Recently a mysterious London based company called Draeth Developments has applied for permission to create an opencast mine in an area near the village of Pont Henri in the Gwendraeth Valley. The company appears to have no previous experience of opencast mining at all and looking critically at its proposals we have serious concerns about them.
The proposal involves the destruction of several areas of important wildlife habitat including an area of ancient woodland and as is usual with opencast companies they claim to be able to restore the habitat after working.
We have seen this before with companies like Celtic Energy and the claims simply do not stand up. Opencasting involves pulverising the rock and putting it back. Where once there were winding streams whistling and singing through the rushes we have stark sterile, often empty, concrete or plastic gutters flowing rigidly across the landscape. The hydrology of the site is simply ruined. Of course there have been attempts to create new habitats but generally what you get is a flower bombed pastiche; counterfeit countryside, passed over quickly it might go unnoticed but held up to the light the colours and feel are wrong and there is no watermark The plans for this scheme include a map which rather hilariously talks about “Replacement Ancient woodland”. This really is a silly and laughable suggestion. Even without the hydrology being irreversibly changed, ancient woodland would take centuries to replace. Woodland isn't just about trees or even about the dormice recorded there. There are hundreds of different species of plant and invertebrate animal all with different and largely unknown requirements that have to be considered. The land in this case is at least partly owned by the local council let us hope their officers have the intelligence and knowledge to recognise a bad ecological claim when they see it.