Deep (AKA underground) coal mines have a long history in the UK dating back some 400 years. On the other hand, opencast coal mines only became common between 1940 and 60, becoming the dominant mining method in the UK as deep coal mining entered rapid decline. Opencast coal mining techniques were largely imported from the USA (Hansard, 1950) together with the heavy machinery they required. In 1942, the UK Government established the Directorate of Opencast Coal Production under the Ministry of Works to exploit coal seams near the surface (National Archives, n.d.) that were too shallow or fragmented for deep-mining techniques (Ritchie & Roser, 2019). The UK Government encouragement of opencast coal mining was partly the result of a need to boost coal production and a wartime shortage of labour to do it (British Geological Survey). Opencast coal mining was cheaper and used less labour - it also did not require the specialised skills that deep coal mines do. Although opencast coal mining was introduced as an emergency wartime measure, it persisted due to its economic viability compared with deep coal mining. Yet, despite this transition from deep to opencast coal mining, as of 2026, deep coal mines have outlived opencast coal mines as the only active mines remaining in the UK - namely, Aberpergwm in South Wales and the relatively small Ayle Colliery in Northumberland.
The Opencast Coal Act 1958 provided the first comprehensive legal framework for the industry, regulating land acquisition and restoration requirements as the practice moved from emergency status to a long-term economic strategy. However, today we see that this legislation and subsequent legislation was not strong enough to secure restoration of the sprawling opencast coal mines.
We worked with media outlet, Nation.Cymru, to ask where the main political parties in Wales stands on restoration issues ahead of the Welsh election on 07th May 2026. This is a key issue for many people, but particularly those who live near under-restored opencast coal mine sites. These sites need Welsh Government support to bring them more in line with the quality that was promised to local residents. It's also vital that Wales learns lessons from its scarred landscape. We hope that these political parties remember these pre-election commitments when it comes to determine the called-in Ffos-y-fran ex-opencast restoration planning application. Reform was the only party not to respond - but this is a summary of what the other political parties of Wales had to say:
(see the Nation.Cymru article for the full account)
Industry Accountability: Strengthening "polluter pays" laws to ensure companies that profited from heavy industry are legally responsible for land restoration.
National Remediation: Implementing a nationwide strategy to monitor and restore every coal tip, while demanding Westminster fund the clean-up of pre-devolution hazards.
Community Planning: Reforming land-use planning to balance development with nature restoration and better public access to green spaces.
Justice First: Mandating that polluters pay for all prevention and repair, ensuring environmental damage is never subsidized by the public.
Ecological Regeneration: Focusing on long-term ecological repair of mining sites rather than short-term safety fixes to deliver environmental justice.
Fundamental Access: Treating high-quality nature access as a fundamental right, prioritizing new green spaces in communities historically affected by industry.
Pollution Reform: Introducing a new Clean Water Bill and a dedicated watchdog to crack down on water pollution.
Tip Safety: Establishing a "Disused Tips Authority" in Merthyr Tydfil to secure 400+ sites and exploring solar energy or mine-water heating on reclaimed land.
Green Renewal: Expanding on the 4,000+ green spaces already created by launching an urban rewilding taskforce.
Aggressive Enforcement: Taking tough action on sewage and industrial dumping, ensuring big companies—not local taxpayers—foot the bill for clean-ups.
Green Opportunity: Moving past "empty nostalgia" by transforming former coal sites into hubs for green industry, housing, and skilled work.
Land Reclamation: Partnering with councils to turn derelict land into parks, tree-filled areas, and safe walking or cycling routes.
New Oversight: Scrapping Natural Resources Wales and replacing it with a new independent regulator to enforce environmental rules.
Conservation Funding: Establishing a £20m "Wildlife Wales Fund" to support conservation efforts and community green spaces.
Economic Focus: Prioritizing economic transformation in coalfield areas while protecting heritage and improving site safety.
As part of our Politics Unspun series we are unpacking politicians' public comments on coal to challenge any misleading or incorrect messages.
Todays' focus is on comments made in a BBC interview during the Senedd election campaign about coal mining in Wales. During the interview, Reform UK candidate in Afan Ogwr Rhondda, Ben Hodge-McKenna, made some statements about coal mining which we would like to address as part of this series.
Mr Hodge-McKenna claimed that reopening Welsh coal mines could help meet the UK’s energy needs. However, the UK no longer operates any coal‑fired power stations and the country’s energy strategy is now centred on renewables, storage, and electrification. Coal has not been a major part of the UK energy mix for almost a decade and Welsh coal cannot substitute for modern low‑carbon energy systems. Reopening mines would not contribute to UK energy security.
"It doesn't make sense for us to be sabotaging our economic policy and sacrificing jobs in Wales when you have other countries around the world that are ramping up,"
Reopening mines now would not recreate the large, long‑term workforces of the past. Modern mining is highly mechanised, and any jobs created would be limited and short‑lived, particularly due to the decreasing demand for coal in the UK. Aside from this though, the UK Government will soon legislate a prohibition of new coal mining licences, making new mining activities impossible approve in Wales or anywhere in the UK.
In contrast, Wales’s growing renewable energy sector offers larger, more stable employment opportunities which offer long term jobs in an expanding industry to workers today and in years to come.
Mr Hodge-McKenna said he understood the concerns about climate change, but the emissions that are produced in Wales on a global scale "are absolutely minuscule" meaning any changes would have "virtually no impact".
Regardless of other countries ramping up their coal production, it is in our own economic interest to pursue a clean energy future. All countries could, and some do, avoid taking action because of larger current or historic emissions being produced by another country. Wales can only control its own coal production and be the example to other countries as to how to transition in a just way which benefits workers, communities and the climate.
"I don't think anybody's talking about sort of going back to the 70s or 80s and reopening mines in the conditions that they were previously. But if there are commercial opportunities to enjoy the natural resources that we have then we shouldn't be automatically closed off to any options without at least giving them a fair consideration,"
While safety standards in coal mining have improved, this does not address the core issue: coal is the highest‑emitting fossil fuel. The UK’s climate commitments require rapid reductions in emissions, and new coal extraction would run counter to those goals. Additionally, Wales still faces safety risks from legacy coal infrastructure, such as abandoned opencast sites and unstable tips which require ongoing management.
Improved safety conditions in mining do not change the environmental and climate impacts associated with burning coal.
Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd illegally mined coal at Ffos-y-fran for over a year, profiting from record coal prices. Now, it wants to keep all the profits by trying to downgrade the restoration plan, breaking its promise to the 60,000 residents of Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.
Your objection means much more if it's put in your own words why you want Merthyr Tydfil Council to refuse the application to downgrade this huge restoration project. Here's some points you might choose to include, or go straight to the objection form:
This will take you to the Merthyr Tydfil Council's short objection form.
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 - but is now trying to wriggle out of that contract.
We got internationally renowned foresnic accountants, C. Lewis & Company, to analyse mining company Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd's accounts. Guess what? Not only can the mining company afford the full restoration, it has even set the money aside for it, and it can't legally spend it on anything else... unless the Council agrees to downgrade the restoration by granting the company's cut-price restoration application.
It's a stitch up! Don't let it happen
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 that would justify 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 cover the barest necessities 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.
The 218-page environmental impact assessment for the new plan is overflowing with greenwash. The assessment even 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 - more like a permanent reminder to Merthy Tydfil residents of broken promises and rampant profiteering at their expense.
The assessment fails to account for the impact that a loss of land and associated loss of 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.
Despite 2024 being a momentous year for UK coal mining and use, the fight's not over.
The UK steel and cement sectors (and to a lesser extent, bricks) are the largest users of coal following the closing down of the UK's last coal-fired power station in September 2024. But tried and tested alternatives to coal exist. Check out our coal dashboard for our most recent coal stats including an industry break-down. We support the UK Government's commitment to ban new coal mines opening in the UK - but this must be accompanied by a commitment to rapidly wean domestic industry off coal by adopting existing alternatives. Failing to do this simply off-shores the dangers and localised environmental harm of coal mining to where it's out of sight. This kind of practice marked the British colonial period, where some of the dirtiest and most grueling work was forced upon colonised countries, to supply and develop the UK. Continuing this pattern is called 'neo-colonialism', and the UK must avoid this by de-coaling domestic industry.
As the UK no longer produces thermal coal, the type used by the cement industry (and to a lesser extent in the steel industry), 1.78 million tonnes was imported in 2024 – primarily from Colombia and South Africa, two countries plagued with poor track records in coal mine-based health and safety, forced displacements of communities, and killings of environmental defenders. Without a plan to decisively and rapidly wean cement works off coal, the UK is open to accusations of perpetuating neocolonial patterns of trade.
Carbon footprint
The steel industry produces 9-11% of the annual CO2 emitted globally, contributing significantly to climate change. In 2024, on average, every tonne of steel produced led to the emission of 2.2 tonnes of CO2e (scope 1, 2, and 3). Globally in 2024, 1,886 million tonnes (Mt) of steel were produced, emitting in the order of 4.1 billion tonnes CO2e (75% of which are direct emissions). This is largely due to the reliance on ‘coking’ coal in blast furnace primary steel production.
Coal-free steel pathways
Four of the five biggest global steel producers aim to reach carbon neutral steel production by 2050. This would be through a combination of using ‘electric arc furnaces’ (EAF) to recycle scrap steel into secondary steel products, and a newer technology called Direct Reduced Iron that replaces coal with natural gas or hydrogen in primary steel making. The hydrogen option could be generated from renewables but relies on the roll-out of much more renewable generation capacity and massive green hydrogen infrastructure, which has so far received little of the huge investment required. So where this new Direct Reduced Iron technology (also requiring significant investment) is being used, it’s generally with natural gas instead. Those steelworks could be switched to hydrogen in the future, if the price of green hydrogen drops to a competitive level and the infrastructure to get the hydrogen to steelworks is built.
Threats to coal-free steel decarbonisation
There is a global over-supply of steel, primarily generated by China which produced 54% of global output in 2023. This has reduced the price that steel can be sold for to the point that many steelworks are running at a loss, supported by government subsidies to continue operating. This threatens the very significant private sector investments needed into green steel production as the industry’s current position makes a profitable return on that investment unlikely. A blast furnace can continue for 15-20 years before undergoing a ‘relining’ (refurbishment) process to extend its life further. Relining can cost 25-50% of the cost of a new blast furnace, but still amount to hundreds of £millions. Due to the long life and large capital investments, it’s essential that investments now are in greener steel-making processes or the world will be ‘locked in’ to CO2-intensive steel-making for many years to come.
In 2024, UK steel production made up 32% of domestic consumption and was responsible for 13.4% of GHGs from manufacturing, and 2.2% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. The vast majority of this footprint is due to the coal burned at Scunthorpe steelworks. With the UK Government rightly ruling out any new coal mining projects in the UK, it is vital that UK steelworks becomes coal-free. Switching domestic coal mining for coal mining abroad would perpetuate colonial patterns of trade where the impacts of extractive industries are off-shored.
UK primary steel-making is wholly dependent on imports for the two main resources needed to make steel: ‘coked’ coal and iron ore. Coal needs to be ‘cooked’ in ‘coking ovens’ before it becomes coked coal capable of burning at very high temperatures required in blast furnaces. The UK closed its last coking oven in Port Talbot in March 2024. Since then, UK primary steel-making has depended on other countries to process coal in coking ovens before being imported into the UK.
The UK’s largest steelworks, Tata Steel UK’s Port Talbot steelworks, recently closed its blast furnaces, which had come to the end of their operational life. With £500 million from the UK Government, Tata seized the opportunity to shift from making coal-based blast furnace primary steel to using electricity to recycle scrap steel into new secondary steel products instead.This technology is called an ‘electric arc furnace’ (EAF). Although the transition should have had more Union and worker involvement, the conversion to EAF is a pragmatic move given the UK’s scrap steel surplus, the financial losses being made in the blast furnace steel production, and the UK’s net-zero commitments. Four of the UK’s other steelworks also recycle scrap steel using EAFs. The fifth is British Steel’s Scunthorpe steelworks, which still produces coal-based primary steel, and so is the second biggest single site source of CO2 in the UK.
Scunthorpe’s blast furnace steelworks needs to decarbonise to remain competitive, improve local air quality, and avoid fuelling climate chaos. Before the UK Government took partial control of the steelworks around April 2025, the operators – Jingye Group – claimed financial losses of £700,000 per day. Additionally, customers – who will soon face mandatory carbon reporting – may increasingly choose to import lower carbon steel from other European countries like Sweden and Spain who are pursuing low-emission primary steel production. The current options for Scunthorpe steelworks are:
1) convert to Direct-Reduction Iron technology to produce primary steel
2) convert to recycling scrap steel in a EAF to produce secondary steel products.
Producing secondary steel option would be much cheaper, but politically difficult as it would mean the loss of many jobs and the loss of the UK’s primary steel-making capacity. Find out more about the technology options below:
Read more about coal in steel in our 2021 report.
Blast furnace primary steel production: Metallurgical-grade coals converted to ‘coke’ which has a dual role in a blast-furnace, providing the required heat and creating a chemical reaction with iron ore reducing it to ‘pig’ iron which is heated with other additives (including small quantities of existing scrap steel) to make steel.
Electric arc furnace secondary steel production uses 99% less coal than blast furnaces per tonne of steel produced by using electricity to melt down scrap steel to make secondary steel products, with small quantities of coal added to remove certain impurities. In countries, such as the UK, which generates a large share of its electricity through renewables, EAFs have a much smaller carbon footprint than blast furnace steel production. The UK currently produces a surplus of scrap steel, exporting it to EAFs abroad. Having greater EAF capacity in the UK will keep the scrap here, and the jobs it supports. Steel is – in theory – an endlessly recyclable product, but when it’s fused with other metals and materials, or has other properties added to it, it can be challenging to recycle it in EAFs into high-grade metals needed for certain applications, even with small quantities of coal added to remove certain impurities.
Direct reduced iron (DRI) primary steel production: is an emerging alternative to blast furnaces where natural gas or hydrogen replaces the role of coal in heating and reducing high-grade iron ore down to iron, ready for primary steel-making in an electric arc furnace. There are successful commercial test-cases for this technology, such as HyBrit in Sweden which uses hydro-generated green hydrogen to make steel. However, green hydrogen is prohibitively expensive, currently, so DRI facilities tend to use natural gas whilst being “hydrogen ready”. DRI production also makes capture rates for CCS much higher than a blast furnace.
It is vital that the forthcoming UK Government’s green public procurement policy for construction and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism should be sufficiently robust so as to support UK low-emission steel to compete with cheaper higher emission steel imports. Together, this should add confidence within the British steel sector that the UK Government’s public procurement pipeline will be a pipeline that supports domestic industry.
The UK Government must take action to secure the UK’s production of virtually coal-free secondary steel-making:
The UK Government’s steel safeguard Tariff Rate Quota expires in June 2026 – but the UK’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is not expected to be implemented until 2027. The UK Government should introduce stop-gap measures to prevent high-carbon steel imports causing carbon-leaking and undermining investment to produce greener steel in the UK.
The UK Government should engage in honest conversations now with unions and workers at the loss-making Scunthorpe Steel Works regarding the future of steel-making at the site. EAFs are currently the only financially viable technology to replace the coal-fed blast furnaces currently in operation. That would result in job losses but this can be a just transition with enough time to allow for proper planning, union and worker involvement, and funding. This should be followed with a commitment to add DRI primary steel production by mid-2035 as the technology and green hydrogen are expected to become more financially viable.
Except where specified, figures are sourced from the GCCA, Getting the Numbers Right Project, Emissions Report 2023 - for External Stakeholders industry-reported dataset or gccassociation.org/gnr
Except where specified, figures are sourced from the GCCA, Getting the Numbers Right Project, Emissions Report 2023 - for External Stakeholders industry-reported dataset or gccassociation.org/gnr
Worldwide, the amount of cement being used for every person in the world has nearly tripled in the past 45 years and demand is projected to increase over 33% by 2050. This demand is driving an exponential growth in cement production - and 'clinker', a key binding agent in cement. Clinker is the main ingredient in most cement mixes, averaging 75% of its content, but can be up to 95% of the content in Ordinary Portland Cement mix (a common type of cement). To make clinker, limestone and clay are heated to around 1450c, creating a chemical reaction. To generate this heat, the industry generally burns fossil fuels - although alternatives exist. Burning the fuel emits an average of 35% of the clinker CO2 footprint, with the remainder (65%) emitted by the chemical reaction of the heated limestone. In total, the cement industry has reduced its reliance on fossil fuels to heat clinker by 22% from 98% in 1990 to 76% in 2023, with post-use mixed waste and biomass increasing their share as alternative fuels. This concrete progress has helped reduce the carbon intensity of the fuel mix by 8% between 1990 and 2023. Unfortunately, this reduction has been outstripped by increases in cement production overall since 1990, so total fossil fuel consumption has actually increased by 100 million gigajoules (GJ), from 1.78bn GJ in 1990 to 1.88bn GJ in 2023.
(Except where specified, figures are sourced from the GCCA, Getting the Numbers Right Project, Emissions Report 2023 - for External Stakeholders industry-reported dataset)
Cementing coal use
Today, 76% of the heat needed to make clinker is generated by burning fossil fuels, with coal constituting 49% of the fossil fuel mix - meaning 37% of cement worldwide is made by burning coal. Consequently, the cement industry consumes around 4% of global coal produced, which amounts to approximately 330 million tonnes of coal per year. UK Government research and commercial examples from around the world indicate that the elimination of fossil fuels in cement production is possible. Thermal coal is the most common fuel burned to produce the high heat required.
Successful, at-scale, examples already exist of cement works burning 100% fuel alternatives to traditional fossil fuels, including pilot projects using combinations of hydrogen and biomass (UK) and hydrogen and electricity (Sweden). Yet, innovations such as use of hydrogen and kiln electrification are forecast to play only a small role, providing 10% of energy needs by 2050. Worldwide, only 24% of cement in 2023 was produced using alternative fuels, with 76% of cement produced using fossil fuels (37% of cement overall is heated using coal). The continuing reliance on burning fossil fuels to generate heat at cement works contributes to its high CO2 footprint – particularly its upstream footprint due to the resources and methane emissions associated with mining coal. Globally, the cement industry is responsible for up to 7-8% of CO2 emissions (but only 1.5% of UK CO2 emissions) – nearly as much as steel.
Coal-free fuel examples from around the world:
Holcim’s cement works in Saint-Pierre-la-Cour, France, uses a combination of calcined clay to reduce clinker content required in the cement, and biofuels and waste heat recovery systems to heat the remaining clinker required. This combination has displaced 100% of fossil fuels from its calcined clay cement production process to deliver up to 500,000 tonnes a year. This cement works received funding from France’s ‘France Relance’ industrial decarbonisation fund.
Holcim’s cement works in Retznei, Austria, used alternative fuel in 96% of its fuel mix last year – virtually eradicating fossil fuels from its operations – and is working towards 100%.
JK Cement’s cement works in Muddapur, Karnataka, India, has increased its use of alternative fuels to 78%, and is completing the installation of a waste heat recovery system, which it expects to make the cement works 100% fossil fuel-free.
Huaxin, a global cement producer headquartered in Wuhan, China, has reached 40% and 60% alternative fuels (mainly refuse-derived fuels) at its Diwei Chongqing (2,500 tonne/day) and Huangshi cement works, respectively. In developing economies, certain alternative fuels are highly variable in materials and moister content, resulting in heating fluctuations that challenges consistent quality in clinker production. At Huangshi cement works, Huaxin uses AI and other technologies to adjust production processes in real-time response to changing fuel properties, allowing it to create consistent clinker quality.
Globally, the clinker ratio to cement (Portland and blended) has reduced from 85% in 1990 to 75% in 2023. The use of clinker substitutes has correspondingly increased by 12.7 million tonnes between 1990 and 2023, but much of this increase may be accounted for by the overall growth in cement production. Although most ‘green cement’ works around the world substitute up to 40% of clinker, there is at least one commercial example of a cement works substituting up to 100% of the clinker in their cement production. The use of alternative cementious materials reduce, or even eliminate the needs for clinker. Unlike clinker, these alternative cementious materials don’t require as much, or any, heating – thereby reducing the amount of coal burned. Some of these materials, such as the coal by-products of fly-ash and blast furnace slag, are in increasingly short supply as economies decarbonise. However, other clinker substitutes such as burnt rice husks do not face supply issues, and a lack of acceptance by the construction sector continues to be the most limiting factor in producing more cement with a lower clinker content. One solution to this would be Government mandating that publicly-funded construction projects must use entirely or partially ‘low carbon’ cement products where clinker substitutes have been included.
Clinker substitution examples from around the world:
Hoffmann Green cement works in Bournezeau, France, has a capacity to produce 50,000 tonnes of three varieties of cement per year, all with 0% clinker content. This cement works replaces clinker with a mix of slag, clay, gypsum – supplied by local producers. It also removes the need for further extraction, unlike clinker which requires quarrying limestone. This cement works received funding from France’s ‘France Relance’ industrial decarbonisation fund.
US start-up, Sublime Systems has developed a new 0% clinker cement using calcium silicates and other commonly used substitutes in an electrochemical reactor, which requires heating only to 100c. Its pilot cement works only has capacity to produce a few hundred tonnes of cement per year, but it is developing a new cement works with capacity for up to 25,000 tonnes per year by 2026.
CRH’s Jura cement works in Wildegg, Switzerland, uses calcined clay to produce a cement with a clinker factor lower than 65%, with potential for further reductions. One tonne of calcined clay replaces on average 0.75 tonne of clinker, thereby saving more than 0.25 tonne of CO2. The resulting cement contains approximately 20% less CO2 per m3 compared to ordinary Portland cement.
In contrast to worldwide trends, UK cement production has been in decline since a peak in the 1970s, and roughly halving since 1990. Despite this decline, the UK cement industry still burned just under 400,000* tonnes of coal to make 7.3 million tonnes of cement in 2024 – averaging roughly 1 tonne of coal for every 18 tonnes of cement. To put that into context, around 8,000 tonnes of cement is needed for a new hospital, while between 3-5 tonnes are needed to build a four-bedroom family house.
*There is no cement-specific coal consumption statistics available, but the UK Government reported that 395,000 tonnes of coal were used in the minerals industry in 2024, the vast majority of which would be cement. The burning of this coal alone would have emitted nearly a million tonnes of CO2 in 2024. The UK's cement works emitted 4.2 million tonnes of CO2 overall.
At the moment, there are isolated examples of cement works around the world that operate entirely without burning coal or fossil fuels. Yet all large UK cement works continue relying on coal and fossil fuels. The £3.2 million public fund to research pathways to decarbonise UK cement making is welcome, but to get value for money, proven pathways must be implemented at commercial cement works.
Carbon Capture & Storage - risks:
There is also a proposal to create a CCS network (Peak Valley Cluster), funded in part by the new UK National Wealth Fund. The CCS project would aim to reduce CO2 emissions from several cement works in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. But the high-risk CCS technology is an extremely expensive decarbonisation pathway, with high construction and running costs. The UK Government pledged an eye-watering £22 billion from 2025, driving even more households into fuel poverty (currently 11% of UK households struggle in energy poverty). Given the many £billions poured into the technology around the world, it has a disastrous global track-record of cancellations, suspensions soon after operating, and under-performance of up to 50%. Crucially, CCS will also do nothing to remove coal from the cement-making process, failing to reduce any upstream emissions or harms associated with coal mining and resource extraction in the supply chain. Investment in CCS is investment diverted from eliminating our use of fossil fuels, thereby prolonging our reliance on them.
In 2019, Bryn Bach Coal Ltd applied to expand its Glan Lash opencast coal mine and extend the amount of time it would continue mining coal for. The proposal would see the coal mine swallowing a nearby ancient woodland, hedgerows, and grassland. The proposal was rejected by Carmarthenshire County Council in 2023. But Bryn Bach Coal Ltd applied again for a slightly different expansion that would see a smaller area of habitat destroyed - though it would still destroy the ancient woodland. In 'mitigation', Bryn Bach Coal Ltd highlighted that it had restored a site previously used as a tip for an old coal mine. However, that was restored to supposedly mitigate the habitat lost to the current Glan Lash opencast coal mine. Bryn Bach Coal Ltd claimed it would make this restoration even better, although it claimed the site was already restored to a high standard. We visited the site and found the reality to be very different...
The very concept of habitats being standardised units, where habitat A can be replaced by habitat B in another area, is a fantasy. Each habitat is as unique as the lives of individual animals that exist within it. It is comparable to saying that we will flatten Manchester and all but the most important people who live there, but it's OK because we'll support extra flats and shops to be built in Plymouth for those VIPs to move to. We don't want to stretch the analogy so we hope we've made it clear how absurd 'habitat off-setting' as a concept is. Yet, 'habit off-setting' continues to go unquestioned in Planning consideration. Priority wildlife (generally species that are endangered) relocated to the 'off-set habitat' often struggles to adapt to their new habitat - because habitats are unique - and often fail to find shelter and food, or re-establish territory, leading to death by starvation, predation, and exposure. 'Off-set' habitats are also often a far-cry from the biodiverse and established habitats that they supposedly replace, despite the far-fetched claims of developers about how they are so much bigger and better.
The off-set site for the proposed expansion of Glan Lash opencast coal mine is the former Tir y Dail Colliery Tip site which was restored and sits south-east of the Glan Lash site. This restored area would supposedly 'off-set' the irreversible destruction of the ancient woodland on the edge of the Glan Lash mine, until new woodland planted after mining on the Glan Lash site offered comparable habitat - which would be many years, and would never truly 'catch' up with the continually evolving and growing ecosystem of ancient woodland.
What we found when we visited the so-called restored former Tir y Dail Colliery Tip site was a neglected and littered area very far removed from the ancient woodland it would temporarily stand in for.
Dead saplings not replaced
Tree guards not maintained
Replaced top soil of poor quality
Planted trees dense and immature
Dead mature trees
Coal Action Network has obtained new legal advice from expert Barristers Estelle Dehon (KC) and Rowan Clapp of Cornerstone Chambers, London. Examining relevant legislation from 1990s, the Barristers argues that mining coal previously discarded in coal tips require a licence from the UK’s Mining Remediation Authority (national regulator). This backs up previous legal advice we’ve received from Barrister Toby Fisher of Matrix Chambers, London.
Currently deep and opencast coal mines require a licence from the national regulator, in addition to planning permission. The national regulator recently refused a licence for the West Cumbria coal mine, preventing the project from starting. But the national regulator and DESNZ both deny that legislation means mining coal tips requires a licence.
Section 25 (1) states “coal-mining operations” shall not “be carried on by any person except under and in accordance with a licence”. In plain speak, this means a ‘coal mining operation’ needs a licence. So how is a coal mining operation defined?
Section 25 (2) defines ‘Coal mining operations’ as the “winning, working and getting” of coal. It’s only relevant if it’s in the UK and if it’s not just to move coal out of the way to do something else, like build foundations for a house.
The legislation includes within ‘Coal mining operations’ things like dumping soil that was removed during coal mining, even if this happens later and outside of the mine. If the act of making a coal tip is included, then mining that coal tip should be included too.
Mining coal tips for previously discarded coal within them is clearly ‘getting’ coal, putting it within the legal definition of Coal mining operations’. For that matter, mining coal tips also fits within case-law definitions of “winning and working”. The Welsh Government’s Minerals technical advice note (MTAN2) also backs this up, defining ‘coal working’ as including the “recovery of coal from tips”.
Section 336 of the 1990 Act defines a ‘mineral working deposit’ to mean "any deposit of material remaining after minerals have been extracted from land or otherwise deriving from the carrying out of operations for the winning and working of minerals in, on or under land" – which easily encompasses coal tips.
Section 55 (4) (a) (i) defines a ‘mining operation’ as the “removal of material […] from a mineral-working deposit.”. As coal tips amount to a mineral-working deposit, it follows that mining coal tips amounts to ‘mining operation’. The 1990 Act requires any mining operation to get planning permission – accordingly, mining coal tips requires planning permission under this definition, which has been accepted since the Act was introduced.
This planning law is aligned with Barristers’ Estelle Dehon’s (KC), Rowan Clapp’s, and Toby Fisher’s interpretation of the The Coal Industry Act 1994, which came 4 years later.
The Mining Remediation Authority (MRA) has stated that it does not consider coal tip extraction to be a ‘coal mining operation’ because it claims that coal tip extraction does not meet any of the requirements listed within the s.65(1) of the 1994 Act definition of a ‘coal mining operation’ or a ‘coal mine’. As a result, the MRA states that it has no power to licence or not licence mining a coal tip. And DESNZ adds that it does not plan to make any changes so that coal tip mining projects would require a licence from the MRA in future (based on the understanding it is not currently required, which is against our Barristers’ understanding).
This boils down to a difference in interpreting some heavyweight law that’s over 30 years old. Some of the argument hinges on whether you read a sentence such as “to be a thing, it must include the following: X, Y, ‘and’ Z” to mean it needs to be all of X,Y,Z to be the thing, or it’s enough for it just to be Y, for example. The only way to settle the argument is a costly court case with our Barristers on one side and UK Government Barristers on the other side – and the UK Government has much deeper pockets than us.
The civil servants within the UK Government are right now busy cooking up new legislation to ban the MRA from issuing any new licences for coal mining – which is great news because all coal mining needs a licence…so that means no new coal mining projects (existing licences can still be used). The problem is that it won’t ban mining coal tips, because of the MRA’s belief that this doesn’t require a licence in the first place. That means, once this new legislation passes, the only place coal can be mined in the UK is coal tips – which will still be fair game, undermining the intention of the coal ban to stop coal mining.
This is a particularly absurd situation as mining previously discarded coal from coal tips or mining new coal from opencast coal mines involves the same processes – moving large volumes of soil around with HGVs, separating spoil from saleable coal, transporting that coal etc. and generating the same local environmental and community impacts such as noise, dust, and disruption. It will also have the same climate change effects when burned. Mining coal tips is an industry that dates back until at least the 1980s. With over 5,000 coal tips around the UK and a live proposal to mine two coal tips in South Wales of over 400,000 tonnes of coal, we begin to understand why it matters whether coal tips are included within the new legislation to ban coal mining.
PLAN A
The easiest option would be for the civil servants beavering away at the new coal ban legislation to simply include an amendment requiring coal tips to need a licence (via clarification or change to existing legislation). This would bring coal tip mining, opencast mining, and deep mining all within the same requirement for a licence – which the new legislation would then ban in one swoop. Find out more about the simple legal wording our Barristers have suggested including to do this.
PLAN B
If Ministers and civil servants refuse to explicitly include coal tips within the new legislation, we are going to have to consider a legal challenge to the UK Government’s belief that mining coal tip doesn’t need a licence. If we win that, then mining coal tips would be banned within the new legislation by default. We hope you’ll support our fundraising efforts if we are forced to do that.
In 2015, David Stanley Lewis took over operations at the sprawling Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine from the previous operator, Miller Argent. The company became 'Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd' with a complicated corporate structure of parent companies and subsidiaries. After mining illegally for around 15 months beyond the end of its planning permission, Lewis's company declared it was unable to fund the devastated site's restoration. This is despite earning windfall revenue on the illegal coal mining and most recent annual accounts showing £91.2m allocated to the site's restoration. Now a number of local companies are working with David Lewis to help him get away with this - risking their reputation in the process...
In 2003, David Lewis was described by judge Jonathan Durham-Hall as "a pathological gambler who demonstrated pathological dishonesty." David Lewis, then 46, defrauded a bank of more than £88,000 in respect of gambling debts. Lewis's only Barrister said "What he did was unlawful, crass, stupid and dishonest."
In 2020, David Lewis was convicted of a serious speeding offense - caught driving at 99mph at the wheel of a Lamborghini Aventador. He was also charged with driving without due care and attention, although the Court later dropped this charge. Lewis was made to pay over £500 and slapped with 6 penalty points, only narrowly keeping his license.
In May 2025, an ex-worker whistle-blows on David Lewis's company for illegally burying toxic waste at the coal mine site. Natural Resources South Wales has launched a probe into the accusation.
In June/July 2025, David Lewis accepted a caution by police for physically assaulting Robert Davies, 75, chairman of the Robert Davies Partnership LLP outside his office in Newport, causing actual bodily harm, and leaving a scar on Davies' neck. However, Lewis subsequently broke the terms of that caution and was summoned to court to answer for the violent offence. Lewis evaded conviction as the time-period to prosecute for the offence was exceeded by the Crown Prosecution Service, which the victim (Davies) describes as "wholly unacceptable".
News source 3 (with CCTV footage)
In June 2025, Mr Stacey Lewis was hauled into court over offenses by his company - S L Recycling - which led to a massive fire breaking out in September 2024. The recycling site fire caused £79,000 worth of damage, polluted land and killed fish in a nearby river. "S L Recycling committed a number of breaches which hindered the fire service putting out the major fire", including a "flagrant safety breach". This prevented fire services putting out the fire more quickly, wasting the time of essential firefighters who spent over 24 hours engaged at the site - potentially risking the lives of others who may have had to call on the fire service in that time.
