The operators of Ffos y Fran coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil want to keep mining there for nine more months to keep the steel industry supplied and help with the security of energy supply. Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd is applying to vary a condition of its planning permission for the site so it can keep extracting minerals until June 6, 2023 and to extend the deadline to complete the restoration of the site until September 6, 2025.
Planning permission for the operational surface coal mine at Ffos-y-Fran was originally granted by what was then the National Assembly for Wales in April 2005. This was varied under a section 73 planning application with two conditions which said all coal extraction from the development should stop no later than September 6, 2022 and final restoration of the land shall be completed no later than December 6, 2024.
The section 73 permission allowed “the limited dispatch by road of up to 5% of the annual output of coal from the Ffos-y-Fran land reclamation scheme or a maximum of 50,000 tonnes of coal per annum (whichever is the lesser) via Cwmbargoed Disposal Point.” Cwmbargoed Disposal Point – which handles the coal produced from the site – operates under its own planning permissions and is partly in Merthyr Tydfil but mostly in the Caerphilly County Borough.
