The UK’s first deep coal mine in decades is to be built by West Cumbria Mining near Whitehaven.
Woodhouse Colliery would extract coking coal from the seabed off St Bees, creating potentially hundreds of jobs. The company leading the development says it hopes to begin work on the site early next year, with coal production starting around 2022. A BBC report stated that West Cumbria Mining believes there could be up to 750m tonnes of coal available in a 75 sq mile area around the colliery.
The last deep coal mine in the UK closed in 2016.
