‘Don’t let controversial businessman wriggle off £100m restoration hook’

Martin Shipton

A campaign group is urging people to object to plans that could see a controversial businessman walk away from his obligation to properly restore at a cost of up to £110m what was the largest opencast mine in Wales.

Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd illegally mined coal at Ffos-y-fran for over a year, profiting from record coal prices. Now it wants to keep all the profits by trying to drastically downgrade the restoration plan, breaking its promise to the 60,000 residents of Merthyr Tydfil.

Last year Nation.Cymru revealed how David Lewis, the sole director of Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, had a conviction for defrauding a bank of £88,000 to fund his gambling addiction and how he had recently assaulted an elderly solicitor outside his Newport office.

Now the Coal Action Network (CAN), which campaigns for the proper remediation of disused mines wants objections to the company’s cut-price restoration proposal to be submitted to Merthyr council before the deadline of January 17 2026.

A statement on CAN’s website states: “Your objection means much more if it’s put in your own words why you want Merthyr Tydfil Council to refuse the application to downgrade this huge restoration project. Here’s some points you might choose to include, or go straight to the objection form:
* Residents deserve not to worry about a million cubic metres of polluted mine water above them, with just a road between that and them.

* Residents deserve not to worry about 37 million cubic metres of colliery spoil across the 3 coal tips less than 3 miles from the 1966 Aberfan disaster.

* Residents deserve not to worry about their kids playing near a sheer cliff edge with 100m drop into a flooded mine.

* Residents deserve to receive the quality of restoration promised to them.

* Commoners deserve to have their rights and grazing land restored to them in full.

“The State of Nature Wales 2023 report outlined a nature emergency in Wales – we cannot afford this downgrade.

“Benefits of the current full restoration plan: Ironically, the original approval of the opencast coal mine was to fund the restoration of the area which had been scarred by previous iron ore and coal mining. Key to the agreed restoration plan is that the huge overburden mounds (coal tips), currently dumped in 3 mountainous piles around the site, would be returned to the void, both of which were created by the opencast coal mining. That would return the site to the undulating landscape it was before and in sync with the rest of the landscape in that area. Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd agreed to this restoration plan in 2015, when it took over operations at the site – but is now trying to wriggle out of that contract.

“Can the company afford the current full restoration plan? We got internationally renowned forensic accountants, C. Lewis & Company, to analyse mining company Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd’s accounts. Guess what? Not only can the mining company afford the full restoration, it’s set the money aside for it, and it can’t spend it on anything else….unless the Council agrees to downgrade the restoration by granting the company’s cut-price restoration application.

“It’s a stitch up! Don’t let it happen. A new cut-price plan to do as little as possible…

“The new proposal was published on Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council’s website on Friday 21/02/2025. It is a plan to do as little as possible that would justify the company getting its hands on the £15m currently held by the council in an escrow account. But that £15m was only intended to cover the barest necessities to make the site safe in case Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd goes bust. Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd hasn’t gone bust though, and should be stumping up around £75-110m to pay for the restoration.”

Pitfalls

The CAN statement goes on to set out what the group sees as the main pitfalls of the new plan:
* It will leave behind a flooded mining void (the void is 175m deep at one end) with capacity for 1 million cubic metres of water

* It will 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. This would permanently alter the landscape beyond recognition from what it was before and the surrounding landscape.

*It will leave behind a huge exposed coal-face cliff. Other than being an eyesore for local people, rain will cause erosion over years expected to leach heavy metals and toxic elements from the coal into the flooded mining void that will discharge into local waterways.

* There will be an aftercare period of just five years – this must be at least 15 years to ensure any woodland planting that hasn’t survived can be replaced and nurtured to maturity.

“The 218-page environmental impact assessment for the new plan is overflowing with greenwash. The assessment celebrates how this opencast coal mine removed the scars of historic mining from the landscape, but then claims that the lack of restoration it’s now proposing for the opencast coal mine will be an ‘educational resource’ and testament to the area’s mining history.

“The assessment also claims that not moving the overburden mounds back to the void will save CO2 and dust from HGV machinery – yet where were these concerns during the 15 years of mining and final year of illegal coal mining? The CO2 from these earth works will pale in comparison to the coal mining and burning that occurred at the site until recently. The mining company has always claimed that it can suppress dust pollution from the site – why is it suddenly unable to now?

“The assessment fails to account for the impact that a loss of land and carbon sequestration will have over the decades. The State of Nature Wales 2023 reveals the devastating scale of nature loss across the country and the risk of extinction for many species. This is not the time to cut the restoration budget by around 80-90% of a huge site – much of which has been off-limits to nature for too long.

Objections to the cut-price reclamation plan can be lodged with Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council via this link.

Mr Lewis does not respond to requests for comment from Nation.Cymru.