Plaid Cymru’s Peredur Owen Griffiths and Delyth Jewell have called on authorities to take a tougher stance on the last remaining opencast coal mine in the UK.

Peredur and Delyth also welcomed the intervention of the Good Law Project, who plan to take legal action over the continuation of operations Ffos-y-Fran opencast in Merthyr despite its licence expiring more than 10 months ago.

The South Wales East MSs made the comments during a recent site visit.

Peredur said: “It’s 15 year licence expired in September 2022 and that was supposed to be the end of it. As you can see from visiting the site, things are far from quiet and they are far from clean.

“The misery for local residents and the huge carbon footprint of this site goes on.”

He also said that the fact that the mine has remained open has “undermined public authorities and has potentially set a dangerous precedent for companies to ride roughshod over the will of the people and of the planning authorities.”

Delyth said: “The company behind this operation have serious questions to answer, and major problems have been exposed with our planning process by the fact that operations are still ongoing – 10 months and counting past the date they should have ended.

“This has been detrimental to the environment and it has been detrimental for local residents.

“We need tough action from the local authority and the Labour-controlled Government of Wales to bring this operation to an end.”

Delyth also said the episode was reminiscent of Wales being exploited during the height of the coal industry.

“The mountains of our beautiful valleys bear the scars of industries and wealthy capitalists that exploited our mineral wealth, exploited our landscapes and exploited our people,” she said.

Peredur added: “We must also ensure that this site behind us is restored as was originally promised by the open cast company. No ifs, or buts.

“We cannot let history repeat itself. This is why we are pleased to see that the Good Law Project has taken on this matter and gone where the public authorities have been unable – or unwilling – to go.”