A you know this was the brief reason given in the article.
Last year the government overruled the refusal of plans to have an opencast mine in Shotton, near Cramlington, and the county council did not want to face a similar challenge by turning down the proposals for Ashington. To me that seems, well, barely credible.
Edit:
Brings to mind a slogan I saw recently.
"Free bungee jumping for politicians - no strings attached"
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.