With support from the Good Law Project, we have filed for a Judicial Review against both the Local Council and Welsh Government’s continuing failure to stop Ffos-y-fran, the UK’s biggest opencast coal mine, selling off over 1,000 tonnes of illegal coal each day right under their noses and to the harm of local residents, the surrounding environment, and our climate.
Even more scandalously, the Welsh Government has been profiteering by transporting this illegal coal along its railways over the past 11 months, to be burned by various customers in direct breach of its own climate commitments and policies against coal extraction.
Good Law Project has joined the fray, and are supporting us to finally stop the environmental onslaught of Ffos-y-fran with a judicial review. This has allowed us to assemble a crack legal team from Richard Buxton Solicitors, and Barristers’ Toby Fisher and James Maurici KC. Please share and donate to Good Law Project’s Crowdfunder (and check out their website, we could gush over all their work).
We are optimistic the legal pressure we’ve just heaped on will finally put a long-overdue end to what should never have happened in the first place. As with our judicial review (and now appeal!) of Aberpergwm deep coal mine, we shouldn’t have to undertake costly legal action to force the Welsh Government to fulfil its obligations to the current and future generations, in Wales and across the world.
See our Statement of Facts and Grounds (PDF) summarised below -
Coal Action Network is seeking to have judicially reviewed:
The grounds of claim are:
Coal Action Network is seeking a hearing on the first available date after 20 August 2023 to determine the following remedies:
After that, we’ll be campaigning for:
But what we must do now is to stop the daily environmental onslaught of the coal mine, producing equivalent to c4,000 tonnes of CO2 every day – or the average daily emissions of 175,000 people living in Wales, which is around 3x the population of Merthyr Tydfil itself! Imagine burning 1.75 MILLION litres of petrol every single morning – that’s the amount of CO2e this coal mine has been allowed to add to our atmosphere every day so far, illegally and without consequence.
Together, you, us, local residents, Good Law Project, and a network of Welsh groups like FOE Cymru, Climate Cymru, and XR Wales will prevail and put an end to this climate calamity any way we can. Let’s show the Council and Welsh Government how it’s done – time to roll up our sleeves and shut this mine down.
Let’s get it done
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The treatment of the people in the vicinity of this mine by the Welsh Government and local authority is disgraceful.