The Coal Mine has been scrapped – but the Haig Museum and Land has still not been handed back to the people of Whitehaven. Why?
Note: the Dept of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been replaced by Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Department for Business and Trade
….while the Coal Authority who handed over the Haig Museum to the coal mine developer for £1 is now the Mining Remediation Authority.
Gift from Whitehaven to West Cumbria Mining: Multi £Million Haig Mining Museum and Lands in exchange for £1
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The season of gifts and goodwill would be a good time for the Coal Authority (sponsored by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) and West Cumbria Mining to hand back to the people of Whitehaven the Haig Pit Museum and land.
Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole, a Radiation Free Lakeland campaign vigorously argued almost a decade ago that the Coal Authority should not grant West Cumbria Mining licences to drill so close to Sellafield’s stockpiles of plutonium, let alone hand over in 2021, for the breathtaking sum of £1, a cherished community asset such as the Haig Pit, Land and Mining Museum.
Back in 2021 the coal mine was also given approval by the same Government who had appointed the coal mine boss as their nuclear dump mining advisor. This advice included hugely damaging seismic blasting in the Irish Sea to “explore” the geology for a deep nuclear dump.
We asked if the £1.6 Million National Heritage Lottery money was ever returned following the shock closure of the popular, well used and much loved community resource of the Haig Mining Museum…this was the reply to our questions: “1. Was the £1.6 Million returned? (the Museum, Buildings and Land were bought for just £1 by West Cumbria Mining in what looks like a closed agreement between the Coal Authority, WCM, the liquidators and Copeland Borough Council)
Answer: No.
2. If not, what was the explanation?
Answer: The National Lottery Heritage Fund did set out an interest, but the Joint Liquidators advised in their Joint Liquidators’ Annual Progress Report to Creditors for the period to 14 February 2018 said “there will be insufficient funds realised after defraying the expenses of the liquidation to pay a dividend to unsecured creditors. FOI Team, The National Lottery Heritage Fund “
So what happened? Following liquidation of the Museum The Coal Authority gave the developers the whole Haig site for £1. After almost a decade of public money spent on inquiries and legal actions the Coal Authority then refused West Cumbria Mining licence to drill.
In another bizarre twist the Coal Authority is a government body sponsored by the same Government Department (BEIS) who have appointed the coal mine CEO, Mark Kirkbride to advise on digging a big hole for nuclear wastes in what is euphemistically called a Geological Disposal Facility.
Unless the Haig Mining Museum and associated lands are handed back to the people of Whitehaven, Mark Kirkbride and West Cumbria Mining will eventually be selling to the highest bidder with the monies going to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. This stinks on many levels not least the conflicts of interest.
The same person advising government on controversial high level nuclear waste dumping in a mine many times the size of the proposed coal mine is benefitting financially from his government employers in BEIS (who sponsor the Coal Authority) handing over the multi million Haig Museum and land for the sum of £1. These conflicts of interests continue with close relationships between the former Coal Authority Director Stephen Dingle appointing Sir Nigel Thrift to Chair of the Committee of Radioactive Waste Management who appointed coal boss Mark KIrkbride Sir Nigel Thrift described the West Cumbria Mining CEO as an “invaluable” colleague in the deep nuclear dump plan. The next stage of the nuclear dump for VERY hot nuclear wastes is VERY deep boreholes.
The last boreholes Mark Kirkbride had a hand in involved hitting a methane gas pocket off St Bees in the “exploration” for coal reserves, the coast guard were called out on that one.
There is also the very real possibility that Mark Kirkbride’s coal mine “exploratory” boreholes caused the change in the fragile honeycomb of connected historic mines leading to the catastrophic and ongoing acid mine drainage in Whitehaven harbour. In the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us every one!”
Write to your MP and ask for the following:
Hand back to the people of Whitehaven the Heritage Lottery Funded Haig Mining Museum and land given away for £1 to West Cumbria Mining.
Investigation into the conflict of interest between the appointment of the CEO of West Cumbria Mining, Mark Kirkbride to the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management whose sponsors are the same government Department (BEIS) as the Coal Authority’s who handed Mark Kirkbride the multi £million Haig Museum and Lands for £1
Notes:
Video from 2017 – before the multiple concerns of Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole (a Radiation Free Lakeland campaign) were cancelled and the narrative reduced to climate. As well as the coal extraction and developer’s nonsense of a climate neutral coal mine we talked about and opposed the coal mine on issues including proximity to Sellafield, the methane rich faulted geology, and subsidence/resuspension into the water column of the radioactive wastes in the silts of the Cumbrian Mud Patch (from decades of Sellafied discharge) this film was in 2017 before we knew the CEO of West Cumbria Mining was to be appointed as Nuclear Dump Mining Advisor at the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.
FOI request
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/haig_mining_museum_was_ps16_mill
Campaigning to Halt Coal Authority Licences https://keepcumbriancoalinthehole.wordpress.com/2022/04/18/cumbria-coal-mine-awarded-fresh-licence-to-drill-by-the-coal-authority/
West Cumbria Mining Boreholes hitting methane at St Bees https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/16750209.mining-crews-hit-gas-pocket-off-cumbrian-coast/
Lakes Against Nuclear Dump 
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