Based on the planning permission issued on 25 January 2012, coal mining was to cease by the end of 2016 and progressively restored, with completed restoration by the end of December 2017, followed by a 5-year aftercare period. However, as so often happens, this promised restoration has yet to even be started. Bryn Bach Coal Ltd submitted a Section 73 time-extension application to delay restoration works, which the Council permitted ahead of the coal operator submitted an application to extend mining. As a consequence, the local community has suffered an unrestored coal mine on their doorsteps for almost 5 years whilst the mining extension application is considered. To add insult to this injury, Bryn Bach Coal Ltd also write in their environmental impact assessment (EIA) that the extension applied for would “enable the full restoration of the existing and the proposed extension”, making the completion of the previously promised restoration now appear dependent on profits from the extension—not dissimilar from the narrative in Celtic Energy Ltd’s extension applications.

Bryn Bach Coal Ltd claim Glan Lash produces ‘premium quality anthracite’, without parallel in South Wales—a suspiciously similar claim is also made by EnergyBuild Ltd about their Aberpergwm deep coal mine in South Wales.

Despite admitting that 50% (which the company recently changed to 25% in 2022, without explanation or evidence) of the coal mined would be burned for domestic heating, and failing to account for what percentage is destined for other uses, Bryn Bach Coal Ltd haughtily claim in their EIA “that to refuse planning permission based on the impact our proposal will have on Climate Change and Carbon Emissions would be globally irresponsible.”

Bryn Bach Coal Ltd does not determine global coal market conditions and cannot predict demand of different industries. Ultimately, the company will sell to whoever wants the coal and is offering the highest price for it. There will be nothing in the planning permission that controls how the coal is consumed. Bryn Bach Coal Ltd's claims around this may well just be an attempt to make the mine seem more acceptable to Planning Councillors and the public - don't fall for it.

See our key facts and figures on the Glan Lash expansion proposal

Council commissioned the independent reviews of the technical reports paid for, and submitted by, Bryn Bach Coal Ltd on how the coal mine extension would impact water flows (hydrology) and the ecology reliant on that in the area. An independent Planning Ecology report in July 2022 recommends rejection of the application to fulfil the Council’s duty to “maintain and enhance biodiversity under Section 6 of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, Section 6.4.21 of Planning Policy Wales or under Well-being Goal Two of the Well-being and Future Generations Act 2015 (AResilient Wales)”, and points out “documentation provided by the applicant is misleading in places as it makes frequent reference to the restoration of habitats”. In a letter to the Council, Friends of the Earth Cymru precede this independent Ecology Planning report’s conclusions by pointing out that “While mitigation is proposed in the form of restoration and replanting, these trees and associated landscape proposals will take years to grow back to current levels, and existing habitats may not recover”.

The 2018 EIA report paid for by the coal operator, Bryn Bach Coal Ltd, identifies that ancient woodland extends 2.52 hectares inside the site boundary, which would be at risk if the extension goes ahead, but claim the woodland should not be categorised as ancient woodland. The ecologists refute the 2011 classification by Countryside Council for Wales and Forestry Commission Wales, by citing a more obscure historic 1988 source that does not list it as ‘ancient woodland’. In a more recent EIA report by Pryce Ecologists, they stopped using the downgraded term ‘historic woodland’ and stuck to the correct ‘ancient woodland’ classification. This is reinforced by the July 2022 independent Planning Ecology report citing the woodland to be “circa 120 years old” and “cannot be compensated for by the creation of new woodland within a 17-year timeframe”. This is in direct contraction to what was claimed by the Pryce Ecologists EIA report paid for by Bryn Bach Coal Ltd. The independent report goes on to say it would take 120 years for the newly planted woodland to support the same biodiversity, by which time the existing woodland would be 240 years old if it wasn’t removed, and therefore probably still ahead in biodiversity. The independent report is also critical of the 2018 EIA report as ‘The applicant has incorrectly assessed that none of the hedgerows on the site are “important”’, arguing the loss of these hedgerows should be a ‘material consideration when considering this planning application’, particularly as the restoration plan’s “amount of new hedgerow planting is well below the 2:1 ratio associated with habitat compensation and habitat loss” and “40-50% of this planting is in positions where it will contribute little to biodiversity”.

The independent hydrology review commissioned by Council is highly critical of the reports provided by Bryn Bach Coal Ltd, with specific criticisms like “it is my very strong opinion that the information provided is insufficient”, “here appears to have been a complete absence of research on the hydrological management of abandoned mine workings in the area”, and “unsafe assumption[s]”, “I disagree entirely with this statement, and find it hard to understand how the reported data collection exercise could have informed the understanding of whether the marshy grassland is groundwater-dependent to any degree”. Lambasting one of the most recent hydrology reports by Humphries and Leverton in 2022 (again commissioned by Bryn Bach Coal Ltd), the independent review claims “it is based on a wholly inadequate ecohydrological conceptual model, the central limitation being an extremely poor understanding of the hydrogeology of the area … I am strongly of the opinion that the information provided is not sufficient to enable the Local Authority to determine whether or not the proposals will cause significant ecohydrological impacts”. In relation to the restoration plan, the review highlights that the “current claim that sequential backfilling of mined areas will completely restore the original hydrology as the workings move from west to east is, in my opinion, unsafe.”

Consultation question: Considering the information presented in this call for evidence paper, and your own knowledge and experience, what are your views on the extraction of coal in Scotland?

Our response: The Welsh Government's most recent policy statement on coal should provide a starting point for the Scottish Government to build upon (https://gov.wales/coal-policy-statement-html) in developing its own policy, as there are clear and relevant parallels between both Governments.

Both Wales and Scotland has a long legacy of suffering the localised impacts of environmental blight and hazardous conditions of coal mining, with nearby communities rarely seeing a significant share of the economic benefits. Wales is still littered with unrestored or poorly restored coal mines. It was reported that only this year are the final abandoned coal mines in Scotland being restored - again, often to revised, lower standards that what was promised nearby communities due to insufficient restoration bonds.

Now more is known about climate change, both Wales and Scotland have led the way in developing progressive policies and practice to realise their ambitious targets. This cannot include viably include coal, which is worse in CO2 emissions than natural gas and oil in its conversion factor to energy. The EIA Pathways to Net-Zero report make this very clear, underscoring that no new coal mining for any purpose can be part of a pathway to Net-Zero by 2050.

A critical part of that report is no new coal mining for any purpose. The report goes further to explicitly include coking coal for steel in this prohibition. Port Talbot Steelworks in South Wales and British Steel in England are the 2nd and 3rd largest single-site sources of CO2 in the UK - because they burn coal. Any policy that differentiates between the extraction of coal for energy production and coal for steel production, ignores this growing threat to meeting climate targets across the world. It would also ignore the rapidly escalating developments around the world in decarbonising the steel industry. Green steel is on its way, with the first delivery of commercial quantities made from Sweden in 2021. Unfortunately, once investors have opened a coal mine, they will seek return on that investment and find alternative markets for the coal, or laggard steelworks that still rely on coal in the future. So permitting new coal mining for steel will prop up the biggest polluters and discourage transition to new technology and practices.

There is no viable future for any of us that relies on coal to get us there. Scotland should be using its just transition fund to skill its inhabitants in the industries of the future, not ploughing people into the industries that destroy that future.

• Coal to be extracted: 47.3 million tonnes (13.6 million tonnes of which would be non-target coal extracted in the process and put back underground after), at a rate of 1.9 million tonnes per annum, including non-target coal.
• Coal to be sold: NAE Ltd estimate a total of 33.7 million tonnes of coal will be extracted and sold - 1.4 million tonnes of coking coal per annum
• CO2: 100 million tonnes (total)
• Methane: 750 thousand tonnes (total - GEM)
• Intended market: UK and Europe.
• Type of target coal: High-volatile coking coal.
• Current land use: Primarily dairy cow farming.
• Envisaged deep mining method: Originally longwall mining, but Bord and Pillar underground mining is now under consideration.
• Area: 185 km2 covered by 3 conditional licences (Lochinvar North, Central, and South)
• Anticipated cost: £18 million to secure a full licence for the proposed coal mine over 4 years.
• Coal quantity: Borehole analysis estimate 49 million tonnes, with a further 62 million tonnes inferred. In total: 111 million tonnes of coal.
• Time span: 26 years.
• Coal transport: By rail via the West Coast Main Line for direct delivery to either UK steel mills, or to the port of Hunterston or port of Blyth for shipping into Europe.
• Relevant Councils: Dumfries and Galloway Council, and Cumbria County Council.

(Company-supplied in the application for a conditional licence to The Coal Authority in 2020. Redacted by The Coal Authority)

Eyes and ears on the ground: ‘Lochinvar Coal Limited’ employs someone in the role of ‘community-liaison’ based in the town of Canonbie.

Dirty coal: NAE Ltd’s target sulphur content is 1.2-1.4% whereas current imports from USA are less than 1.2%, with some as low as 0.9%. The higher sulphur content of coking coal from the proposed coal mine in West Cumbria recently led an industry leader to rule out its use in UK and European steelworks.

Rolling the dice: based on a Wood Mackenzie forecast of European demand for imported coking coal to grow over 50% from 2017 to 2035. Recently, serious flaws in Wood Mackenzie forecasts were revealed in a public inquiry into the proposed Whitehaven coal mine—as it fails to properly consider rapidly increasing momentum behind green steel.

Best corporate quote: “Investor confidence is then expected to slowly return, making it possible to again raise larger amounts of funding required to progress quality coking coal projects, notwithstanding growing climate change related general anti-coal sentiment globally.” (Licence application to the Coal Authority, 2020)

Shaking the money tin: NAE Ltd claims it is currently progressing discussions for direct investment from potential investors, but its existing relationships have been redacted from the licence application.

2012: New Age Exploration Limited (NAE Ltd) acquired the Lochinvar licence. NAE Ltd set up Lochinvar Coal Limited (formerly Canonbie Coal Limited) in 2012 to operate the Lochinvar Coking Coal Project. However, NAE Ltd remains its parent company, and holds the exploration and conditional licences directly.

2013: NAE Ltd drilled 10 deep boreholes to a total of 3,752 metres underground, through its subsidiary, Lochinvar Coal Limited, on the Scottish/English border near the town of Canonbie, to estimate coking coal quantities and access . This follows drilling by The National Coal Board, British Geological Survey, and Greenpark Energy between 1979 and 2009.

2014: NAE Ltd conducted a scoping study, subsequently updated in 2017.

2014-2016: Coal prices fall to historic lows of USD$70/tonne and NAE Ltd put the project on hold as it was unable to raise funding. Prices remained volatile up to 2019, reducing investor confidence.

2019: NAE Ltd conducted a “Project optimisation study” and touted for partners or investors to finance the development of a coal mine—then the UK and many countries went into lockdown as the pandemic was responded to.

2020: NAE Ltd paid a £13,800 application fee to the coal authority for a coal mining and exploration conditional licence.

2021: JHD Exploration Ltd Dumfries and Galloway Council (within which the Lochinvar test-drilling took place received) for the first time since 2013 to notify them of test drilling.

2022: NAE Ltd had its conditional underground licence renewed by the Coal Authority on 21 January 2022—just 4 days before issuing the Aberpergwm coal mine expansion, in Wales, a full licence. This occurred in a changed context of increases in the price of coal through 2021-22, sanctions on Russian coal has driven demand for alternative sources, production has ramped up post-lockdowns, and the UK Government is broadcasting a more favourable approach towards new coal projects again.

Going forward...

2023-2024: Between 2023 and early 2024 NAE Ltd aim to secure planning permission.

2025: Towards the end of 2025, NAE Ltd aim to begin extracting coal.

Coal Action Network is concerned by the content of the proposals:

• Postponement of the introduction of the statutory requirement for independent verification of fossil fuel emissions
• Amendments to arrangements on mothballed plant to remove a barrier to prequalification for mothballed plants that would otherwise prevent their prequalification for the 2023 CM auctions.

The independent verification of applicants’ fossil fuel emissions was to be introduced to improve the reliability of this important information, and give confidence to the data reported by companies given access to the UK energy generation market. The postponement of this introduction therefore lengthens the doubts cast over the claims made by applicants to the capacity market. The Government claims the reason for the postponement is that there may not be enough independent verifiers in time for applicants to meet this condition. This is a failure in preparation on the part of the UK Government, to rigorously implement the climate policy it created and meet its own targets. We would expect this to be resolved well before the next capacity market auction as non-independent accounting for carbon emissions cannot become normalised or it will risk under-representation of the emissions of the CMUs and the UK overall.

The amendment to allow mothballed plants to bid in the upcoming capacity market auction is concerning where it may increase the potential for recently mothballed coal power plants to come back online and result in a higher proportion of coal within the UK energy mix 2023-24, until the 2024 coal phase-out date begins to have effect. We categorically oppose any move that slows down or reverses the declining use of coal for power in the UK­—including the recent announcement by BEIS to delay the scheduled closure of West Burton coal fired power station. The UK Government states that it is necessary to allow mothballed power stations to participate in the upcoming capacity market auction to increase competition, which it hopes will reduce the cost of electricity generation—particularly when there are greater demands on the grid, such as during the winter months.

If the UK Government invested in renewable technology development and deployment to the same extent that it historically subsidised the fossil fuel industry, competition might realistically be fulfilled by renewable power generators instead. The current challenges are due, to an extent, the policy failure of this government and successive governments to put glib speeches on climate change into action. Moving forward, we urge the UK Government to avert this energy generation challenge recurring with a package of climate-friendly measures, including:

• the application of a windfall tax on the record profits of some of the largest energy company operations in the UK, and ringfence spending to renewable energy generation and efficiency measures.
• make mandatory that all new residential developments meet stringent energy efficiency standards to reduce the winter demand for household heating, as well as bills.
• increase the roll-out of retrospective insulation for Housing Association and Council Housing tenants, reducing the energy bills for those least able to pay them and reducing demand during winter months on the grid.
• Support the development of community owned, localised smart-grids to reduce reliance on a small group of large centralised energy generators and power stations.

We are concerned that the 2024 coal phase-out date is being used by the UK Government to deflect criticism for its support of using coal up until that date, when what we need is the most rapid phase-out of coal that is possible as the UK careers further from its climate targets. This attitude has been captured in comments made this year by two leading cabinet Ministers, “Net zero is by 2050. We are not at 2050 yet.” – Jacob Rees-Mog, and “Give over. We’re still committed to phase out by Sept 2024.” – Kwasi Kwarteng (in relation to extending the coal powered operations at West Burton).

Finally, as we have commented before in previous consultations, the 2024 phase-out date should be legislated on, to ensure that it happens. As this consultation and other recent moves by this government show, this or any future administration is not currently prevented from taking steps which cast doubt on or undermine that commitment.