Llyr Gruffydd MS, Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability
Today, I am launching a public consultation on the draft Disused Mine and Quarry Tips Regulations and accompanying guidance. The consultation will run for twelve weeks, concluding on the 14 September 2026. The draft regulations focus on the procedures the Appointed Person must follow when determining applications under sections 38 and 43 of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Act 2025.
In September 2025, the Act received Royal Assent, establishing a modern statutory regime to ensure that disused coal and non-coal tips in Wales are managed safely and do not pose a threat to communities, property or infrastructure, by reason of their instability. The Act creates the Disused Tips Authority for Wales (the Authority), which will oversee the assessment, registration, monitoring and maintenance of disused tips, and require landowners to undertake essential safety operations where appropriate.
Under section 35 of the Act, the Authority can issue a notice requiring a landowner to carry out operations (referred to as a section 35 notice). A section 35 notice may be issued where the Authority considers operations to be necessary to prevent or deal with threats to the stability of a disused tip, to stabilise a disused tip or to prevent a disused tip from becoming more unstable, so as to avoid or reduce threats to human welfare.
The Act provides a right for landowners and interested parties to apply to the Welsh Ministers to vary or cancel a section 35 notice (under section 38). Where the Authority has cancelled a section 35 notice and the landowner has incurred expenditure in complying with that notice, the owner may apply for reimbursement of that expenditure (under section 43). The Act requires the Welsh Ministers to set out in regulations the procedure to be followed in determining such applications. Applications are made to the Welsh Ministers, and the Act requires applications under section 38 and 43 to be determined by a person appointed by the Welsh Ministers.
The draft regulations and guidance set out the procedure for the determination of applications, including what must be included in an application, determination procedures, such as written representations, hearings and inquiries or a combination of these, and the role of the person appointed to determine applications. The purpose of the draft regulations is to ensure that persons affected by decisions made by the Authority under sections 35 and 42 of the Act have clear routes to seek fair consideration of their appeal.
Together, the Act and the draft regulations support wider aims to improve public safety, strengthen climate resilience and promote long-term community wellbeing.
I encourage all stakeholders, landowners, local authorities, industry, communities and relevant professionals to contribute your views on this consultation. Your feedback is vital to ensure that the final version of the regulations and guidance are proportionate, practical and effective for those who will use them.