The BBCResidents who have seen landslides at Coal Tip, left with little to no homes, have said they don’t want to live there if anyone else is at risk.
Diane Morgan, who lives directly under the tip in Cwmtilery, Blaenau Gwent, said she would prefer the council to compulsorily buy her home, while others said they wanted to move.
Torrential rain during Storm Britt last month Some people in the former mining village were forced to evacuate. After a river of silt and debris washed down the road.
It comes as the Welsh Government introduces new legislation to address safety concerns over hundreds of disused mining tips across the country.
“People here don’t feel safe and I don’t think we’re even going to be able to sell this house at this point. At one point we were going to move and downsize, but that’s not going to happen now.” Morgan said.
Ms Morgan added that she had assured the council that there would be no further slips once the work to secure the tip was completed.
“Our feeling here as residents of the area is that they should just remove the tip,” Ms Morgan said.
After the incident The council said it had started remedial work. To solve immediate problems.
Despite knowing about the tip’s existence, residents said they were never told it was classified as a tip with the potential to affect public safety.
Fears about the safety of Wales’ old coal tips first surfaced again in 2020. Landslide over Tylerstown village Rhonda Cynon in Taff during Storm Dennis.
A total of 2,573 unused coal tips were identified, of which 360 were classified as “potential to affect public safety” and required regular inspection.
In a review commissioned by the Welsh Government, current rules on tip safety found – The Aberdeen disaster in 1966 – No longer provided “an effective management framework”, as they were designed for a time when there was an active coal industry.
A new bill has been in the works for several years, with the proposed legislation to be introduced in the Seanad this week.
If approved, it will create a new body called The Disused Tips Authority for Wales which will take responsibility for the “assessment, registration, monitoring and management” of tips.
With many points now in private ownership, the new authority will have the power to require landowners to carry out repairs where necessary, with the threat of unlimited fines if they do not comply.
The government said grant funding would be available, along with an appeals process for landowners unable to cover the cost.
Local authorities are responsible for most coal tips that are on public land, while some are in the hands of the Mines Remediation Authority, formerly known as the UK Coal Authority.
The organisation’s Robert Sullivan said: “Many of these sites were remedied at a time when climate change was not really considered and as a result, the Mining Remediation Authority assessed the climate change adaptation of our sites. This includes seeing that we can better manage these sites during heavy rains.
“We are looking at installing remote smart monitoring such as rain gauges and we are also looking at what we can do in terms of flood mitigation.
“One of the key factors in tip management is the control of groundwater and surface water, so we’re trying to minimize that problem without having a detrimental effect on people.”
On a visit to Tylerstown to unveil the proposed new law, Deputy First Minister Hugh Iranka-Davies said the recent landslides “reflect the potential risks and concerns for people living in their shadow who don’t use the proposals.” “.
“This bill is about keeping communities safe and is part of a wider program of work to improve the safety of used coal tips,” he said.
Plaid Cymru said the legislation alone was “not enough” and called on the UK government to pay the “£600m estimated cost of remediating coal proposals over the next decade”.
The Welsh Conservatives welcomed the proposed bill and said they would “seek to ensure that further steps are taken to prevent damage from scramblers and 4×4 off-road vehicles, the decision to make communities safer coal proposals”. Be involved in the creation process and that biodiversity is conserved”. .
Environment correspondent Stephen Messenger’s analysis:
If you follow the news in Wales you’ve probably seen the video many times.
The stirring footage was hastily filmed on a phone on a hill above the village of Tylerstown in Rhonda Cynon Taff (RCT).
“Wow” gasps the man behind the camera – echoing the sentiments of a nation.
Landslides in 2020 re-opened a painful scar on the Welsh psyche, and set in motion – both practical and political – a push to move past the country’s old coal points.
It is hard to believe how little was known at the time about how many there were, where they were, who owned the land and what condition they were in.
A major effort has been made in recent years to address these knowledge gaps and today’s announcement brings legal reforms and a new organization to manage the situation in the future.
But questions remain over how to foot the bill for a long-term fix, with the leader of RCT Council telling BBC News in October that £800m could be needed over the coming decades.
Another point of contention is around the involvement of private firms to fund remedial work at certain points by selling the coal they mine as they go.