Although the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill creates no new responsibilities additional to what is contained within the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969, it does both make potentially costly tip maintenance more enforceable and lowers the threshold to act for better prevention of tip instability.

The typical private land owner or even Council may welcome or encourage a proposal from the private sector to flatten the coal tip at no cost to them, rather than face higher ongoing maintenance costs relating to coal tip stability as a result of the above two features of the Bill.  These costs can amount to millions of pounds. Although there has been a keenness to distinguish coal tip remediation from the coal tip safety monitoring and works that this Bill is concerned with, the reality is that this distinction blurs when remedial works can remove stability issues moving forward.

Caerphilly Council spent £1.8m across two coal tips (T10817 and T36144) on routine maintenance and preventative measures over just two years (2021-23). NRW responded to the CCEIC’s consultation, saying the Bill “underestimates the costs of compliance for tip owners”.

The Leader of Caerphilly County Council, in March 2025, wrote in relation to a proposal to mine two Bedwas coal tips by ERI Ltd:

“The risk of the tip is a current and real issue that is managed constantly by the infrastructure team, doing nothing is not an option… The project is designed to use the value within the land to address a risk for which it bears the responsibility to address. In return CCBC receive an asset in the form of a reclaimed tip with reduced maintenance liabilities that will be open to residents of the borough.”

This example is not in isolation either, “Andrew Morgan (WLGA) told the Committee that Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council (CBC) was regularly contacted by private companies with offers to remediate disused tips owned by the council” – p.50, Stage One Report.

The Coal Policy Statement of March 2021 cites that wholly exceptional applications for coal extraction would be considered if they could demonstrate why extraction is needed to “ensure the safe winding-down of mining operations or site remediation.”, amongst other criteria that could also apply to coal tip-remining projects.

The Coal Licencing Ban currently under formulation by the UK Government will also fail to catch such applications as they do not require a licence, only planning permission.

The Hardship Grant Scheme for landowners only exists where those landowners are unable to afford maintenance works, not for those who are technically able to but would struggle to, or understandably prefer to avoid, this new significant financial burden.

To ensure the Bill does not have this unintended consequence, we ask the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs to reconsider including on the face of the Bill an amendment that “That any coal extracted during remediation work cannot sold where there is any possibility of that coal being combusted, on the grounds that this will contribute to the climate change which the Bill acknowledges will increasingly threaten the stability risk of coal tips moving forward”.

This is an amendment supported by the Welsh Local Government Association in its consultation with the CCEIC, civil society (including consultees Coal Action Network and FOE Cymru), and the CCEIC itself in its Stage 1 Report.