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The human cost of the stolen £millions

The mining company, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, is trying to do the residents of Merthyr Tydfil out of tens of millions of pounds worth of restoration at Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine by massively reducing the restoration it agreed to carry out at the end of 16 years of coal mining. To understand the lasting impacts this would have, and why we must resist it, we've made a guide on the community impacts of two other 'zombie' restorations in South Wales where the same happened.

Zombie restorations

Former opencast coal mining sites like East Pit, Margam Parc Slip, Nant Helen, and Selar are all recent examples of 'zombie restorations' carried out on budgets often amounting to 10% of what the promised restoration would have cost - sometimes even less. Ffos-y-fran looks set to join that list. Restorations are so-called because they are meant to return natural life to the area after coal mining has finished, often with promises of even more natural habitat and life than there was before. But just like zombies, these restorations is that they can appear fairly normal if you don't look too closely and you didn't know what it looked like before (depending on the movie!)... but there's little natural life in these areas after coal mining.

Communities paying the price

Often planning permission is granted for coal mining on the basis that the area will be restored with even better natural habitats and public amenity (access, facilities etc.) than before. Surrounding communities pay the price for the promised restoration with years of noise, dust, and disruption to their daily lives. When that restoration is inevitably denied by profiteering mining companies, communities report:

  1. Not being able to move on
  2. Loss of place and history
  3. Reduced access to green space
  4. Safety risks

Get clued up on the detail to resist your local apocalypse

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Richard Tamplin
Richard Tamplin
23 days ago

A downright disgrace and a downright and utter insult to the people of South Wales, so many of whom gave their lives trying wrest a living out of the hills.
I was a member of OMIG (Opencast Mining Intelligence Group), now disappeared, but I took part in public inquiries across South and North Wales, Lancashire and County Durham. My argument was that opencast was all about transferring the costs, monetary and social, of getting coal from the nationalised deep mines to the private sector. We were rubbished by the NCB by Government and by local authorities who couldn’t see beyond “it’s jobs” arguments.
We warned that this is how it would end, that like the old mine owners before them these mining companies were interested only in one thing, private profit and getting out as soon as they had sucked communities of their life blood. I’m proud to have lived in Garndiffaith, a small mining community in the Eastern Valley and to have met so many wonderful people through my work. The same happened when I was moved to Woodland, a tiny settlement at the south-western end of the Durham coalfield.
But it was in South Wales that I was most proud to have lived and to have had the ability to support those communities at inquiries like Llanilid West near Bridgend and Brynhenllys in Breconshire. I recognise all those sites referred to like East Pit, Margam, Ffos y Fran and more, where the NCB and private operators were promising the earth (literally) and we said again and again that without a full bond covering the full cost of restoration deposited with the Coal Authority and monitored by a Committee of equal members of the community and the operators with a genuinely independent Chair before any start was allowed, the result would be environmental disaster. I’m so sorry that we were not successful in the long term and if I can do anything now, I shall be only too pleased to do so.
Do get in touch please.

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