How local campaigners won the battle to stop coal

September 2024 is the month that the UK’s addiction to coal finally ends. Coal Action Network campaigner Anne Harris explains how people power ended the dirtiest of all fossil fuels.

20 nervous people and four camera crews stood around the former county Hall in Kendal Cumbria, on Friday 13^th September, awaiting the biggest decision of the campaign to keep 60 million tonnes of coal off Whitehaven underground.

On learning that the High Court Judge agreed with all but one of South Lakes Action on Climate Change and Friend of the Earth’s arguments, thus revoking planning permission for the mine, the crowd was emotional. It was ruled that the previous Government’s decision making process in granting the permission was “muddled” and “inconsistent”.

This was a massive moment for the Cumbrians present and their supporters who have fought this application since 2017. Back then it was hard to rouse bigger organisations to fight against a new underground coal mine off the West Coast of Cumbria.

September 2024 is the month that the UK’s addiction to coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, has had its day. Along with the termination of this application’s planning permission, we see the last day that coal will be burnt for power at a UK power station.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station permanently shuts at the end of September, marking the end of 57 years of coal burning at the site. Its closure is the realisation of coal phase-out commitments that were first discussed in 2015. The power station has long been controversial, seeing activists occupying its conveyor belts in 2007 and trying to pull down its fences in 2009.

I have been part of Coal Action Network since its inception in 2008. We have worked with rural, often economically deprived, communities to stop more than 25 coal mining projects threatening their quality of life. Along the way there have been other moments like the one outside Kendal Town Hall, but this one is special because it marks the end of an era.

The UK Government’s phase-out of coal was brought forward to 2024 from 2025, but coal power stations were kept alive longer than originally planned due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Also this month, after nearly 70 years of using coal to make steel in blast furnaces, Port Talbot steelworks turns off its last furnace, as the plant converts to recycle steel, without needing coal. This Government has improved the redundancy deal for the 2,500 workers, but so much more could have been done to smooth this transition.

Around 2018, the conversation around the perceived need for coal mining for power stations, pivoted to coal for steelworks. The arguments against coal’s use in power were already won. The last new opencast coal mines started in 2018, the Bradley site in Pont Valley, and Field House opencast. Both were in county Durham and both were deeply contested, but ultimately the mines went ahead.

The community surrounding the Pont Valley fought against coal mining there for over 30 years. Coal extraction only went ahead because the coal company broke conditions of the planning permission in order to extract coal. This campaign features in the film Finite: the climate of change.

Of course there is a deep UK attachment to coal mining. This was galvanised by the opposition to Thatcher’s Governmental decision to make an example of the mining communities, leading to the severe repression of the miners striking 40 years ago. Much of this attachment, however, is to community and secure employment, not actually to a hard black rock.

The community surrounding the Pont Valley opencast created the slogan “Coal is our heritage, not our future” which was also used by those campaigning against the West Cumbria coal mine proposal. This shows the ways in which deprived rural communities have moved with the times.

In celebrating the UK’s enactment of a coal power phase-out; seeing the end of coal’s use in steel and winning the campaign against the last new coal mine proposal we must not ignore the difficulties these changes have created for working class communities across the UK.

For too long, heavy industries have been allowed to lead their workforce to the cliff edge of unemployment and skills dead-ends. With sensible planning, these companies and successive governments could have planned for a properly managed end to these industries with proper care and respect for workers and the wider community.

There is still work needed to ensure that these steps forward can’t be undone, in banning UK coal mining and fully putting back former mining sites. Ffos-y-fran, the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, is being left to flood with water, reminding local residents of the deaths and destruction caused by mine disasters such as Aberfan in 1966, which killed 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School.

I am proud to have been part of a diverse movement of people who have brought about the end of coal through a vast array of methods, including in-person demonstrations, writing, direct action, petition signing and community support. Coal really shows that together, we can address the climate crisis.

Anne Harris is a campaigner at Coal Action Network

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