Licensing Services

Any activity which intersects, disturbs or enters any of the Authority's coal interests requires our prior written authorisation.

This authorisation can take the form of either a Licence, an Agreement or a Permit, depending upon the activity to be carried out.

The following activities require a Licence or Agreement, and are dealt with by the Authority's Licensing department:

• The mining of coal
• Exploration for coal or deep drilling through coal for other purposes (e.g. water abstraction)
• Underground coal gasification
• Digging and carrying away of coal during non-coal mining related activities (incidental coal)
• Exploration and exploitation of coal methane

Activities including initial site investigation boreholes and any subsequent treatment of abandoned coal mine workings and coal mine entries for ground stability purposes require a Permit and are dealt with by the Permissions department.

Useful Information:

• Licensing Notices (current and archived)
• Map illustrating Coal Authority contacts for Licensing applications in England, Scotland and Wales
• Mining Technologies and Coal Mining Production Statistics
• Model documents for the application of permits and licenses
• Permissions section - permission to enter or disturb Coal Authority mining interests

Please note: in order to view documents in PDF format you will be required to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader