UK Government won’t pay more for tip safety
THE UK Government has refused to give the Welsh Government an extra £600m to make Wales’ coal tips safe.
Welsh Government Finance Minister Rebecca Evans yesterday said the UK Government should provide up to £600m over the next 10 to 15 years to make the 1,200 coal tips still dotted around Wales safe.
In February 2020, thousands of tonnes of rock and debris slid down the side of the valley from the Llanwonno tip in Tylorstown.
Others slips took place near the council offices in Clydach Vale, on the railway line to Aberdare near Mountain Ash, and in Wattstown. There were others in Clydach and Pontygwaith.
It not only brought the reality of living near a coal tip starkly into public consciousness, but highlighted issues with ownership and responsibility.
A subsequent survey revealed that no national list of all the mine spoil tips existed, nor was it easy to find the safety categorisation they have been given, or their last inspection date.
Mrs Evans yesterday called on the UK Government to use a spending review due in autumn to “share responsibility and allocate long-term funding”.
Wales has more than 40% of all the UK’s coal tips and one in seven are classed as high risk.
The Welsh Government has said that as the climate changes, Wales’ coal spoil tips need attention and long-term funding to prevent the risk of future landslips.
Mrs Evans said the tips were created before devolution and the UK Government should “share responsibility” and the bill, estimated to be at least £500m to £600m over the next 10 to 15 years.
She added: “Wales is disproportionately affected by the legacy of coal mining, and climate impacts are increasing the risks disused coal tips pose to our communities. As a predevolution issue, we need the UK Government to share responsibility and prevent another landslip from happening.
“As rainfall intensifies and temperatures rise, the risk to life and livelihoods is increasing unpredictably.
“The UK Government has a legal and moral responsibility to work with the Welsh Government to address this issue and fund these long-term costs.”
But a UK Government spokesman said the Welsh Government had already received funding after the storms of 2020 and management of the tips was devolved, and the Welsh Government was “more than adequately funded” to meet its responsibilities.
The spokesman said: “In December 2020, to help with the unforeseen impact of Storm Dennis, we provided £31m of additional funding to the Welsh Government, of which £9m was to repair vulnerable coal tips.
“Ultimately, however, the management of coal tips in Wales is a devolved matter and, therefore, not one the UK Government would expect to provide additional funding for. The Welsh Government is more than adequately funded to manage the costs of devolved responsibilities. Their 2021-22 spending review settlement provides around £123 per person for every £100 of equivalent funding in England.
“This is around £1bn more than the agreed level of fair funding for Wales relative to England as set out in the fiscal framework.”
When asked what would happen if, as their comments suggest, the UK Government does not provide extra funding, Mrs Evans said: “There would be really difficult choices to be made.
“Clearly the priority here is the safety of those sites, that’s an unavoidable priority I think but it would mean of course that Welsh Government had to divert funding from other things for which we’re responsible.
“You’ll be familiar with our really ambitious school building programme that we have in Wales, our plans to improve the primary care estate, all of the work which needs to go on all the time in terms of maintaining our roads for safety purposes, and all other kinds of investment that we want to make in social housing.
“There would inevitably be very difficult decisions about which areas of those who would have to cut in order to invest in the coal tip remediation work.
“The offer is here with the UK Government to work collectively on this”.
Cllr Andrew Morgan, leader of the Welsh Local Government Association and of Rhondda Cynon Taf council, where many of the coal tips are located, said: “It is impossible for the UK Government to escape their moral obligation to put right this legacy of the Valleys’ industrial past. The National Coal Board was a national body, the clue is within the title, and the now Coal Authority sits under the UK Government and again remains a national body. A legacy of their past are the tips which sit on the side of valleys across South Wales. No one needs to be a constitutional expert to appreciate the fact that this responsibility far predates devolution and the fact that the financial cost to make such tips safe into the future would not form part of any current Barnett funding arrangements. Are UK Ministers really saying that money under the Barnett formula for schools, the NHS and council services in Wales should be used to fund the huge costs associated with these tips? While 40% of all these tips are in Wales the problem is across the UK and it’s clear the UK Government needs to support the Welsh Government on this.
“The remediation work at the Tylorstown landslip site is a large and complex civil engineering project, being delivered over phases, with an estimated total cost of repair of close to £20m.
“There is a significant level of funding required, and we are talking about just one project here. Across Wales, we have hundreds and hundreds of tips with varying risk levels.”