Cumbria County Council has resolved to grant planning approval to West Cumbria Mining to develop the Cumbrian Metallurgical Coal Project.

The Woodhouse Colliery scheme will be a new underground mine located on a brownfield site near Whitehaven extracting metallurgical coal.

The developer said plans “included careful thought and consideration regarding the design of the surface infrastructure to minimise potential impact from noise, dust and light.”

Once construction of the mine is completed, Woodhouse Colliery will extract and process around 2.7m tonnes of coking coal per year for UK and European steel-making plants.

Site construction work will start early next year with initial coal production commencing around 18-months after the start of construction.

Mark Kirkbride, CEO of West Cumbria Mining said: “I am now looking forward to moving positively 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.”