After 20 years of campaigning, last night (26/04/23) Merthyr Tydfil residents, Coal Action Network, Friends of the Earth Cymru, the Green Party, XR and other environmental campaigners finally collectively stopped Ffos-y-fran opencast coal with the Council’s refusal of permission to extend its climate chaos until 2024! This is an important step forward for the environmental movement across the UK.

Local people have suffered 16 years of dust, noise and a changing landscape, as 400 hectares of land got destroyed and 11 million tonnes of coal removed. The Welsh Government permitted what became the UK’s largest opencast coal mine to start in 2005 and, together with the local council, allowed it to keep mining after planning permission ran out in September 2022. An extension application to keep extracting coal until March 2024 was unanimously rejected by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council on the 26^th April.

At the planning hearing, the Council’s Planning Officers recommended that the application be refused, as it does not comply with Welsh law on coal mining.

Over 1,400 letters of objection written by Coal Action Network’s supporters were highlighted in the planning hearing, showing the large national and international demand to keep all coal in the ground. This highlights that Councils are being watched when they decide fossil fuel project permissions and should make them more accountable.

Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, the coal mining company, claimed that it was under no legal commitment to contribute to the restoration fund—which the council disagrees with; it failed to provide details of what proportion of coal used at Port Talbot came from Ffos-y-fran; it failed to pay dues to the council whilst mining without permission since Sept 2022. There is only a £15 million deposit in the restoration fund, when between £75m and £125m is required to put back the site

In the hearing, elected Councillors voiced serious concerns about the potential shortfall of at least £60 million to deliver the restoration long-promised to local residents, and the lack of enforcement action by the Council when the mining company simply kept mining after planning permission expired. They both need to be addressed urgently. We’ll be fighting for justice alongside local residents until it is delivered.

Over the years there has been wide and varied resistance to Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine. A non-exhaustive list includes:

• the private train line carrying coal was blocked in 2008.
• 500 local people attempted to take court action as a group to look at the health impacts of the mine, but their application was refused by the High Court as they were deemed unable to afford it.
• In 2009, Climate Camp Cymru attracted more than 500 people to an action camp at Ffos-y-Fran.
• The site was occupied by hundreds of people at a Reclaim the Power’s End Coal Now, camp in 2016. This supported the United Valleys Action Group’s (UVAG) efforts to stop Nant Llesg opencast—essentially an extension of Ffos-y-fran proposed for the other side of the road by Miller Argent (who operated Ffos-y-fran at the same time) resulted in rejection in 2017.
• The entrance and an excavator were blockaded by 5 people from Earth First! in 2018.
• Extinction Rebellion protestors dropped a banner in February 2023.
• Modern day, ‘Daughters of Rebecca’ protested Ffos-y-fran and 2 other coal mine extension applications on the steps of the Senedd in April 2023.