Glamorgan Power Company has told local Torfaen council that it will be withdrawing its application for an opencast coal mine at Varteg Hill in Wales.
The company had submitted an amended proposal in February – some 12 years after the initial planning application was submitted. A Torfaen council spokesman said: “The agent has decided that they are withdrawing their application for a coal recovery scheme at Varteg Hill, and that no further action will be taken regarding this submission.”
Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, Gareth Clubb, said: “International climate agreements, as well as raw common sense, are seeing country after country turn their back on coal – the most damaging of all fuels to the climate. That has caused a massive global oversupply, which means that coal simply can’t be mined profitably in Wales. And there’s zero prospect of that prognosis changing.”
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