Guidance

Free of charge coal mining information

How to access and use the coal mining information for England, Scotland and Wales held in the national coal mining database.

The Coal Authority holds coal mining data in a national database. This provides information on past and present coal mining.

The Interactive Map Viewer and the Web Mapping Services are provided free of charge.

More information about accessing coal mining abandonment plans, photographs, licensing information, property deeds and documents.

Coal Authority interactive map viewer

The Coal Authority interactive map viewer allows you to view selected coal mining information in your browser graphically.

Reasons to use this information include:

  • finding out if a property is affected by coal mining
  • checking if your site is in a high risk area
  • checking for coal and mine entries on or near the surface

To check a particular location either enter a post code or use your mouse to zoom in to view the surrounding area.

Turning on selected data layers will let you see various coal mining data on top of the map. Clicking on any data points or areas will provide some further detailed information.

Terms and conditions of use are provided on the splash screen on the interactive map viewer. These were amended in March 2018

Please be aware that this data represents a snap shot in time from the national coal mining database which is regularly updated with new information. Date of last data extract: 30 July 2021

Web Mapping Services

To analyse coal mining data against your own data you will need to use geographic information systems (GIS) software.

The datasets available are all raster images without details of individual features, see available Coal Authority data if you have more specific needs.

Enter the address of the dataset you want into your Web Mapping Service client (tip: right click and copy shortcut).

Open Government Licence v3

The Coal Authority has made data sets available for use by third parties under the Open Government Licence v3:

  • Coal Authority Managed Tips
  • Coal Authority Mine Water Treatment Schemes

Please contact us by email at datasolutions@coal.gov.uk if you’re interested in licensing these data sets.

Available Coal Authority data

If you need full vector data, including feature details, then contact us at datasolutions@coal.gov.uk to discuss your requirements. Pricing is worked out on an individual basis depending on the amount and type of data that is required.

Technical details of the available data, such as formats and coordinate systems, can be found in the coal mining data metadata documents.

Published 9 October 2014
Last updated 30 September 2021 + show all updates
  1. Removed dataset comprising Coal Authority monitoring points and licence areas

  2. Update to the Interactive Map Viewer: 30 July 2021

  3. The Coal Authority interactive map viewer data refreshed on 11 April 2018

  4. The Coal Authority has made data sets available for use by third parties under the Open Government Licence v3.

  5. Updated to show coal mining information that is available free of charge

  6. Information updated under the interactive map viewer section.

  7. Inclusion of INSPIRE compliant data available as a web mapping service.

  8. First published.