"I can't believe we're doing this again," Chris Austin said, looking into the distance. "We'd literally just closed our residents' group's bank account. You have to work so hard just to get the smallest win."
We're standing just a few hundred metres from Ffos-y-Fran near Merthyr Tydfil, the UK's largest opencast coal mine. In the distance mountain land stretches across the horizon, covered by swathes of jet-black coal. On the left side of the mine, just next to Dowlais, a couple of large trucks slowly make their way across.
It's a sight which has become painfully familiar to those living in the area, for whom the mine has been a continual source of frustration. Part of a long-running plan to reclaim areas of land to the east of Merthyr Tydfil, coal has been extracted from Ffos-y-Fran and was due to stop from September 6 this year. But Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, which owns the site, has applied to Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to extend this for another nine months.
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The company is to submit a new planning application in 2023 to cover a three-year extension to the mine to provide coal to the Port Talbot steelworks, which it says is needed "due to the exceptional impacts caused by global disruption to energy markets." It has also promised a new and revised restoration plan for the Merthyr area.
But Ffos-y-Fran has provoked criticism locally and beyond, with concerns raised over health and safety, the despoiling of the landscape and the impact of mining coal on climate change. For the residents most opposed to the mine, last month should have been the end of a long battle which has involved public inquiries, court battles and meetings with major figures. Instead, the news that work will continue has left them devastated.
"This was going to be the forever house", said Alyson Austin, 58, speaking from the front room of the house she's lived with husband Chris for 19 years. A stone's throw away from the mine, they moved from Pontypridd into what she described as her "dream house" with their children but were immediately embroiled in a fierce campaign.
In 2005 the Ffos-y-Fran scheme was approved by the then-Welsh Assembly, but the decision was quashed by High Court after a legal challenge from a group of residents including Alyson and Chris. But a Welsh Assembly appeal overturned that result in late 2006, paving the way for coal extraction to start the next year.
"I cried to be honest - really, I did," Alyson said. "When we got the call to say the planning permission had been given, I just cried for days."
Chris, 67, said that when work started it was "worse than we'd imagined. "We felt sick, absolutely sick that we'd fought so hard and made such a strong opposition and still lost. We thought the dust was going to be bad, and it was bad, but the noise was 16 hours a day when they started, from seven in the morning until 11 at night. We could only sleep when they shut down at 11 and we were awake again at seven.
"It just spoiled everything. It was a living hell for years and years, and we fought and fought to get the local authority to dampen it down and were told we had to speak to the company." Chris said residents' lives have been blighted by issues with noise, dust and pollution arising from the mine which extracts tens of thousands of tonnes of coal every week.
"It's hard to describe how it impacted us. Everything was black. We were constantly cleaning the window sills and the outside furniture, especially in the summer. We couldn't open the windows. The noise would penetrate the house. You can't just shut windows and turn the TV on - the noise of the diggers is just horrendous. There's no sleeping with it."
So bad was the impact that Chris and Alyson used to take their children, who were young at the time, out to the supermarket just to be away from the mine. "We used to take the kids out to Tesco's and Asda even if we didn't want to shop, just get out of the house. Just to get away from it," he remembered. "It spoiled our lives and what was going to be a new start. I can't tell you how many years it went on for."
Chris and Alyson said they've had some respite since as mining has gradually shifted towards the area of the site nearer Dowlais, but they still get dust settlement and later show me their outside walls, which are almost black.
"I remember I had someone from the health department outside our garden and I was showing him how much dust had collected over the week," Alyson said. "I wiped everything clean and within half an hour as he was talking to me, you could see the dust settling down again on the table and chairs."
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Royston Thomas, 79, lives right next door to Ffos-y-Fran. He claims he has suffered flooding from the mine under different owners over the years, as well as other damage to his property. "I have objected on almost all of it for 30 years," he said. "They're the neighbours from hell. I've got pictures of the flooding near my place, it's disgusting. And there's been nothing done about it. And the noise... The impact has been huge. You can't sleep with the noise at night. There was one blast one day which ripped the felt from one truss of the house right to the bottom. I've got photos of it. They've blighted us all. I'm fighting this and I'm nearly 80 years old. I should be enjoying my life."
The saga has even attracted international attention; in 2017, the United Nations called for an independent investigation into allegations of cancer clusters and high childhood asthma rates around the mine - then owned by Miller Argent - after meeting with campaigners including Chris and Alyson. Former UN special rapporteur Baskut Tuncak said at the time that he was concerned about the lack of investigations into the health impacts on residents.
A number of years ago residents paid themselves for a private monitoring firm to prepare a report on the dust build-up, which Chris said was "absolutely damning." Sadly, he said the results were ultimately never heard by the authorities.
Malcolm Jones, 78, also lives nearby and said the mine had been "horrendous" over the years. Flicking through his phone, he shows pictures of the front of his red-bricked home that morning, partly covered with black dust. "When it first started, the dust and the noise. I bleach all my walls around twice a year because they go absolutely black. When the water runs, you can see it compared to how clean the bricks are normally.
"There's a legal argument that people may have bought a house here thinking that's gonna be finished in a couple of years' time. And now it's not. It's back on. Where do you stand legally if you've told a buyer it'll be all gone in two to three years? If you sell your house and you don't tell the future buyer what is coming up, you can be in big trouble."
Residents say attempts to engage with the Welsh Government, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and the owners over the years have fallen on deaf ears. The 15-year period allowed for mining at Ffos-y-Fran was due to end on September 6 this year, a date residents had long earmarked as a "great relief." But just days after it passed, they discovered plans to continue for nine months had been lodged with the council. Now, they potentially face another three years of disruption on their doorstep if the company's new application comes in next year as expected.
"It was supposed to be a day of celebration," said Alyson. "I'd had a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting. We're in a period of climate chaos. It's a climate emergency. And they're still talking about digging coal out? Money's no good when there's no water, if there's nothing growing."
In their early years of campaigning, Alyson said she felt they could be successful if they fought hard enough, but that hopes have faded after meeting constant dead ends. "I always felt if I could take it high enough, somebody would come in and say this is an absolute disaster and a monstrosity and it should never have been allowed. And I always felt that somebody was high enough to do something.
"I just felt that we were really, really unlucky. But as over the years, when we were campaigning, and we met other campaign groups, and other people around the country, I suddenly realised that the story is exactly the same. Just the name of the developer and the name of the place changes. Everything else is exactly the same. Democracy is here in name only."
Chris said he felt there was "too much money, too much at stake" for the mine not to happen. Residents have been given various reasons for its continuation, including the need to supply coal to Wales' steelworks industry. "They've said we've got to keep the skilled workers and that jobs are provided and that sort of thing. But the steelworks brings most of its coal in on ships from America, Australia, Venezuela, Colombia - wherever the money is best for them.
"After years and years of campaigning we're probably as good as it gets as a residents' campaign. And we have struggled to make any headway against the local planning authority, Welsh Government and obviously the mining company itself. The common man stands no chance in controlling or stopping such deleterious schemes as this."
The Welsh Government said opening or extending coal mines in Wales would "further exacerbate climate damage", adding that local councils not intending to turn down planning applications needed to notify ministers, who would further scrutinise any application. With residents now having to resurrect their dormant campaign - which they'd already closed the bank account for in preparation for the September end date - they must now await the result of the planning extension, which could take months. They've already lodged objections and say they hope Welsh ministers will turn down the plans even if they get the go-ahead from Merthyr council.
But Chris said this would only be done in "exceptional circumstances" and added: "We are environmentalists and this has huge impacts on Welsh policy, whether it's the net zero 2050 commitments or those made to the Paris accord. All that has been coming out of Welsh Government over the past few years were that coal is gone. But it's an open-ended process."
A Tata Steel spokesperson said: "The Ffos-Y-Fran mine supplies us with an essential raw material which enables us to produce steel in Port Talbot – steel which is helping the country to achieve its net-zero ambitions. Our steel is used to build renewable energy projects, electric vehicles and sustainable buildings, to name just a few.
"There are a number of benefits from using locally-produced coal, including in reducing transport emissions of CO2. In fact, transport emissions for each tonne of UK coal delivered to Port Talbot are typically five times lower than coal imported from abroad. We also recognise the economic value the mine brings to the area around it, in terms of job creation."
A spokesperson from Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd said: "Merthyr South Wales is developing an end of mine strategy for Ffos -y -fran which will see the site cease coal recovery and be comprehensively restored. The strategy provides for a three year time-limited period of continued coal production to lend support to the Welsh steel industry at a time of unprecedented global disruption to energy markets.
"Production at the mine throughout this extended period will continue to be managed in accordance with the strict guidelines set down by the regulatory authorities, to ensure that impact on the surrounding communities is minimised. The company looks forward to engaging with the local community and stakeholders on shaping a new restoration plan for the site over the coming months."
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: "We have been clear that we do not support the extraction of fossil fuels and are focused on the climate emergency. The opening of new coal mines or the extension of existing coaling in Wales would add to the global supply of coal and further exacerbate climate change.
“We are aware that a planning application has been submitted to Merthyr County Borough Council for an extension of time to mine coal at Ffos-Y-Fran. Under our notification direction, any local authority that does not intend to refuse an application for coal or petroleum development must notify Welsh ministers who will scrutinise the decision and decide next steps based on the merits of the individual application.”
A Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council spokesperson said the details of the latest application were currently available on the council's website and that a 21-day publicity exercise had invited members of the public to submit written representations or to email planning@merthyr.gov.uk. "All presentations received from the public will be duly acknowledged and taken in to consideration in the determination of the planning application," they added.
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