Council funding and services

Andrew Morgan

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

Can I just say that we always—? And in fairness to the Coal Authority, after storm Dennis, they referred to RCT as probably having one of the best inspection regimes of tips. I think it was in one of their documents we discussed as the taskforce at the time. We've had to increase our number of staff…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Llyr GruffyddPlaid

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

You touched on capacity and the concern there, really, so that's something that I think the Government needs to be mindful of. Yes, certainly we can reflect that in our—

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Stephen Williams

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

I think we need to look more broadly at expertise and capacity, and, as Jacqueline touched on, there's the use of drones, geomapping and those things now. I think we refer back to losing expertise because the mining industry has gone, in effect, but there'll be new expertise. There's new technology…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Carolyn ThomasLabour

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

Earlier, we touched on expertise and capacity, so that has been raised, and it was mentioned that the establishment of the authority will help address that. But you're concerned about loss of staff to the new authority, so is there anything else you would like to say regarding capacity issues at…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Andrew Morgan

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

Possibly, but there are other means of legislation to control that, as I say, within the planning legislation. So, in the event somebody was trying to destabilise a tip by carrying out works that were unauthorised, then you could apply for either a stop order or take other planning enforcement…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Delyth JewellPlaid

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

Very briefly, then. Councillor Morgan, thank you for raising that concern about private companies potentially destabilising, or the risk of them destabilising, tips because of extracting coal, doing this in a private way. Do you think that the Bill itself should be strengthened so that that could be…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Jacqueline Mynott

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

I think you would need to look at the mitigation measures that are recommended for a particular tip, look at the coal content of the tip, and, in that circumstance, you have to look at the overall carbon accounting and carbon management of the project as a whole and what your options are. And that…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Andrew Morgan

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

It's a potential risk. So, I'll give you an example: after storm Dennis and the slide in Tylorstown, I probably had at least 10 different organisations, companies, out there writing to me saying that they can offer a solution to rework a tip, use washeries and various things. I had one probably…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Llyr GruffyddPlaid

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

Okay. Thank you. I want to pick up on something that was said in the WLGA's paper, where you referred to the potential for the Bill to encourage an industry orientated towards, and I quote, '"re-mining" disused coal tips under the guise of preventing future instability'. Now, this is something we've…

Tagged for: “WLGA”Official Record

Jacqueline Mynott

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

I'll comment. I can't really comment, obviously, on the enforcement powers and civil sanctions. Within our written submission, we did make a number of practical observations with respect to the noticing requirements, and we'd be grateful if they could just be reviewed in terms of the practicality of…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Llyr GruffyddPlaid

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

—in this committee. Okay. There might not be a one-word answer for this one, because it's about sanctions—although there may be, I don't know. Because the White Paper proposed a range of enforcement powers and civil sanctions, but, of course, they haven't been included in the Bill, with the…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Kevin Kinsey

30 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Stage 1 scrutiny of the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Welsh Local Government Association and Local Authorities

I think they reflect very much the current approach, other than going from numbers to—. It's numbers rather than letters. Personally, I've no concern with them as long as the assessment approach to determining the categorisation is standardised and that we get that guidance and policy on it, because…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record