ACTIVIST lawyers are to support a legal challenge to close down, with immediate effect, an illegal open-cast coalmine in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.

The non-profit Good Law Project is working with the campaign group Coal Action Network and local residents to get the Ffos-y-Fran coalmine shut down.

In September 2022, planning permission for the mine ended. However, the company, Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, continues to extract coal illegally.

Coal Action Network estimates that since that time, the mining company has extracted around 281,652 tonnes of coal illegally, adding up to 885,557 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere.

It was not until May this year that the council served an enforcement notice on the company, which has since appealed. While this is being considered, coal continues to be extracted from the site.

Good Law Project and Coal Action Network have now sent a legal letter to the council and Welsh ministers asking for a “stop notice” to be issued by August 1 2023 at the latest.

Legal manager at the Good Law Project Jennine Walker said: “It is hard to believe that in the UK today, a company can continue to mine coal illegally — because their planning permission has expired — in broad daylight, for over nine months.

“Yet this is what is happening now at Ffos-y-Fran, at a huge cost not only to local residents and the local environment but to the whole country because of the high level of greenhouse gas emissions caused in this time of global heating.”

“Good Law Project is proud to be working with Coal Action Network, who, thanks to our backing, will now be able to take the local council and Welsh ministers to court if needed to finally put an end to this illegal mining.”

Local residents Chris and Alyson Austin said: “The opencast coalmine at Ffos-y-Fran has been an awful neighbour to us across the years, far worse than we expected it to be.

“The noise and dust for 15-16 hours a day, just 300 metres from our doorstep, was beyond our worst nightmares.”

Daniel from Coal Action Network said: “The Welsh government has evidence-based, progressive policies to rule out new coalmines and extensions within Wales, but policies are only meaningful to the extent that they are acted upon, something the Welsh government has spectacularly failed to do for over 10 months.

“If Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council is refusing to implement Welsh government policy, then the Welsh government needs to do so swiftly and decisively by finally bringing Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd to heel with a stop notice.”