Assembly allowed opencast appeal

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

The Welsh assembly has won the right to appeal after losing a court case over plans for one of Europe's biggest opencast sites at Merthyr Tydfil.

Last December a High Court judge quashed a decision to allow the removal of coal from the Ffos y Fran site.

The judgement followed a claim that Welsh Planning Minister Carwyn Jones had already decided to back the scheme before the planning meeting was held.

Mr Jones denied the allegation. No date has been set for the appeal hearing.

The Ffos-y-Fran scheme would have become one of the biggest opencast sites in Europe if it had gone ahead., extracting 10 million tonnes of coal over 15 years.

In December a High Court judge quashed a Welsh assembly decision backing the scheme.

Ffos-y-Fran opponents celebrate winning the court case

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

But the assembly government claimed the judge reached the wrong conclusion.

Opponents in Merthyr Tydfil campaigned vociferously against the opencast proposals.

Campaigners claimed had said they would suffer noise, dust and vibration problems from the site, with 20,000 tonnes of coal extracted each week.

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

'Disappointed'

But 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.

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

Mr Jones has remained adamant he never made the reported comment and said he 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.