Assembly to fight opencast rebuff

The proposed site was less than 60m from some opponents' houses

The Welsh Assembly Government is to appeal against a High Court ruling which quashed its decision to allow an opencast mine in Merthyr Tydfil.

The Ffos-y-Fran scheme would have become one of the biggest opencast sites in Europe if it had gone ahead.

Mr Justice Lindsay said it was possible minister Carwyn Jones had been "biased" in favour of the scheme and told the assembly government to reconsider.

However the assembly government claims the judge reached the wrong conclusion.

A Court of Appeal judge will now decide whether or not to allow an appeal.

Local people campaigned vociferously against plans to mine more than 10m tonnes coal at Ffos-y-Fran over 15 years.

Ffos-y-Fran opponents celebrate winning the court case

Opponents had said they would suffer noise, dust and vibration problems from one of the biggest opencast sites in Europe, with 20,000 tonnes of coal extracted each week.

Following a public inquiry, Miller Argent (South Wales) Ltd received planning permission from the assembly government to proceed with development, which the company said would renovate a derelict site and create 200 jobs.

One of the opponents of the scheme, Elizabeth Condron, took a test case to the High Court to try to overturn the planning decision and won.

'Re-think approach'

Her case centred on a claim that assembly planning minister Carwyn Jones, who chaired the meeting which granted approval, had told objector Jenni Jones a day before the meeting that he was "going to go with the inspector's report" backing the scheme.

Mr Justice Lindsay found there was an "unacceptable possible pre-determination" in the assembly's planning decision committee before the decision on 11 April, and reversed the decision.

The solicitor for the campaigners, Paul Stookes, said it was "not entirely surprising" the assembly government was seeking to overturn the High Court judgement, as it had sought permission to do so at that hearing but was refused by Mr Justice Lindsay.

He said: "They [the campaigners] were hoping after the judgement that the decision could give the opportunity to Merthyr Council, the national assembly and indeed the UK government to re-think their approach to coal extraction.

"What's happening, in reality, while the appeal is on quite a fine legal ground, it's arising out the fact that they are going to be digging and making highly polluting activity via coal extraction within 60m of people's homes and that can't be acceptable to anyone.

Standards commissioner

"It's time now for a full review, the national assembly have been delaying six years in trying to get sufficient or adequate guidance for open cast coal extraction and guidance is desperately needed.

"There's been delay upon delay and they still won't resolve this and provide the clear guidance that's needed for these polluting activities."

Mr Jones has remained adamant he never made the reported comment about the planning inspector's report and was "disappointed" that he did not have the opportunity to state that to the court. He was also cleared of any misconduct by the independent Commissioner for Standards.