine was ever constructed; the site remains the former Marchon chemical works, undeveloped for mining.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Cumbria County Council granted planning permission in March 2019, but the Secretary of State directed the council not to grant permission in September 2020, then called in the application for his own review in March 2021; Michael Gove approved it in December 2022. ¹
• The 2022 approval was quashed by the High Court in September 2024 for failing to properly assess the mine's downstream carbon emissions; West Cumbria Mining withdrew its planning application on 31 March 2025. ¹
• The mine was designed to work two coking-coal seams, the Bannock Band and Main Band, each averaging 2.4 metres thick, with low ash (under 4%) and phosphorous (under 0.01%) suited to steel-making, transported via a buried conveyor to a rail-loading facility. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Woodhouse Colliery — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) What is Woodhouse Colliery? UK’s first approved coal mine in 30 years — NS Energy Business

Record created: 2 September 2026 · Last researched: 2 September 2026