What will the mine look like?

In developing our plan, we paid a lot of attention to the mine design and appearance to ensure that it not only is appropriate for the location but also that the design helps us to achieve our goals of preventing noise, dust and light pollution.

The buildings have been designed to look very different to mining sites of the past and are low level, buried or visually screened to reduce impacts to an absolute minimum. The domed design of the fully enclosed structures is a more attractive and innovative approach and make them more unobtrusive in their environment.

The coal will be processed in a plant which is a ‘building within a building’ to minimise noise, dust and light impact.  This preparation plant will include coverage storage of coal from the mine as well as coal product after washing.

The proposed designs were presented to the local community at a series of public events between 2014 and 2018. We listened to comments and drew on this feedback in the creation of our final plans, which were submitted to Cumbria County Council (CCC) in May 2017.

Some of the revisions to our original designs following on from feedback we received included:

• incorporation of more bunding and planting to reduce the visual impact to a minimum
• re-arranging the layout of the site to minimise noise
• reducing the overall height of the buildings
• enclosing the mine drifts to reduce surface noise, dust and light pollution
• creation of a public park area to the north of the site
• a footpath connecting High Road to the coastal path

On 19^th March 2019, Cumbria County Council formally gave planning approval for our project, which will be known as Woodhouse Colliery.  We anticipate that site work will start before the end of this year, with coal production commencing around 24-months from the start of construction.

Below is a visual of the surface site design of Woodhouse Colliery.