Bryn Bach Coal Ltd is the coal mining company that operates the Glan Lash opencast coal mine, which has been dormant since planning permission expired in 2019. In 2018, it applied for an extension which was unanimously rejected by planning councillors in 2023. Undeterred, Bryn Bach Coal Ltd is trying again! This time with a slightly smaller extension of some 85,000 tonnes rather than 95,000 tonnes. Check out the company's application and public responses so far.

According to UK Government industrial coal conversion factors, even the reduced Glan Lash coal mine extension could emit over 270,000 tonnes of CO2 from the use of the coal, a further c18,000 tonnes of CO2e in fugitive methane gas from the mine itself, and an uncalculated amount in emissions from years of heavy machinery excavating many thousands of tonnes of coal, soil, and rock, then returning it again.

The CO2e of the methane and coal use alone is roughly the same as driving from the northern most point in Scotland down through the UK to Lands End in Cornwall… 887 THOUSAND times, or dumping 1 in 5 of Welsh households’ recycling for a year into landfill. Bryn Bach Coal Ltd would need to grow 4.8 million tree seedlings for 10 years just to sequester these estimated emissions, which – needless to say – it does not intend to do. Instead, 2.5 hectares of trees will be destroyed, at least some of which is listed ancient woodland. Whatever the company purports about the quality of its coal or who it would sell the coal to, this coal mine extension in a climate crisis is clearly inexcusable, and sends the wrong message nationally, and internationally. The site was originally supposed to be restored before 2018 but extension applications delayed that and resulted in the decline of nationally and internationally protected habitats, and irreversible loss of nature prevented from returning to restored habitats. It’s time to finally return this land to the nature that was uprooted from it over a decade ago, and avoid the mistakes of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council’s policy of appeasement towards Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd and the Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine. Beyond the greenwash, this small opencast coal mine proposal contributes neither to the rich heritage of Wales, nor to its green and bright future.