Coal, Climate Change and Community: The Case of Ffos-y-Fran

16 | Coal, Climate Change and Community
Coal, Climate Change
and Community:
the case of Ffos-y-Fran
Lydia Godden reports from Ffos-y-Fran, which
may finally mark an end to opencast coal mining in
Wales, and argues that discussion about how we deal
with cleaning up our industrial past is long overdue
Pictures: Elijah Thomas

the welsh agenda issue 71 | 17
‘ People have been just put
down and put down, you
know, in the end, they just
get fed up’
Ffos-y-Fran opencast coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil
has been the subject of community opposition
since the very beginning. However, the mine
operator, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, recently notified
the Welsh Government in an open letter that it will be
ceasing all operations on 30 November 2023. Significant
questions remain surrounding the mounting restoration
costs, estimated around £65m; the admission from the
mine owner of a shortfall of at least £50m, and concerns
for the futures of the mine’s 180 workers.
The ‘land reclamation scheme’ at Ffos-y-Fran is
the final phase of a plan by the former Merthyr Tydfil
Borough Council to landscape an area of derelict and
dangerous industrial wasteland. Due to the huge costs
involved and tight council budgets, the operators were
permitted to mine the land, if – in exchange – they
would use a share of the profits generated to landscape
and backfill the opencast, eventually to restore the site to
common land, providing a safe green space for the local
community. Ffos-y-Fran opencast mine was approved by
the Welsh Government (then Assembly) in 2005, and set
up to excavate a million tonnes of coal annually, making
it one of Europe’s largest opencast sites.
However, for the local communities that surround
the opencast, life has not been the same since. While the
site has provided employment opportunities for some, for
others Ffos-y-Fran has had a detrimental impact on their
daily life. For years, the ‘Residents Against Ffos-y-Fran’
group led a fierce campaign highlighting serious health
concerns related to noise, visual and dust pollution.
In 2017 the UN called for an independent investigation
into allegations of cancer clusters and high childhood
asthma rates among residents. This was never conducted.
Meanwhile mining continues with some homes located
just 40 metres from the site. Evidently, living next to
Britain’s biggest opencast has taken its toll.
Another campaign against Ffos-y-Fran has been
led for almost two decades by local residents Chris
and Alyson Austin, who explain how many people in
the industrial, working class community of Merthyr
Tydfil now feel powerless. ‘People have been just put
down and put down, you know, in the end, they just get
fed up,’ explains Chris. ‘Nobody’s got the confidence
really, in themselves, to be able to think that they can
make a difference,’ adds Alyson. They question if a
development of this scale, along with its harmful toll

18 | Coal, Climate Change and Community
on local communities would be permitted in middle
class communities across the border. Alyson feels that
many people think: ‘Wales is the crap end of the UK, and
Merthyr is the crap end of Wales’ – where local people are
expected to be grateful for any job and just accept what
she describes as ‘the crumbs’. These negative perceptions
of the area, they argue, has led to a general feeling held by
many locals that the mine operators are untouchable and
not accountable for the harm to local residents.
Recent events at Ffos-y-Fran would have only
further embedded these feelings. When planning
permission expired in September 2022, many residents
hoped this would mark the end of mining and the start
of the restoration work. Instead, the operators caused
further outrage by continuing to mine at the site. Just
days before the expiration of permission, the mine
owner had applied for an extension to continue mining
operations for an additional nine months. Once again,
residents pushed for action to be taken. For eight
months, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and
the Welsh Government took no enforcement action.
It was not until April 2023 that Merthyr Tydfil County
Borough Council finally rejected the application, later
putting in place an enforcement notice against the
mine operator. Despite this, mining at Ffos-y-Fran
opencast has not stopped, with the ongoing daily
environmental impact of mining estimated to produce
the equivalent to c.4,000 tonnes of CO2 every day.
In August 2023, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd
announced plans to finally cease mining operations on
30 November. Meanwhile extraction continues, with no
certainty about where the profits are going. The power
to put an immediate end to this lies with both the local
council and the Welsh Government, who have the
powers to issue a ‘stop’ notice. They have not yet done so.
It is precisely these inactions that has led the
environmental group Coal Action Network to file for
a Judicial Review against both Merthyr Tydfil County
Borough Council and the Welsh Government. With
support from the Good Law Project, they accuse
both parties of failing in their duties to protect local
residents – and potentially breaking the law – by
putting off an enforcement decision to stop the illegal
extraction of coal at Ffos-y-Fran, actions they argue
equate to ‘maladministration’.
While the end of mining at Ffos-y-Fran may
potentially be in sight, significant challenges remain.
The operator has confirmed mass redundancies for all
180 workers, and there appears to be a significant lack
of forecasting and preparation to protect these workers.
Local campaigner Chris Austin argues this is a dereliction
of duty from the mine operator who had an agreed
‘obligation’ to provide support packages to workers.
‘Nothing has been put in place for them at all. They’re
just using them as pawns to try and leverage planning
consent or to leverage whatever political argument that
they’re trying to get… So they failed them. The local
authorities failed them. The Welsh Government has failed
them’. The Welsh Government has confirmed they are in
talks with trade unions and the mine owner regarding
the workers’ futures. With restoration works said to take
two to three years to complete, there will be a future for
workers at the site but a clear package of support and just
transition is evidently required.
The longer term challenge now facing both the Welsh
Government and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
lies in the daunting costs of filling the gaping opencast and
securing the local environment. To ensure the necessary
reclamation funds were set aside, an escrow account was
held by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and the

the welsh agenda issue 71 | 19
mine operators were legally obliged to deposit reclamation
funds. Despite this, in 2014 the Welsh Government’s own
investigation found that just £15m had been deposited,
warning that this sum fell ‘well short of a worst case
restoration cost which could be in excess of £50m’.
Nearly ten years on from that report, the local council
revealed that the escrow account balance still stands at
£15m. All the while, estimated costs for restoration have
grown. In their application for an extension, the mine
owner admitted they had not set aside enough money
to fund the restoration work, requesting more time to
mine in order to fund the restoration. If not permitted,
they warned the restoration bill would fall on the
council. This put the local council in a difficult position
– knowing they had to reject the extension while also
aware they cannot complete the restoration relying
solely on limited budgets, and would require financial
support. However, local campaigners, along with Coal
Action Network, argue the local authority and Welsh
government should have known this day would come.
And Ffos-y-Fran is not an isolated example. Littered
across the landscape of south Wales are a number of
abandoned opencast mines. Gigantic holes of scorched
earth, full of harmful mining waste materials left to
pollute the local environment. Once a mining company
has extracted all of their potential profits and taken their
last piece of coal no more profit can be made by continuing
operations. Companies have endlessly relied on planning
extensions to continue mining in order to raise restoration
funds until either the coal runs out, or extensions are
denied. For owners, holding up their end of the bargain
and restoring the land eats away at profits. So they
liquidate, syphon off assets and avoid restoration costs by
exploiting legal loopholes or declaring bankruptcy.
Infamously, Celtic Energy Ltd owned a number of
opencasts across Wales and transferred land ownership,
along with restoration obligations, to a shell company
they had set up. They walked away with profits while
their sites East Pit, Margam, Selar and Nant Helen were
given a sub-standard partial restoration, leaving them at
a serious risk to the local environment and residents. As
Alyson Austin explains, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough
Council were aware of the likelihood of this occurring at
Ffos-y-Fran and were even warned at the very beginning.
‘They should have seen this coming, it’s standard practice
isn’t it… they mine, they leave the hole, then they go onto
the next extension then to pay for that’.
The Good Law Project investigation recently found
that Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd have chosen to pay out
£49.89m in dividends and royalties, while the restoration
fund faces a shortfall of at least £50m. Furthermore,
they also discovered that the parent company, Gwent
Holdings Ltd, which is controlled by the same family
who own Ffos-y-Fran reported cash holdings of £81.7m
in March this year. Despite this, the mine operators insist
they have ‘insufficient funds’ to pay for a full restoration
and are reported to be in negotiations with Merthyr Tydfil
County Borough Council for a reduced restoration cost.
Given the harmful legacy of opencast mining in
South Wales, Coal Action Network argue it is time to
call an end to opencast mining in Wales, once and for
all. With the recent refusal of Carmarthenshire County
Council to extend the Glan Lash opencast, Ffos-y-Fran
now remains the last active opencast coal mine in Wales.
The timeline of events surrounding Glan Lash were a
familiar tale. While mining was set to cease in 2016, with
a complete restoration by 2017, the opencast remains
derelict and unrestored. The owners Bryn Bach Coal
Ltd had applied for an extension to continue mining in
order to fund their restoration duties. Nevertheless, in
spite of this Councillors voted unanimously to reject
the extension citing concerns regarding the local impact
of dust pollution on communities and protection of
local ecosystems. While only time will tell if the full
restoration promised will go ahead at both Glan Lash and
Ffos-y-Fran opencast mines, the information available
provides a bleak forecast. The problem doesn’t only lie
in our gaping, polluted, abandoned opencasts, it is far
bigger than that. The issue of Wales’ polluted past that
continues to plague us is evident also in the hundreds of
high risk coal tips that sit above our villages and homes.
It is time to think seriously about the scale and
urgency of this challenge. In tackling climate change,
we need to look forwards – to a green energy revolution
– but there is a need too to look back at our industrial
past, and to clean up our communities. Repairing the
environmental damage and making them safe for today
and for future generations needs to be an urgent focus –
because at the most fundamental level, our communities
deserve to be safe and to enjoy a clean, green future that
starts at home.
Lydia Godden is Economic Policy
and Research Officer at the IWA