Woodland saved as last opencast mine application in the UK is rejected

Martin Shipton

An ancient woodland has been saved thanks to a council’s decision to reject the UK’s last opencast coal application.

Carmarthenshire county councillors decided to reject Bryn Bach Coal Ltd’s second attempt to expand and extend the currently dormant Glan Lash opencast coal mine at Ammanford, amidst hundreds of hand-written and online objections from local residents.

Campaigners who opposed the application said the decision reflected a clear, strategic commitment to climate leadership, rare habitat protection, and safeguarding the health of surrounding communities.

There are no live applications for new coal mines, and only two active coal mines remain in the UK – a large, underground coal mine in Aberpergwm, Glynneath and a small underground coal mine called Ayle Colliery in Northumberland. There is a proposal at a pre-application stage to mine the Bedwas coal tips near Caerphilly of waste coal.

The proposed expansion to Glan Lash was the mining company’s second application following the unanimous rejection by councillors of the company’s first application in September 2023. The second application reduced the amount of coal to be mined from 95,000 tonnes to 85,000 over 5.4 years, with a slightly smaller area to be excavated.

However, opponents made the point that the latest application remained incompatible with Wales’ coal and protected habitats policies. Rejecting this application has prevented the release of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO2 and methane, as well as exhaust emissions from years of heavy machinery.

The would-be commercial buyers of this coal – as listed by the mining company – sell anthracite coal to burn on the international market, undermining the mining company’s claims that coal mined at Glan Lash would not be burned. Selling Glan Lash coal on the international market would fuel dependence abroad on the world’s number one dirtiest fossil fuel, while the UK itself transitions to greener, cleaner industry and air quality.

Beyond emissions, an independent ecologist’s report outlined in stark terms how the mine expansion would have destroyed a further 2.5 hectares of woodland, including sections of listed ancient woodland, as well as more than 400 metres of precious hedgerow habitat. It also would have delayed the excavated area’s restoration – which planning permission originally required to be delivered in 2019 – by a further 5.4 years.

The mining company originally committed to start restoring the site in 2018, but delayed this with successive attempts to extend mining instead. These delays have coincided with the deterioration of protected habitats on the site such as those supporting the threatened Marsh Fritillary butterflies, whose numbers have plummeted across the UK by 64% since just 2005. This refusal paves the way to finally require the company to return the land for the benefit of nature and local communities.

Buffer zone

With the closest homes just 30 metres from the edge of the opencast site, the application was also clearly incompatible with the 500-metre minimum buffer zone required by Welsh Government policy to protect surrounding communities from excessive noise, dust, and air pollution and disturbance.

Carmarthenshire’s decision reflects alignment with the Welsh Government’s positions on coal, climate, and nature recovery, the UK Government’s commitment to prevent new coal mining licences, and the international movement to phase out coal.

Local campaigner Philip Hughes said: “Following yet another year of record-breaking temperatures, we are so grateful that Carmarthenshire County Council has rejected the application. As was mentioned by so many residents visiting the petition stall, we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, create green jobs, and protect our beautiful county. Agreeing this application would have been disastrous on so many levels. Coal is our heritage but it is not our future.”

Daniel Therkelsen, Campaigns & Communications Manager for Coal Action Network, a group that campaigns for the full restoration of former mining sites, said: “We congratulate the local planning authority on making the right decision for Carmarthenshire’s sustainable future.

“We worked alongside local campaigners to secure this outcome, and we’ll continue to engage with the authority on the restoration to ensure it is delivered to the standard promised, and to avoid the tragic outcome currently unfolding at the Ffos-y-fran ex-opencast coal mine site, also in south Wales.”