500 signatures reached
To: The Right Hon Carwyn Jones AM, First Minister, Welsh Government
Secure the full promised restoration of Park Slip Margam Opencast Coal Site.
Call in the Alternative Restoration Plans for Park Slip Margam Opencast Coal Site and secure the restoration of the site as detailed in the April 2013, LA commissioned, Welsh Government funded, Restoration Scheme which details the agreed, approved Plan for Restoration Without Mine Discard in the S106 of 2006 and 2007.
Why is this important?
The alternative 'restoration' plans can not in any way be considered a restoration, merely a 'tidying up' of a site which has devastated and industrialised a rural area which once had wheatfields and rare species habitats. Overbearing tips, totally out of character with the rest of the valley will remain together with a dangerous void, flooded to a depth of over 108 metres. The latter will be the deepest 'lake' or reservoir in England or Wales and will remain as an ongoing hazard within a couple of hundred metres of communities.
The only way to make the site safe is to fill in the void with the onsite tips. We want our countryside returned. We want our roads and footpaths reinstated together with bridleways and cycle tracks. This might in some way compensate for the endurance of the local communities who have suffered the opencast, providing profits from more than 4 million tons of coal for the private operator, for twenty years and more. The company has ravaged the valley in reaping the coal and though it signed agreements and gained consents with promises of full restoration, when the time came to 'put it all back' it refused to do so. The local authorities have been floundering unsuccessfully to achieve restoration since 2008 and have finally thrown in the towel and are on the verge of accepting an unsafe, unsatisfactory and inadequate alternative to restoration. It is time that promises were fulfilled. Government intervention is needed to find a way of securing the only acceptable restoration based on the Welsh Government funded Restoration Scheme of April 2013.
We have three governments at Wales, Westminster and Brussels; £162 million net goes to Europe on a weekly basis from this country, surely there are funds somewhere to restore this monstrosity, to invest in a decent legacy for the future, to increase biodiversity, develop tourism and leisure, to enhance the local environment, to reinstate and improve the cross valley links.
Prior to privatisation, the Secretary of State overturned the local government decision to refuse consent for Park Slip West and therefore Westminster has a direct responsibility for at least half of this site. The presumption for opencast mining in the planning system has led to this devastation, along with inadequate strictures at time of privatisation to guarantee the restoration of opencast mines - a guarantee that was there under the nationalised industry. It is time for the government to take on the responsibility for securing the only acceptable restoration of this site. What is currently being offered is no restoration of any kind.
Please support this petition asking the Welsh Government to take on the responsibility for securing the restoration, as promised since 1993 and earlier, of this outrageous insult to the local communities and their environment.
The only way to make the site safe is to fill in the void with the onsite tips. We want our countryside returned. We want our roads and footpaths reinstated together with bridleways and cycle tracks. This might in some way compensate for the endurance of the local communities who have suffered the opencast, providing profits from more than 4 million tons of coal for the private operator, for twenty years and more. The company has ravaged the valley in reaping the coal and though it signed agreements and gained consents with promises of full restoration, when the time came to 'put it all back' it refused to do so. The local authorities have been floundering unsuccessfully to achieve restoration since 2008 and have finally thrown in the towel and are on the verge of accepting an unsafe, unsatisfactory and inadequate alternative to restoration. It is time that promises were fulfilled. Government intervention is needed to find a way of securing the only acceptable restoration based on the Welsh Government funded Restoration Scheme of April 2013.
We have three governments at Wales, Westminster and Brussels; £162 million net goes to Europe on a weekly basis from this country, surely there are funds somewhere to restore this monstrosity, to invest in a decent legacy for the future, to increase biodiversity, develop tourism and leisure, to enhance the local environment, to reinstate and improve the cross valley links.
Prior to privatisation, the Secretary of State overturned the local government decision to refuse consent for Park Slip West and therefore Westminster has a direct responsibility for at least half of this site. The presumption for opencast mining in the planning system has led to this devastation, along with inadequate strictures at time of privatisation to guarantee the restoration of opencast mines - a guarantee that was there under the nationalised industry. It is time for the government to take on the responsibility for securing the only acceptable restoration of this site. What is currently being offered is no restoration of any kind.
Please support this petition asking the Welsh Government to take on the responsibility for securing the restoration, as promised since 1993 and earlier, of this outrageous insult to the local communities and their environment.
