In his paper, Andrew Telford explores the politics of regionality in the context of the Woodhouse Colliery dispute in West Cumbria. The Woodhouse Colliery was a planned deep coalmine, the first in the UK for 30 years, which received planning permission and was due to open in Whitehaven in Cumbria (in the UK). After a 10-year legal and political debate, the mine proposal was quashed in the UK High Court in September 2024 and the planning application was withdrawn in 2025.

Telford explores the politics of regionality in this dispute, drawing on fieldwork conducted in February and July 2024. It includes reflections on the history of West Cumbria as a region, on regional ontology (which kinds of region are imagined in the colliery debate?), and on imaginative geographies of ‘West Cumbria’ harnessed by pro- and anti-mine advocates (including in the context of the Lake District National Park). It concludes with reflections on what this case study means for broader debates on the relationships between regionality and fossil fuel extractivism.

During the research seminar, dr. P.W. Zuidhof will comment on the paper.