Council call for more ‘hard hitting’ communication about dangers of coal tips

Anthony Lewis, Local Democracy Reporter 

There have been calls for more hard hitting communications from a Valleys council about the dangers of off road biking on coal tips.

At a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee, Councillor Gareth Hughes said he had “significant concerns” about off road bike use on coal tips in RCT.

He said it happens significantly in Tonypandy on the tips above Nantgwyn and right across the borough.

Cllr Hughes said they some level of communications around this but it’s met with ferocious backlash from the public.

He said he wondered if more hard hitting communication could be published with people who live in Tylorstown for example talking of the concerns and the worries of that tip falling and saying this is a real issue and what you’re doing on your bikes is destabilising these tips and maybe putting significant risk on residents.

He also said that often the criticism that comes back from the users is “well give us somewhere that we can go then” and he asked whether there’s a two pronged approach in terms of trying to stop them going in areas where they would cause real issues with tips the council is trying to remediate and make safe and areas they actually used in a safe manner.

Extremely challenging 

Jaqueline Mynott, head of infrastructure asset management at RCT Council, said off roading on tips is “extremely challenging” and where they have tried to publicise and ask people not to use the tips there has been a backlash.

She said they’ll discuss the idea of being a bit more forceful with it as well as coming up with a consensus approach between partner agencies as they rely on them to take forward any positive action.

Councillor Sera Evans said she absolutely 100% supports the surveillance of off roaders if they can work round GDPR implications.

She said in her own ward and across the county borough: “We know that off roaders really do create havoc on our mountains and in fact bring about dangers in relation to tips in particular.”

Councillor Jayne Brencher mentioned the idea of a greater community involvement with their local tips and whether this could help with the issue of off roaders.

She said the issue of off roaders ” is a really bad problem for us across our area.”

She suggested young people doing an online campaign and maybe getting some of the off road crews involved because there are official meets.

But she said it’s not just a youth issue as in one police campaign men in their mid 30s and early 40s were stopped.

Community asset

Jaqueline Mynott said the tips already are a community asset in some places in relation to access, walking and open spaces.

But she said the tip safety team would need additional support to carry this out as work is carried out on a prioritised basis with the focusing having to be on overall tip safety.

She added that they did start to engage with the Green Lane Association but as resources were targeted elsewhere this wasn’t progressed but that is something that could be progressed.

Councillor Craig Middle said although a lot of this is behind Tonypandy, the actual access and egress is through Clydach Vale or Penygraig and there’s a “serious problem” with that very issue of off road bikes causing chaos in the area.

He added that post Covid and certainly in the last year the off road bike scenario is starting to increase to an unacceptable level to our communities.