In 2022, we launched a Judicial Review as one of the last chances to stop Aberpergwm deep coal mine extension in South Wales, and keep up to 42 million tonnes of coal in the ground. Many of you donated generously to make that legal challenge possible, and our legal team worked tirelessly to deliver a razor-sharp case. However, on 19th May 2023, the Judicial Review decision upheld the mine to continuing to operate until 2039 to the tune of over 100 million tonnes of CO2.
This judgement comes fewer than two months after the IPCC released a report sounding the ‘final warning’ of irreversible and catastrophic climate change. Although ultimately the judge’s decision upholds the Aberpergwm coal mine in the midst of our climate crisis, the judgment agrees with our legal team on a number of crucial points, creating some optimism around a possible appeal. An appeal is no light undertaking in time and funding… but we need to throw everything we’ve got at stopping this when literally everything is on the line with climate-trashing projects like Aberpergwm coal mine. We’d definitely need your help via a new appeal crowd funder if our expert legal team advise us this is the way to go. If you’re able to chip in to pay for our current legal advice, our judicial review CrowdJustice crowdfunding page is still open.
In 2021, the International Energy Agency set out a pathway to reach net-zero by 2050, in which for both energy generation and the steel industry, “[n]o new coal mines or extensions of existing ones are needed…existing sources of production are sufficient to cover demand through to 2050” (p103). In addition, Port Talbot Steelworks and British Steel steelworks are negotiating with the UK Government to cut coal out of their steel manufacturing. There is no need-case for the Aberpergwm coal mine, whereas the need-case to keep all coal in the ground is a liveable planet.
Progress is uneven and marked by setbacks like this, but we’ve won against 23 coal mines in the UK—there's 4 more to go, and to finally close the door to any new coal mines. We hope you’re with us until the end. Subscribe to our mailing list to keep updated on our campaigns and get involved.
Find out more about the campaign against the Aberpergwm coal mine, as well as our campaigns against three other coal mine applications in the UK.
After 20 years of campaigning, last night (26/04/23) Merthyr Tydfil residents, Coal Action Network, Friends of the Earth Cymru, the Green Party, XR and other environmental campaigners finally collectively stopped Ffos-y-fran opencast coal with the Council’s refusal of permission to extend its climate chaos until 2024! This is an important step forward for the environmental movement across the UK.
Local people have suffered 16 years of dust, noise and a changing landscape, as 400 hectares of land got destroyed and 11 million tonnes of coal removed. The Welsh Government permitted what became the UK’s largest opencast coal mine to start in 2005 and, together with the local council, allowed it to keep mining after planning permission ran out in September 2022. An extension application to keep extracting coal until March 2024 was unanimously rejected by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council on the 26th April.
At the planning hearing, the Council’s Planning Officers recommended that the application be refused, as it does not comply with Welsh law on coal mining.
Over 1,400 letters of objection written by Coal Action Network’s supporters were highlighted in the planning hearing, showing the large national and international demand to keep all coal in the ground. This highlights that Councils are being watched when they decide fossil fuel project permissions and should make them more accountable.
Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, the coal mining company, claimed that it was under no legal commitment to contribute to the restoration fund—which the council disagrees with; it failed to provide details of what proportion of coal used at Port Talbot came from Ffos-y-fran; it failed to pay dues to the council whilst mining without permission since Sept 2022. There is only a £15 million deposit in the restoration fund, when between £75m and £125m is required to put back the site
In the hearing, elected Councillors voiced serious concerns about the potential shortfall of at least £60 million to deliver the restoration long-promised to local residents, and the lack of enforcement action by the Council when the mining company simply kept mining after planning permission expired. They both need to be addressed urgently. We’ll be fighting for justice alongside local residents until it is delivered.
Over the years there has been wide and varied resistance to Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine. A non-exhaustive list includes:
In January 2017, the United Nations special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, Baskut Tuncak visited Merthyr Tydfil. At the time he said, “The first observation that came to mind was how incredibly close this community is to a massive open pit coalmine...I heard allegations of very high rates of childhood asthma and cancer clusters within the community. But despite those allegations I didn't hear any evidence of a strong intervention by the government to investigate or any strong reaction by the companies concerned to investigate themselves.". In the resulting report it said, “the Aarhus Convention’s Compliance Committee found that the UK was in breach of its obligations to ensure access to justice by in essence excluding the public from court procedures by prohibitively expensive cost requirements.”
In the planning hearing, the issue of the mine workers’ jobs was raised, but the Council made clear that the coal company should have been preparing workers for the end of coal mining on the site, as has been expected since 2011, and highlighted that workers were still required to restore the site in the coming years. Coal Action Network and others call on the company, with support from the Welsh Government to ensure a truly just transition for workers which could include them being invited onto the current Universal Basic Income pilot.
We are relieved that the Council saw sense and put an end to this climate trashing coal mine. There is work to be done to ensure the best possible restoration of the site, bringing the area back into public use. The Welsh Government and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council need to take urgent enforcement action to stop coaling and ensure that the restoration is paid for, in full by the mining company.
Published: 27. 04. 2023
Today (25th April) people dressed as Rebecca Rioters protested against the Welsh Government’s failure to deliver a complete ban on coal mining on the steps of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament). The Rebecca Riots took place between 1839 and 1842 with the destruction of the toll gates which taxed rural people’s produce. The modern ‘Daughters of Rebecca’ dressed in 1800’s costume and demanded Members of the Senedd take urgent action to end coal mining and end the climate toll caused by coal mining and consumption.
Tomorrow (26th April) Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council planning committee will decide whether to allow Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine to continue mining coal until 31st March 2024 before refilling the void they’ve created. The Planning Officer has recommended that the application is refused, as it is not in line with Welsh Governmental policy on coal.
Rebecca from Merthyr Tydfil said, “We live opposite the massive Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine which, despite years of valiant community resistance, was forced upon us in 2007.”
Residents of Merthyr Tydfil have had to suffer its impacts for 15 years of our lives, but not suffered in silence - we've fought it tooth and nail for all those years to try and manage its excesses. We were sickened to have to endure another 8 months of them mining coal illegally, and now the threat of even longer! No more; enough is enough!”
In the 1800s, poor people, in rural west and mid Wales rose up against the punitive toll system that was taxing their produce and destroyed the toll gates, in what is called the ‘Rebecca Riots’. In their footsteps, Coal Action Network and its supporters—modern day ‘Daughters of Rebecca’—are protesting the Welsh Government’s lack of concrete action against coal mine expansion. We are pushing the Welsh government to implement a comprehensive ban on coal mining, as Scotland passed in October 2022.
The original Rebecca Riots were a series of protests and direct action by tenant farmers against the payment of fees to use the roads. During the riots, men disguised as women attacked the tollgates. They called themselves ‘Rebecca and her daughters’, all answering to the name Rebecca for anonymity from prosecution.
Further, the Daughters of Rebecca are calling upon the Welsh Government to prevent the extension at Aberpergwm underground mine, near Glynneath, Neath Port Talbot, to stop its climate toll. Coal Action Network took both the Welsh Government and the Coal Authority to court in March 2023, challenging their permitting Aberpergwm to expand when it goes against Welsh policy and the urgent need to take action on climate change. A judge’s decision is awaited. If she decides that either the Welsh Government or the Coal Authority misjudged their powers the relevant public body will be asked to remake their decision, which could close Aberpergwm coal mine.
Date: Wednesday 26 April 2023
Time: from 4:30pm (hearing starts at 5pm)
Location: Council Chambers, Civic Centre, Castle Street, Merthyr Tydfil, CF47 8AN
Bring: banners, signs, loud-hailers, or just yourself!
Ffos-y-fran is a large opencast coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales which has operated for over 15 years. On 06th September 2022, planning permission for the opencast coal mining came to an end… but the mining company continues mining an average of 1,000 tonnes of coal every day (emitting the equivalent CO2 to burning 1.5 million litres of petrol)! The local Council claims the mining company, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd lied about stopping mining but still refuses to take any action to stop the illicit coal mining happening at Ffos-y-fran. This makes a mockery of local democracy, equality in law, and Welsh Government's climate commitments.
On Wednesday 26th April, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council will meet to decide whether to approve or reject the mining company's application to officially extend the coal mine until 31 March 2024. The Councillors must listen to local residents suffering noise and dust pollution for over a decade, and reject this expansion in the midst of our climate emergency. We all have a stake in this, so join us outside and ensure the Councillors can't ignore your opposition.
In December 2022, the UK government approved a 2.78 million tonne a year coking coal mine proposed for Whitehaven, Cumbria. South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) has started proceedings for a Statutory Review of this decision. At the same time, Friends of the Earth have also filed a legal challenge. This article looks at the grounds for these legal challenges.
While there are at least 11 arguments why the decision is wrong, only the process behind arriving at the decision can be challenged at a Statutory Review, rather than the decision itself.
Below are the 4 grounds that Richard Buxton Solicitors is challenging on behalf of SLACC, followed be the 4 grounds of Friends of the Earth’s case. A public inquiry was held in 2021, run by a Planning Inspector. After it finished, the Planning Inspector wrote up his recommendation to the UK Government in his report. The Secretary of State based his decision to approve the Whitehaven coal mine on this Inspector’s Report.
Ground 1 – error of law and/ or failure to give understandable reasons concerning substitution.
The Inspector’s report assumes there will be “some degree of substitution” between coal mined abroad, likely from the USA, and coal from Whitehaven. Unless the substitution would be 100%, as in exactly the same amount of coal extracted from Cumbria would be left underground in a permitted mine elsewhere, the mine would still result in increased global emissions. Substitution won't be anywhere near 100%, as the owners of mines elsewhere will simply sell the coal to different steelworks. The Secretary of State decided on an “overall neutral effect on climate change”, despite the increase in emissions.
Ground 2 – error of law in discounting the international impacts of allowing this mine.
Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, gave evidence that many other countries will follow suit and approve fossil fuel projects as a result of this decision. A rare letter from Lord Deben from the Climate Change Committee concurred, the decision “gives a negative impression of the UK’s climate priorities in the year of COP26.”
The UK’s international climate reputation was a key reason that the government called in the decision, rather than allowing Cumbria County Council to make it. The Inspector’s report completely fails to deal with both sets of evidence related to this central controversial issue.
Ground 3 – errors of law concerning whether ‘downstream emissions’ caused by the coking coal were indirect significant environment effects of the proposal.
The Inspector concluded that downstream emissions - those resulting in the use of the coking coal, rather than its extraction - “cannot reasonably be regarded as indirect significant effects of the proposed development.” This is incorrect understanding of the law because of the above substitution error – as other coal will not be 100% substituted for mining reduction elsewhere, but also a misunderstanding of the implications of a cited court case (Finch). Without this coal being mined, it wouldn’t be burnt and so there would be significantly fewer downstream emissions.
Ground 4 – unlawful disparity of treatment of the parties and error concerning the approach to the burden of proof.
The Inspector applied different standards to the parties throughout the inquiry. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), paragraph 217, imposes a high threshold of evidence as to the benefits of a coal mine on the applicant rather than those opposing it. The Inspector seemed to do the opposite, imposing a higher threshold upon testimonies against the coal mine development. This might have influenced how the Government later interpreted the testimonies through the Inspector's report.
Ground 1: Approach to considering the effect of the development on the UK’s Sixth Carbon Budget.
The impact of the mine on the UK’s Sixth Carbon Budget, which covers the years 2033 to 2037, was a key issue in the Public Inquiry.
The mining company had entered a legal agreement requiring it to buy international carbon offset credits to offset residual emissions from the mine. In the decision letter the Secretary of State concluded that this requirement meant the mine would be net-zero for the purposes of the Sixth Carbon Budget. That conclusion was wrong and unlawful. Such offset credits do not count towards the UK’s carbon budgets.
Ground 2: Approach to considering the international impacts of the decision.
Similar to SLACC’s Ground 2 reasoning.
Ground 3: Approach to ‘substitution’ of WCM coal and the global coal market.
Similar to SLACC’s Ground 1 reasoning.
Ground 4: Earlier court case (Finch) and downstream emissions.
The Secretary of State’s reasoning closely follows the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case of R (Finch) v Surrey County Council, both in terms of whether downstream emissions should have been the subject of environmental assessment, and in terms of the case-by-case assessment of their materiality. It is argued that this is a misinterpretation of the judgement, similar to SLACC’s Ground 3.
As both legal challenges base one of their grounds on the R (Finch) v Surrey County Council court case, and which is subject to a Supreme Court decision going to court in June, it is expected that the challenges against the coal mine will be delayed until after the R (Finch) v Surrey County Council court case is heard. Once a single day hearing has happened, a decision will be given as to whether or not the government has to remake the decision on the Whitehaven case.
The full documents can be read on SLACC’s website https://slacc.org.uk/cumbria-coal-mine/
More details on the challenge by Friends of the Earth are available at https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/legal-challenge-filed-over-cumbrian-coal-mine
In September 2022, Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine's 15-year planning permission ran out and the coal mine was due to close and restoration begin. However, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd applied for a S73 time extension to mine coal at the site for a 9 months, with an intention to submit a further application for a 3-year expansion.
But this climate calamity can't go ahead! Today, Thursday 12th January, Chris and Alyson, who live close to the Ffos-y-fran coal mine, delivered our petition of over 20,000 signatures to the Welsh Government's The Planning and Environment Decisions Wales. The petition demands that the Welsh Government:
Find out more about how the Ffos-y-fran coal mine has managed to illegally siphon coal out for 16 months without being stopped.
06 September 2022 - 08 January 2024
Coal sold: 64o,000 tonnes (company-reported volumes published in official Coal Authority statistics)
CO2 from coal use: 2.02 million tonnes of CO2 (2022 BEIS Conversion Factors)
Methane from the mine itself: 2,900 tonnes (Global Energy Monitor)
CO2e from the mine itself: 931,000 tonnes in 2021 (reported by the company on p4 (7) for machinery, electricity, and gas combustion)
Coal operator: Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd – formerly Miller Argent Holdings Limited, subsidiary of Merthyr Holdings Limited – which is owned by Gwent Investments Limited
Parent company: Gwent Holdings Limited, owned by Mrs J H Lewis
Type: Thermal coal, some of which is ‘upgraded’ to be sold to steelworks
Mining method: Opencast
Claimed destination: steelworks, domestic heating, cement production etc.
Local Planning Authority: Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
Address: Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme, East Of Merthyr Tydfil CF48 4AE
Time: 15 years, then a further 16 months illegally
Published: 17/08/2022 Updated: 25/01/2024
On Wednesday (21/12/2022) a gang of Santas delivered sacks of ‘naughty list coal’ to Michael Gove at his Department of Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities office in Whitehall on behalf of Coal Action Network and Lush cosmetics. Holding signs reading “Christmas coal for climate criminal Gove ”, and “No new coal”, the festive action was in protest against the recent Whitehaven coal mine approval.
Since Gove announced his approval of the Whitehaven coal mine application on 7th December, he has been heavily criticised by members of his own party, the Government’s own Climate Change Committee, industry leaders, and environmental groups. Over the original coal mine timeline, the coal operator would mine 64 million tonnes of coal, resulting in 200 million tonnes of CO2, and 340 thousand tonnes of potent climate change accelerant, methane.
Gove’s 15-page letter outlining his reasons for approving the Whitehaven coal mine has already been left in tatters by steel industry leaders who have said British Steelworks can’t rely on Whitehaven coal as it’s too high in polluting sulphur. Gove’s justification was dealt another blow when Owen Hewlett, the chief technical officer of Gold Standard offsetting, called the idea of making the coal mine carbon-neutral through Gold Standard offsetting “obviously nonsense, morally nonsense and technically insane”.
Coal Action Network said “We’re here because Santa knows who’s been naughty and nice, and Gove’s top of the naughty list for approving the Whitehaven coal mine. If more coal mines are really Gove’s only levelling up offer, Santa’s got a message for him this Christmas: climate change only levels down. It’s a dead-end industry distracting from the levelling up potential of jobs with a future.”
Lush campaigns manager Andrew Butler says, “Lush will be Santa for lots of people this Christmas and while we usually provide nice presents, Gove is firmly on our naughty list. But to say Gove has been naughty is a gross understatement. His reckless decision to approve a new coal mine in West Cumbria puts us all on the path to climate catastrophe and makes extreme weather like the floods that displaced tens of millions of people in Pakistan more likely. Gove is not just naughty, he is a climate criminal.”
In a joint statement Coal Action Network and Lush Santas say, “We must remember that individuals are making these decisions that cost us billions, our quality of life, and our very future. Where is the individual accountability for that? Families are freezing in their homes this winter because someone in Government effectively stopped the home insulation programme around a decade ago. Instead of holding that person responsible and reversing that damage, Gove approves a coal mine for a steel industry that doesn’t want it, derailing our climate promises. Santa is all about individual accountability and doesn’t care if someone hides behind a Ministerial title—so these sacks of ‘coal’ are delivered to Michael Gove personally this Xmas.”
The UK Government has produced a 15 page letter plus appendices which outlines the reasons for granting permission to the Whitehaven coal mine application (Ref: 4/17/9007). This is mostly in the form of highlighting points on which Michael Gove agrees with the Planning Inspector , Stephen Normington, who also recommended granting permission for the application.
We have criticisms of each argument and are left wondering who’s interests really underpin Gove’s shock decision to approve the coal mine...
Tata steelworks in Port Talbot has publicly called on the UK Government to co-fund its transition to Electric Arc Furnace steel production which uses little or no coal—or it has warned it’ll shut down in 2023. Tata is the largest steelworks in the UK.
British steel industry chiefs have further said that British and European steelworks will be largely unable to use Whitehaven coal as it is too high in sulphur.
This involves some mental gymnastics, but essentially—it’s based on flawed reasoning that because West Cumbria Coal Mining Ltd can’t control how steelworks use the coal, it isn’t responsible for the resulting emissions. If end-use emissions can’t be a reason to refuse the coal mine, neither can end-use be a reason to approve the coal mine, yet end-use is precisely the basis for the coal mine’s approval.
This absurdity is based on coal industry testimony referring to supposed ‘swing suppliers’ of coal in the USA. Not only is this potentially biased and based on one country, it also wasn’t demonstrated that the market it responsive enough to reduce supply with Whitehaven’s production. Yet, Gove’s claim that emissions won’t increase is based on substitution that largely relies on this unsubstantiated testimony. It also rest on the notion that ‘if we don’t do it, someone else will’—an approach if everyone took, would mean no one would ever take action to reduce emissions and large parts of the world would become uninhabitable.
Gove’s letter is careful not to say the coal mine will be net-CO2 neutral, only that it’ll seek to be—because, like all greenwash, it’s quickly shown to be empty promises to justify climate-trashing business as normal. Issues with off-setting aside, the off-setting scheme the coal mine cited in its application publicly rejected working with a coal mine soon after, and the head of Offsetting Gold Standard called the idea of offsetting a coal mine “nonsense”. Whitehaven coal mine will emit 340,000 tonnes of climate accelerating methane, only some of which is intended to be captured, and even the coal operator admits this will only start 4 years into the project.
Given the weakness of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and despite the billions pumped into its research and promotion so far, the only way to achieve steelworks decarbonisation will be removing coking coal from steelmaking. CCS has done little more than to continue business-as-normal by gambling on a largely unproven, expensive, energy-intensive technology that may create a future time-bomb and is yet to capture 100% of emissions anywhere.
Gove admits that the Coast-to-Coast pathway that beings in Whitehaven will be significantly and negatively impacted by the coal mine structures. This pathway draws tourism to the area.
Gove’s conclusion that tourism won’t be significantly reduced seems incompatible with admitting the coal mine would have a significantly negative effect on the leading draw for tourism to the area, the Coast-to-Coast pathway.
Arguments for the economic benefits to the area from the coal mine does not consider the costs to the economy from climate change, reduced tourism, and the distraction this creates from supporting sustainable industries creating jobs for the future. It is also based on assumptions such as workers relocating rather than commuting for work at the coal mine.
It’s recognised that the landscape impact from above-ground structures is unacceptable. Yet, without any details, this ‘unacceptable impact’ is somehow quantified into a price, and that is weighed as worth less than the supposed economic benefit of the coal mine. This isn’t a technical decision—it is wholly subjective about what we consider the environment to be worth.
The subject of recent research by Coal Action Network, the UK is littered with under-restored or unrestored coal mines—right now, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd is threatening to walk away from the UK’s largest coal mine without completing the restoration promised. The promise of restoration is rarely one that is kept and cannot be relied on. The ecosystem, and the lives supported by it, currently on the land also won’t be put back—it is as unique as each of us, and will be lost forever. The idea that a new one will be the same as the old one, that ecosystems and lives are interchangeable, is a subjective view to justify its termination.
Click the image or here for the full report
Countless communities across the UK were - and still are - being sold a lie by their Local Planning Authorities and mining companies.
This report combines field and desk-based research to reveal the continuing failure of Local Planning Authorities to honour promises made to local communities about how, and when, nearby opencast coal mines would be restored. The research finds that mining companies have consistently evaded restoration costs, and continue to hold Local Planning Authorities to ransom in funding even the bare minimum restoration which would otherwise bankrupt County Councils who would be lumbered with a financial liability amounting to tens of millions. Field research indicates that event those sites which Local Planning Authorities have confirmed by email to be fully restored contains uncovered and leaking storage tanks of industrial chemicals, abandoned warehouses, concrete platforms, and no-go zones sectioned off with barbed wire. COP26 broke new ground, with claims the UK would 'move beyond coal' - but we risk leaving behind communities that cannot ‘move beyond coal’ as they continue to live with the localised impacts of a natural environment ravaged by up to 80 years of opencast coal mining. It is in this context, that we provide an update to some of the findings within the 2014 report on the state of coal mine restoration in South Wales, commissioned by the Welsh Government.
We hope this research will spark renewed calls for the vital restoration work still required, ensure plans for the restoration of coal tips is accompanied by restoration of voids, and sound a warning against consideration given to new or extended coal mining in South Wales and beyond.
