Huw Irranca-Davies, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Since its creation immediately after the landslip at a disused coal tip in Tylorstown in February 2020, the Coal Tip Safety Taskforce has been working to assess and monitor the status of disused coal tips in Wales. A major component of this work was the creation of the National Disused Coal Tips Dataset (“the National Dataset”) which is used to co-ordinate monitoring and maintenance activities between the Welsh Government, local authorities, Natural Resources Wales, the Mining Remediation Authority, and our other delivery partners.
The National Dataset was first published in November 2023 and showed the locations and status of category C and D rated disused coal tips. This was quickly followed by the publication of category B, A, and R rated tips a few months later.
Since its first publication it has been necessary to update the National Dataset to reflect changes that have been identified through the ongoing comprehensive programme of inspections undertaken on behalf of the Welsh Government by the Mining Remediation Authority. As a result, an update to the National Dataset was made publicly available in October 2024.
I can announce that a second update to the National Dataset will be published on 22 May 2025 to reflect changes identified on disused coal tips since October 2024. It is important that regular updates to the status of disused coal tips in Wales, as well as supporting information, is made available to the public. This will provide assurances that our records are accurate and up to date, that the safety driven programme work is ongoing and highlight where there may be changes of note at a tip location.
In recognition of the need for regular information updates, the Welsh Government will continue to publish updates to the National Dataset twice a year following the conclusion of the annual, and bi-annual, programme of inspections of all category C and D disused coal tips respectively. Future updates will also contain changes identified from the commencement of inspections of the 1211 category A tips in the Summer of 2025. Inspections of the 701 category B tips were completed last year by the Mining Remediation Authority and any changes resulting from that exercise have already been included in the previous version of the National Dataset. Updates to the National Dataset also include changes to tips resulting from information recorded outside of routine inspections, for example, when a local authority reports a change to a tip, or if an observation is made on a nearby tip whilst undertaking an inspection. All suggested changes are verified by the Mining Remediation Authority before being included in the National Dataset to ensure our information is robust, accurate and fit for purpose.
The update to the National Dataset on 22 May will bring together the location and status of disused coal tips of all categories into a single dataset for ease of reference. This data will continue to be presented using the online map on the Welsh Government website and via the Data Map Wales platform. The Welsh Government will also provide summary information of changes on its website.
A map booklet that provides more information on the changes of the update will be available to download from the Welsh Government website.
Only four changes have been recorded in the National Dataset following the inspections of category C and D tips that took place over the winter and since the last data update. All changes identified are concerned with revisions of the noted boundaries of the tips. Boundary revisions occur when an inspector gains better perspective during the site visit, for example if access was possible to an area that was formerly too densely vegetated to map precisely.
There have been no recorded increases of category ratings for any disused coal tips and no new disused coal tips have been recorded in this data update. As such the numbers of disused coal tips in Wales remain unchanged.
A summary of the disused coal tips can be found in a table in Annex 1 of this statement alongside the breakdown of the number of tips and their category rating.