Planning incapacitated: Environmental planning and the political ecology of austerity

Coal mining in the UK, once central to its political economy, has been in terminal decline for decades for both political and more recently environmental reasons. Against the grain of this decline, the proposal of a new metallurgical coal mine near Whitehaven (on the north west coast of England) has caused significant controversy. Those supporting the mines development say it is necessary to ‘level up’ from the previous decade of austerity, whereas opponents argue that new coal mining would severely undermine the transition to low carbon energy sources. Through a discourse analysis and open-ended interviews, this paper analyses the contestation of the mine through the environmental planning process, identifying how both the discursive contestation and decision-making practices are shaped by political logics (austerity/levelling up) and ecological logics (climate change). The paper finds that, as states turn towards greater levels of public subsidies as a new form of crisis management, the environmental decision-making processes which can determine the shape of investments have been severely undermined through a decade or more of reduced public investment, policy streamlining and a lack of public expertise. The paper argues that even though states may be turning towards policies subsidising energy projects, they are doing so in a context where there is a lack of state capacity due to a ‘political ecology of austerity’, limiting public capacity to plan for a better future.