All of the conditions for the planning permission have been met and the project is now live. This is the first new mining site we have operated in Durham for over 20 years and we’re keen to show how we operate and work all of our sites safely, efficiently and responsibly through our development with care approach.

Local Authority: Durham County Council

Site status: Work commenced

Site area: c71.3 hectares (c176 acres)

Amount of coal to be recovered: c500,000 tonnes

Site duration: Programmed for completion in 2021

Jobs: Around 30 jobs directly supported

Traffic movements: Maximum of 32 loaded lorries per working day

Restoration: Nature reserve / parkland and return to agricultural

Community Engagement: The inaugural meeting of the Bradley liaison committee was held on Thursday 22 February 2018. Regular meetings are now ongoing. Please see Bradley Downloads below for copies of minutes.

Need for coal: Coal is a valuable mineral resource which is used for a variety of purposes including iron and steel manufacture; cement manufacture; coke manufacture; domestic heat generation; sugar production; food and beverage production; chemicals production; patent fuel manufacture (smokeless briquettes); carbon fibre products manufacture and other uses; as well as electricity generation. Over the last decade or so around 9 million tonnes per annum of coal has been needed in the UK for non-electricity generation purposes; demand for coal for electricity generation was 14.5 million tonnes in 2017.

If we do not produce our own coal in the UK we simply import more from countries such as Russia, the USA, Colombia and Australia which produces more CO2 via its transportation than coal produced in the UK.