Orphaned Open-cast Mines

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Orphaned Opencast Mines.

I am grateful for your chairmanship today, Mr Davies. This will be quite a complicated discussion, because I am aware that several colleagues from other areas of the United Kingdom want to take part in the debate. I have said that I will take one intervention from each of them so that they can be engaged, but I feel that it is important that we move forward in tackling this issue.

This is my fourth debate on the subject, in which there is cross-party interest. I am so sorry that I did not look for a 90-minute debate or another Backbench Business debate, because the level of interest would have made that feasible. The Minister is the third Minister I have discussed the problem with. Let us hope that this is the last debate needed and that she is the one who will finally address the problem of open-cast sites, so that communities up and down the country can at last feel that their problems are being addressed and that help is at hand.

Equally, let us hope that the companies that have abandoned sites and not completed their commitments to restoration understand that they cannot ravish the countryside in the name of profit and greed and then simply walk away, leaving their responsibilities for others to take on and finance.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Moon]

I will. This is your one intervention.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I agree entirely with her point about land restoration and companies not running away from their responsibilities. Does she agree that we must also ensure that the application process is a broad one, which takes into account public opinion and anticipates future problems?

[Mrs Moon]

I assume that my hon. Friend is talking about the need to take into account public opinion in the restoration process. That is absolutely critical. My community of Cynffig Hill are very clear that they want the void on the Parc Slip site to be filled in, because they think it is highly dangerous, and any restoration must include that.

The Coal Industry Act 1994, which received Royal Assent under the Major Government, privatised the remains of British Coal and gave the then Department of Trade and Industry powers to ensure full continuity from the coal corporation to private companies. The Department committed to checking carefully the financial status of successor companies as part of the bid process. Too many communities have found those to be empty promises, and the result has been environmental devastation, pollution and failure.

In the case of Parc Slip, the company that eventually became Celtic Energy bought the site with the inclusion of a 10-year restoration bond-free period. For 10 years, no money was put aside for restoration, the company having paid up front to the Major Government a sum that was, it argues, to include the cost of that 10-year restoration. The Government took the sale money and coal levy payments for 13 years; Celtic took the coal; and the communities of Margam, Cefn Cribwr, Cynffig Hill and Pyle have been left with the consequences.

Parc Slip is mostly in the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), but most of the residents affected by the site are in Cynffig Hill. Most of them live about 300 metres south of the void. The site is more than a mile and a half long, and half a mile across. It includes the void, which contains foul water that rises and falls with the seasons. At one point this winter, there was huge fear that the void would overspill and water would cascade down into the community in Cynffig Hill.

After further planning applications, an escrow account was belatedly established, which contains £1.5 million. However, the full restoration costs of the site are estimated at £57 million. Roads, footpaths and farming land have been lost, and promises to restore them and sell back the farmland have been reneged on. I do not intend to repeat the horrific story of Celtic selling off its restoration liabilities to Oak Regeneration, which is based in the British Virgin Islands, and the subsequent dispersal of £73 million elsewhere in the company—millions of pounds that could have paid for the restoration went to pay those involved in establishing paper offshore companies.

The Serious Fraud Office and the judiciary have also failed my community. In February 2014, fraud charges against six individuals, including members of Celtic Energy, were dropped. They had been charged with conspiracy to defraud Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend and Powys Councils, as well as the Coal Authority; and with

“deliberately prejudicing their ability effectively to enforce obligations to restore cast mining sites to open countryside and/or agricultural use”.

That relates to the Oak conspiracy.

Mr Justice Hickinbottom said that there had been no economic injury to the local authorities or the Coal Authority. He said that although the transactions may have been dishonest, they were not illegal, and that Celtic was obliged to restore the land to countryside and agricultural use once mining was complete. I cannot begin to tell the Minister—or you, Mr Davies—how that decision is viewed in Cynffig Hill, or indeed in Cefn Cribwr or Margam. It is felt that everyone has turned their back on their responsibilities to this site, and the community is left to live with the most horrific situation.

According to the results of the court case, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend Councils were not adversely affected, but the reality is that they have been gravely adversely affected, because they have no funds at all to restore the land. Bridgend Council has had a £50 million budget cut. Both planning departments failed to protect the local community over a number of planning applications and conditions applied. One thing is clear, however. Whatever restoration comes out of any discussions between the planning departments and Celtic—however minor the results that £5.5 million can achieve—the void must be made safe.