Shareholders of developer Sirius Minerals voted in favour of a 5.5p a share offer from Anglo to buy the polyhalite fertiliser project for £400m.

The deal distils big losses for investors but paves the way for Anglo to take the mega-project forward, after much of the construction team was stood down last year due to a funding crisis.

Russell Scrimshaw, chairman of Sirius, said: “The positive outcome from today’s meeting secures a return for shareholders, and provides greater certainty in terms of safeguarding the project, protecting the jobs of our employees, and allowing the community, region and the UK to continue to benefit from the project.”

Anglo American has committed to salvaging the construction project spending around £230m a year for the next two years to keep construction going.

This will allow main tunnelling contractor Strabag, civils specialist P J Carey and mineshaft contractor DMC Mining Services to continue working on the vast scheme.

The full scheme will require £2.5bn to complete, which Anglo is committed to delivering, subject to a development review over the next two years.

So far around £850m has been spent on the scheme.

Sirius Minerals was forced to scale-back construction on the project last November after failing to secure further major funding for the vast construction project.

Failure to raise the $500m needed for the next major phase of construction saw shares in the firm crash 60% to 4p late last year.

Hundreds of workers were laid off at the North York moors potash mine site although Austrian tunnelling specialist Strabag, which has the contract for the three main 23-mile tunnel drives to transport excavated material to the coast, continued construction on one of its drives.