WIP0006

Written evidence submitted by Coal Action Network

This submission consists of:

• Coal Action Network submission (this document)
• Attachment: Coal Action Network report: Coal mine restoration in South Wales. Please find this report at the following link: coalaction.org.uk/2022/12/13/coal-mine-restoration/

Coal Action Network is the UK’s foremost organisation advocating for the end of the use and extraction of coal. We have successfully supported communities to prevent 45 planned opencast coal mines from operating since 2008 and have campaigned rigorously for the remediation of closed coal mines that was promised to host communities. This has given us a unique insight into communities affected by Britain’s industrial past.

Many of the legacy issues of old coal mines, and the only planned new coal mining projects, are in South Wales. Therefore we are submitting the following through the lens of our experiences campaigning against coal extraction and the legacy of that extraction in Wales. This is relevant to the first term of reference of the inquiry: ‘What progress has been made in addressing the environmental legacy of Wales’ industrial past?’

In this submission the common theme is that proponents reaped the financial benefits of coal mining, whilst abandoning their responsibilities to the host communities in which they worked and who suffered years of noise and dust pollution.

Therefore, our key recommendations to this inquiry consist of the following:

• Ensure remining from coal tips is also prohibited within the UK Government’s proposed legislation banning new coal licensing.
• Commit further funding specifically to improve the remediation of, largely opencast, coal mining sites in South Wales where the current state remediation has fallen below what was agreed with the host communities.

This submission focuses on the inquiry’s first term of reference:

‘What progress has been made in addressing the environmental legacy of Wales’ industrial past?

• How could the UK Government further support the remediation of former industrial sites in Wales?

At Coal Action Network our expertise is of coal mines and their environmental, impacts in the UK. It is with this perspective that we are making this submission. Although there may be an environmental legacy of other industries in Wales, this submission will only focus on that of coal mining.

The environmental legacy of Wales’ coal mines

The landscape of South Wales is pockmarked by its legacy of industrial coal mining, particularly in the valleys. With over 5,000 coal tips across the UK,[i] Wales alone contains 2,573 registered disused coal tips.[ii] These are mixtures of non-target coal, rocks, and soil which were excavated from within the mines.  Once on the surface, materials were discarded near mining operations and commonly abandoned there when mines were closed.

Coal tips are created by deep and opencast coal mining. Since privatisation in 1994, operators would have to agree to planning conditions compelling them to return the material within the tips, to the holes or voids they excavated them from. Planners required this so that the landscape would be restored after the mining was finished. But this legislation was imperfect and there were implementation challenges.

Historic restoration abandonment

As Coal Action Network’s 2022 report about coal mine restoration in South Wales (Attachment 1) shows, most mine operators ignored or evaded these planning conditions.[iii] This saved companies tens of millions in private profits to the detriment of host communities’ living standards.[iv]

Our report showed that mining companies have routinely evaded their responsibility to set aside funds for restoration. Instead they endlessly relied on income from new mining, often as mining extensions, to pay for the restoration of old mining. When that became harder because of the decline in demand, operators frequently exploited legal loopholes to evade those costs or they declared bankruptcy.

Continued legacy of restoration abandonment

This is not just a historic issue, but is currently being attempted at the sprawling Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil.[v] The operator here has refused to return the material within three huge coal tips, that it created, to the void from which the material was excavated.[vi] Instead the mine has been allowed to flood and three more coal tips may need to be monitored under the recently proposed Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill.[vii]

If the Glan Lash opencast coal mine is refused the expansion it recently applied for, we could again see a similar situation to Ffos-y-fran.[viii] When Aberpergwm deep coal mine eventually closes (at the latest 2039), we could see similar challenges to compel the operator to fund site remediation.[ix]

Despite current developments at Ffos-y-fran and recommendations by the Welsh Government’s Climate Change, Energy, and Infrastructure Committee,[x] the Welsh Government is declining to take action to prevent this legacy of industrial mining waste and landscape scarring from repeating.[xi]

Future restoration

Coal Action Network believes that the remediation of coal tips is an important area of focus for this inquiry. How coal tips in Wales are remediated in the coming years could be a major source of contention if the Westminster and Welsh Governments do not get it right.

After landslips from coal tips in Tylorstown and Wattstown in 2020, and Cwmtillery in November 2024, the safety of the 2,573 tips in Wales[xii] is an important issue which needs to be dealt with urgently. As this Committee identified in the launch of its inquiry; the risk of pollution, flooding and landslips from these coal tips is increasing as climate change intensifies our storms and increases rainfall.

The Welsh Government’s Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill seeks to safeguard communities against loss of property, wellbeing, and life from nearby tips becoming unstable. It is Coal Action Network’s belief that this Bill could inadvertently incentivise landowners to support proposals from private companies to ‘re-mine’ coal tips for the historic non-target coal discarded within them. Operators would permanently flatten the tip, thereby ridding the landowner of any future stability maintenance costs, which can run into the millions.

We will be further expanding on this unintended potential at the Welsh Government’s CCEIC hearing on February 4th where we have been invited to supply oral evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of the Bill as currently proposed.

Remediation or re-mining

Re-mining coal from coal tips is currently being proposed by Energy Recovery investments Ltd in Bedwas, South Wales. The company intends to extract coal from two large coal tips, selling the coal, and using a portion of those profits for the remediation of the site.[xiii] This risks inflicting similar noise and dust on host communities. When the coal is sold it would further exacerbate climate change, further threatening tip stability.

According to Energy Recovery investments Ltd, it expects to mine 468,000 tonnes of coal from the Bedwas Tips.[xiv] With nothing preventing the proponent from selling the coal for burning purposes, Coal Action Network estimates that emissions from the use of this coal could total over 1.2 million tonnes CO2e, plus significant operational emissions.[xv]

The mining of this coal would not currently be prohibited by the Government’s proposed coal mine licensing ban, announced in November 2024.[xvi] Coal licenses from the Mining Remediation Authority (previously Coal Authority) only cover coal mined from virgin seams. As the coal in coal tips is no longer in a virgin seam, it only requires planning permission from the local planning authority.

A new coal mining industry?

If re-mining of the coal tips in Bedwas proceeds and is profitable, a new coal mining industry could develop in Wales and the rest of the UK. Re-mining could be seen by some landowners as a way to remove current or potential future threats and costs from coal tip stability. There are, however, two points which are important to consider:

1. The very existence of so many coal tips across Wales is evidence of the profit-driven priorities of mining companies. Many were given permission to mine on the condition that they returned the material in the tips, back into the voids from which it came. But many proponents abandoned these responsibilities once they made the majority of their profits.

It would be perverse to rely on profit-driven mining companies to fix the problems caused by profit-driven mining companies. One need only consider the recent history of coal mining in the UK to understand the likely outcome of inadequate remediation and its long-term effects on local communities.

2. With 2,573 coal tips across Wales, proponents would not be short of coal to mine. Extrapolating from Energy Recovery investments Ltd’s estimated coal content of the Bedwas tips, there could be 602 million tonnes of coal in tips across Wales.[xvii] If mined, sold, and then burned, this coal could produce 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2e.[xviii] A similar amount to Russia’s annual carbon dioxide emissions.[xix]

Were this industry to capitalise on the rest of the UK’s 5,000 coal tips,[xx] the burning of coal from all UK coal tips could potentially create over three billion tonnes of CO2e.[xxi]

Any Local Planning Authority that allows re-mining as an answer to coal tip stability safety concerns or remediation, could propel this industry forward to leave a new legacy of scars on the Welsh landscape and endanger the UK’s climate commitments.

Recommendations

How could the UK Government further support the remediation of former industrial sites in Wales?

Recommendation 1: Include the re-mining of coal in the planned coal ban legislation

It is important that any solution to the issue of coal tip safety or remediation in Wales does not further exacerbate climate change and the extreme weather events it produces. The proposal to re-mine coal from coal tips in order to make them safe or remediate them is inconsistent with UK Government policy to prevent new coal mines.

Therefore, including the re-mining of coal from coal tips, as part of the planned coal mine licensing ban, is essential. This would ensure that coal tip safety or remediation does not result in stimulating the coal mining industry, and the externalised costs that may again arise from that.

Recommendation 2: Commit further funding specifically for remediation

Alongside the coal mining ban, Local Planning Authorities in Wales need to be given the financial support to remediate historic coal mining sites. It is necessary to clean up the industrial legacy of coal mining, or else risk leaving behind some of Wales’ most deprived communities with a degraded environment that poses significant safety risks and development barriers.

Although the remediation of historic coal mining sites and coal tips is a devolved issue, it is important that the UK Government should fund this work because the mining was set in motion before devolution. Prior to that, the financial benefits of the mining flowed to Westminster. Therefore it is only right that Westminster should fund the remediation of what it profited from.

Figures of £600 million over ten years have previously been requested by Senedd Ministers and MS’s.[xxii] Coal Action Network supports this sum being provided for the purposes of remediating sites of coal mining and associated coal tips.

Just as importantly though, is how that money is spent. As yet, the Welsh Government has not acted on multiple recommendations from its own research, from Committees, and from NGOs for improving how remediation funds could be used.[xxiii] Coal Action Network has previously suggested that any funding should help community-centred decisions about remediation.

Guaranteeing significant funding to support the remediation of coal mining sites and associated coal tips in Wales is what Coal Action Network would recommend the UK Government do to support an ethical remediation process.

References