Planning issues related specifically to
Parc Slip/Margam
OPEN CAST
COAL MINING
IN THE
KENFIG VALLEY:
A MOCKERY OF
DEMOCRACY
1. The local community having been subjected
to opencast coal mining in the valley since 1947 objected to the
planned extension of Park Slip Extension in 1988. The then Local
Authority, Mid Glamorgan County Council took heed of these objections
and refused planning permission. At the time West Glamorgan County
Council had a very small part of the land subject to the planning
application and to avoid any expense on their part that council
consented to the application (I've been told this by a councillor
who was on the planning development committee at the time.) The
local community councils also objected to the application nevertheless
the case went to Public Inquiry headed by one person, a planning
inspector who eventually decided to allow the extension because:
(a) It would only last for a total of six
years including restoration of sites that needed two years restoration
anyway.
(b) Where it would be situated between Law
Street and Bedford Road it would be screened from the villagers
of Kenfig Hill and would not impact greatly on the communities
of either Cefn Cribwr or Kenfig Hill. The community of Cefn Cribwr
would have to put up with two years of restoration anyway. The
land between Bedford Road and the woodland of Hafod Heulog would
shelter Kenfig Hill from the site.
(c) British Coal had no plans to extend further
down valley.
Where is the democracy in this? The County Council
representing the communities of the area had voted democratically
to refuse the application, the local people had objected and yet
one individual was allowed to give a consent that has since been
made a mockery. Despite what that man said consent has been given
to allow the destructive opencast to move down valley to within
a few hundred metres of Kenfig Hill. It is now 12 years since
the open cast then consented to restarted, no reclamation has
taken place, the communities of Cefn Cribwr, Kenfig Hill and Pen
Y Bryn are denied all cross valley footpaths, two cross valley
routes are closed—Bedford Road and Crown Road—leading
to congestion in both villages at peak times, businesses have
suffered and closed due to the loss of passing through traffic.
Why has this been allowed to happen? Perhaps to some extent because
of the reorganisation of local government that has taken place
in South Wales since the mid 1980's. We no longer have a Mid Glamorgan
and a West Glamorgan County Council, we no longer have Ogwr Borough
Council, Port Talbot, Neath and Swansea councils but we have Bridgend
CBC and NeathPortTalbot CBC and Swansea all divided up differently
and separate.
Celtic Energy, the private company resulting
from the management buy out of British Coal in the area following
the Public Inquiry in 1993, worked Park Slip West and then applied
in 1998 to sink a deep mine that required a little bit more opencast
in order to sink it in the void—Park Slip West Extension/Margam
Mine. The only reason the application included a "deep mine"
was because Neath Port Talbot had planning policies in force that
would have stopped further opencast in the valley. Policies in
the adopted plan for the area The Cwmafan, Bryn, Goytre and Rural
Margam Local Plan were in force protecting the land under application:
(d) From the opencast mining of coal—E
4.
(e) Protecting the land for the deep mine—I
3.
(f) Protecting valuable high grade agricultural
land.
These policies were not brought to the attention
of the Neath Port Talbot Planning Development Decision Committee
when the application for the deep mine was put to them. In both
Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot a lot of emphasis went on the virtues
of the proposed "Deep Mine" which would employ 300 to
400 people over a 20 year period. However though the company together
with Tower colliery with whom they were supposed to be in partnership,
stated that they would be conducting surveys into the viability,
economic and geological, of the proposed deep mine, no official
from either borough council requested to see these surveys both
of which were supposed to have been completed before the councils
decided the application. If this is supposed to be a democracy
when a company proposes to break so many previous conditions,
so many existing policies, why was this company not asked to provide
evidence to prove their application? In the event, no sooner was
the company given the legal consent in the form of the 106 agreement
in March 2001, having been allowed to continue opencasting in
the meantime, than they let it be made known to council officers
and to the site liaison committee that their "consultants
had advised against sinking a deep mine from the void due to safety
considerations". It is a mockery of the planning process
and of democracy and of the views of the local communities to
allow a company employing a handful of people, the majority of
whom are not even locals, to bypass written legal planning policies
in this way. The law is certainly not there to protect democracy
is it?
In the last two years the local community has
again objected most vociferously to the planning application submitted
by Celtic Energy in 2004 to continue opencast down valley through
the Hafod Heulog Woods and through the River Kenfig, in full view
of, adjacent to and with no protection offered to the village
of Kenfig Hill. The Countryside Council for Wales and The Environment
Agency both refused consent because of the proposed destruction
of the pristine river and the semi natural ancient woodlands.
I feel that the community should have been spared such an application.
It should have been sufficient in planning law that such features
are protected and cannot be subject to such process. The company
should have been made aware from the outset that such an application
was invalid. The Planning Officer for Neath Port Talbot recommended
refusal in his report to the decision committee and the company
then withdrew it's application. However we are now under threat
of a revised application and a current application to extend the
ongoing opencast by yet another year. I think that the company
should now be made aware that the cumulative impact, the visual
impact, the effect on the health of the local populations, the
damage to the remaining wildlife, the loss of access to roads,
to footpaths, to countryside should make any further application
to opencast the remains of our valley beyond consent.
Furthermore, once the company has the initial,
major consent to opencast then it immediately sets about applying
for alterations to planning conditions etc to enable it to do
exactly what it wants. In this area, this has included raising
the overburden mound, extending the time limit for mining, mining
an additional area to within a couple of hundred metres of many
dwellings in the village, removing soil mounds placed to absorb
sound and dust to protect the community in the process.
We have suffered enough mockery of democracy
here, we have suffered enough pollution and disregard, it is time
to move into the 21st century and adopt modern technologies to
protect the environment, the resources of the planet, the climate
and the health of the people—which is amongst the worst
in the UK. It is time to put an end to opencast coal mining here.
J K Adamson
(PACT member)
January 2007
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