Demand nature be restored to Ffos-y-fran opencast site

Your letter means much more if it's put in your own words why you want Merthyr Tydfil Council to deliver on its promise to return nature to the Ffos-y-fran opencast site, and reject 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 mine water above them, with just a road between that and them.
Residents deserve not to sorry about 37 million cubic metres of colliery spoil across the 3 coal tips becoming unstable in living memory of the 1966 Aberfan disaster, and recent 2024 coal tip slip in Cwmtillery.
Residents deserve to receive the quality of restoration promised to them as a condition of the opencast coal mine.
Residents deserve for the Council to investigate the mining company's unproven claim it can't fund the quality of restoration it's contractually obligated to deliver.
Commoners deserve to have their rights and grazing land restored to them and continue their traditional way of life.
The State of Nature Wales 2023 report outlined a nature emergency in Wales - we cannot afford to cut massively downgrade this restoration.

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 lanscape in that area. Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd agreed to this restoration plan in 2015, when it took over operations at the site.

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 whilst justifying the company getting its hands on the £15 million currently held by the Council in an ESCROW account. But that £15 million was only intended to pay another company 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 £75-110 million to pay for the restoration.

All public records suggests that the company has been putting funds aside for restoration costs - even claiming tax breaks on it from HMRC.

Leave behind a flooded mining void (the void is 175m deep at one end) with capacity for 1 million cubic metres of water
Leave behind 3 overburden mounds (coal tips) containing approx 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.
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.
An aftercare period of just 5 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 sequestion 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.

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Mining company sells out local communities to keep record profits

Take action by 14/03/25!

Main points of the agreed restoration scheme

A new plan to do as little as possible...

Main pitfalls of the new plan

Greenwash and urgency

Background and photos

Key facts & figures

Mining company's millions

Zombie restorations

Published: 28/02/2025

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