Site owners UK Coal said the setback was "disappointing" but vowed the development would still go ahead.

Stuart Oliver, spokeman for UK Coal, said this week: "We would have expected, in the circumstances which prevailed a month or two ago, to have moved smoothly from the planning stage to the building stage but there is now going to be a period of inactivity.

"Exactly how long that would be is impossible to predict but we are optimistic we are going to emerge out of this at some stage next year.

"Governments are trying to sort out the economic crisis that's gripping the world into some kind of recession and I'm afraid that the regeneration of the Prince of Wales colliery, as important as it is to us and to the people of Pontefract, is something that, perhaps just at the moment, won't proceed as quickly as we had hoped – but it will proceed.

"We will use the hiatus over the next few months to make sure that we are fit, healthy and ready to start when the green shoots of a better ecomony begin to show.

"There is lots preparatory work to do before the bulldozers move in. Work wouldn't have started until next year anyway. It is disappointing that the consent comes at a time when the market is low.

"This development is going to happen and the people of Pontefract will be the beneficiaries of it. There is nothing worse than ploughing ahead with a project in the current climate where homes are not being sold and where jobs are being lost, not created – but it will happen.

"The bottom line is there was still a demand for homes that existed three months ago and that's not going to go away during a financial crisis. So the demand will be there when confidence in the financial and housing markets are better."