Scandal of failure to restore Wales’ last opencast mine site

Martin Shipton

The “epic mismanagement” of the Ffos-y-Fran mine saga must not happen again to any community in Wales, a Senedd committee has concluded.

A report from the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee calls for lessons to be learnt in how sites are restored after mining permits end.

Ffos-y-Fran mine in Merthyr Tydfil is the last opencast mine in Wales and the most high-profile site examined by the committee in its report.

The licence to extract coal from Ffos-y-Fran expired in September 2022 but local residents reported that the mine was still operating – illegally – many months after this before the site was closed in November 2023.

When it first opened, the company running the mine, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, pledged to fully restore the site after it finished operations.

Dividends

The committee heard evidence that since 2017, the company has paid out nearly £50m in dividends and royalties out of the business.

But with current restoration costs estimated at between £50m to £120m, and despite the original restoration promises, the company now claims that they are unable to afford this.

The local community is now looking at a permanent scar across its countryside as it fights to see the land restored as much as possible.

Alyson and Chris Austin live near Ffos-y-Fran and are long-term campaigners on the issue. They said,: “The whole process has been awful and the communication from both the council and the mining company has been appalling throughout. They will only tell us anything when they’re absolutely forced to; the local community seems to be at the bottom of their list of priorities.

“We have huge concerns about what the future holds for Ffos-y-Fran. What we’ll be left with is a loose and steep-sided valley with a lake at the bottom; easily accessible by anyone, and a magnet for children.

“We feel like we’ve been hung out to dry by our local authority, the Welsh Government, and government agencies at all levels. The mining company should be keeping to its promise of full restoration and the council shouldn’t let them get away with leaving us with dangerous and derelict land.

“This restoration of derelict and dangerous land was the only benefit to us suffering 17 years of opencast coal mining on our doorsteps. It’s simply not fair that the community is now left in a worse position than we were in before this started.”

Enforcement measures

This series of events has led the committee to call for the Welsh Government to use stronger enforcement measures when planning controls are breached, for example when mining continued at the site after the licence expiration.

The committee is also urging more transparency in all aspects of the mining process so that the public is aware of how plans develop.

It calls on the Welsh Government to require local authorities to ensure that all planning reports and restoration plans are available online and accessible by the public.

The Welsh Government should also encourage the use of citizens’ assemblies as forums for discussing the future of restoration sites, especially in cases where restoration has failed to meet the original plan and compromises may be necessary.

The committee’s report also explores the controversial issue of coal tip reclamation and who should pay for securing the safety of more than 2,000 coal tips which blight many communities across Wales.

While the UK Government has provided some extra funding in the last few years to mitigate the risk from nearly 300 high-risk tips, they say that as the policy area is devolved, the issue should primarily be dealt with by the Welsh Government.

Devolution

However, many Welsh politicians have argued that, as coal tips are a legacy of the country’s industrial history which predates devolution, the UK Government should bear the costs of the longer-term work to make coal tips safe.

The committee’s report urges the Welsh Government to engage with the UK Government to seek funding for coal tip remediation.

The committee report not only focusses on Ffos-y-Fran, but also other opencast mines in Wales and the broken restoration promises made to communities.

An opencast mine in Kenfig Hill, Margam, was closed over 15 years ago yet the restoration work “has fallen woefully short of what was promised”, according to the committee.

Margam residents told the committee that “local communities were forced to accept an alternative restoration which in fact, was no restoration. The so-called alternative restoration of the site used £5.7m of money, instead of the £40m needed to restore the site properly as was promised.”

The committee states that during discussions between local authorities and mining companies, the site operators often “held local authorities over a barrel” with authorities facing huge costs if the operators walked away when held to their original promises.

Community ownership

To ensure local support for any future developments, the committee recommends making a degree of community ownership a requirement for opencast and coal tip reclamation sites.

Committee Chair Llyr Gruffydd MS said, “This report details some of the most egregious examples of the broken promises made to communities across Wales. There has been an epic mismanagement of these mines, by all parties, from start to finish.

“Mining companies have racked up enormous profits but when it’s time to fulfill their restoration promises, the wallet is empty. They do as they please and local communities foot the bill.

“This is why it’s so important for community ownership to be considered in any new development, which could lead to more responsible management of mining sites.

“Residents told us they felt they had been completely failed by the public authorities who are meant to protect them. Too often they have seemed to be on the side of the mining companies.

“Transparency has been a real problem, with residents struggling to get answers from their councils when they have asked legitimate questions about mining near their homes.

“Time is quickly running out to secure what was promised for the local community in Ffos-y-Fran. We urge the Welsh Government, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, and other local authorities, to learn the lessons from this report, so these mistakes are never repeated in opencast mines or coal tip reclamations.”