It comes after the Supreme Court’s decision last month to invalidate a different fossil fuel project, an oilfield located near Surrey’s Horse Hill, on the similar grounds.
Michael Gove, the head of the department responsible for levelling up, approved the West Cumbrian coking coal project in 2022 during the previous government. Nonetheless, the High Court was scheduled to hear a legal challenge from activists the next week.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, which is currently under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, said on Thursday that it was discontinuing.
It stated that the 2022 decision to approve it contained a “error of law”.
“We’re delighted that the government agrees that planning permission for this destructive, polluting, and unnecessary coal mine was unlawfully granted and that it should be quashed,” said Jamie Peters, the climate coordinator for Friends of the Earth.
