Council’s 53 secret meetings with controversial mine operator revealed

Martin Shipton

Freedom of Information requests have revealed that Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council has held no fewer than 53 private meetings totalling over 77 hours with the operator of a controversial coal mine while completely freezing out the local community.

There are serious concerns that businessman David Lewis, whose company Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd continued to extract coal illegally from the Ffos-y-fran opencast mine after its licence expired.

The FoI disclosures expose a deep imbalance in how the local authority has handled the highly controversial restoration of the UK’s largest opencast coal mine. In the council’s own words, obtained via the FOI request: “The Planning Department has not arranged any meetings with local residents and their representatives since 02/09/2022 regarding Ffos-Y-Fran restoration.”

On that date Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd submitted an application to extend the mine, just four days before planning permission ran out.

While the council spent the subsequent years in extensive, closed-door discussions with the mining company, the people living on the doorstep of the site have been left completely in the dark regarding what will happen to the massive pit left behind. For example, the fact that the coal mine had been allowed to flood with millions of litres of polluted mine water was not made public by the council. It was eventually exposed by the campaign group Coal Action Network via BBC Wales.

The Ffos-y-fran site was supposed to be fully restored to safe, green hillsides for the community. However, fears have continued to mount across south Wales that the full funds required for a complete, high-quality restoration may not be delivered, leaving a scarred landscape next to residential areas – a situation that has led to the Welsh Government calling the matter in for a public inquiry, although no details have been published yet.

Daniel Therkelsen, campaigns manager for Coal Action Network, said: “It is not unusual that the local planning authority may meet with a developer, but this level of engagement is remarkable. What takes this from remarkable to irregular is that the council responded to FOI requests for the content of these meetings from Coal Action Network by claiming to have failed to minute or even take notes during most of these extensive meetings. This prohibits any public scrutiny over how the council is engaging with a mining company over an issue with a very high public profile, and is evidence of a shocking lack of transparency within a local planning authority.

“Merthyr council has developed an unusually close relationship with a coal mining company that has been explicit in its refusal to fulfil its contractual duty to fund the restoration of the Ffos-y-fran site. This is particularly concerning, given the original reason for coal mining to be permitted was to finance the restoration of the area.

“But rather than build public trust in its approach, the council has been hostile towards external scrutiny or accountability in how it has handled a rapidly derailing £91m restoration project on the doorsteps of Merthyr Tydfil’s 58,000 residents. We hope the upcoming public inquiry will cover the wide scope of relevant issues that former Minister Rebecca Evans outlined when she escalated this matter to be decided by a Welsh Government Minister.”

Called in 

A planning application for the slimmed-down restoration scheme that has now been called in by the Welsh Government has been described by Coal Action Network as “a plan to do as little as possible”.
According to the campaign group, the proposal would have huge drawbacks, including leaving behind a flooded mining void that is 175m deep at one end with capacity for a million cubic metres of water.

It would also leave behind three overburden mounds (coal tips) containing approximately 37 million cubic metres of colliery spoil, rock, and soil – around just 2.8 miles from the site of the Aberfan disaster, where a coal tip collapsed, killing 144 people.

Meanwhile, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd’s latest accounts were published this week on July 9, almost 10 months later than they should have been. They show that a reduced amount of £86.4m has been set aside for reclamation of Ffos-y-fran. According to the accounts, some £10.6m has already been spent on restoring the site.