Mine and quarry tips are a physical reminder of Wales’ industrial past. These tips can threaten life and well-being, as was seen during landslips at Tylorstown in 2020, and Cwmtillery in 2024.
One year ago, the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Act 2025 became law, reshaping the management regime for tips. On the Act’s first anniversary, this article asks what’s changed, and what is still to come. It explores the new Disused Tips Authority, the cost of making tips safe, risks posed by climate change, and potential opportunities that come with remediation.
Background
There are almost 2,600 monitored coal tips in Wales, mainly concentrated in the south Wales Valleys. 368 tips are assessed as having “potential to impact public safety”. Additionally, there may be more than 20,000 non-coal tips across Wales, many related to metal mining and mineral quarrying – these can also impact community well-being.
Total number of total coal tips (left) and highest risk tips (right) by local authority
Source: Senedd Research analysis of Welsh Government data
Three quarters of all disused coal tips, and 93% of high risk (category C and D) tips are in the Valleys. Their steep topography and population density increases both the likelihood of tips failing, and the potential for tips to cause harm.
The hazards presented by coal tips were tragically realised in the 1966 Aberfan disaster, in which 116 children and 28 adults were killed when a tip collapsed onto Pantglas Junior School and nearby houses. The UK Government subsequently introduced the Mines and Quarries Tip Act 1969 to improve tip safety, but a 2022 report commissioned by the Welsh Government concluded legislation at the time did “not effectively address the management of disused coal tips”.
The Disused Tips and Quarries (Wales) Act 2025 (‘the 2025 Act’) introduces a new regime for tip management. Currently, tips are inspected, monitored, and maintained by local authorities and Natural Resources Wales (NRW). Since 2020, the UK Mining Remediation Authority has worked with the Welsh Government to identify, categorise, and inspect disused tips. The 2025 Act will create a new Disused Tips Authority for Wales (‘the Authority’) to oversee and standardise this work.
Disused Tips Authority to be established in 2027
The Authority will formally established in April 2027. Its role will be to protect human welfare from unstable tips.
The Authority will take over some tip safety functions previously held by other organisations, and its duties will include:
- compiling and maintaining a register of disused tips;
- monitoring tip stability;
- undertaking and publishing a preliminary assessment of every disused tip in Wales; and
- creating management plans for the highest risk tips.
The Authority will also have powers to compel landowners to stabilise tips, and to intervene directly if needed. The Welsh Government is currently consulting on landowners’ recourse in this process. It is also consulting on the guidance it will provide to the Authority.
The previous Welsh Government appointed the Authority’s first Chair and Chief Executive Officer. It will be headquartered in Merthyr Tydfil, and will employ up to 77 staff.
Who pays to stabilise tips?
Plaid Cymru’s 2026 manifesto committed to a deliver a national tip remediation programme, which it would insist is funded “properly and in full” by the UK Government.
In 2021, the Welsh Government estimated the cost of coal tip remediation as “at least £600 million over the next decade and a half”. However, in February 2026 the then Deputy First Minister described the £600m figure as:
…an initial estimate from some organisations, but it wasn't based on real hard grounded out data of exactly what schemes needed to be done, and it certainly doesn't reflect the work that's been done on the prioritisation even up until as we speak now.
Environmental protection is devolved to Wales, but the vast majority of coal mines closed before the advent of devolution. Successive Welsh governments have therefore asked the UK Government to contribute to the cost of tip remediation. In June 2026, the First Minister, Rhun ap Iorwerth MS, said:
The mining industry, of course, predates devolution, so we're clearly of the view that it's the UK Government that should foot that bill, and we'll make the case for that.
The UK Government contributed £25m funding for Welsh coal tip remediation in 2025-26, and has committed to provide further funding equivalent to £39.3m per year between 2026 and 2029.
The Welsh Government has provided funding via the Coal Tip Safety grant between 2020 and 2027.
Funding committed to coal tip remediation in Wales by organisation, 2020 to 2029
*The UK Government has committed to fund tip remediation in 2027-28 and 2028-29. The Welsh Government has not yet made any budget decisions related to these years.
Source: Senedd Research analysis of Welsh Government data
In January 2026, the previous Welsh Government announced a multi-year grant scheme for coal tip safety, which will allocate £81.6m to NRW and ten local authorities between 2026 and 2029. It said this will enable “larger more complex schemes” that could not be delivered in a single financial year.
New opportunities from old tips
The remediation of disused tips sites costs money, but also presents economic opportunities in some of the most deprived areas of Wales, as well as potential to create recreational spaces, and enhance biodiversity.
Sixty new jobs will be created with the Authority’s establishment. The 2025 Act’s Explanatory Memorandum noted three main economic benefits from the new management regime:
- creating additional jobs in tip remediation;
- preventing future costs from tip slides; and
- generating value from improved welfare.
Some colliery sites have undergone major transformations since closing. Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon is now a major heritage attraction. At Parc Penallta in Ystrad Mynach, biodiverse habitats now cover former coal tips. The site also features ‘Sultan the Pit Pony’, a 200m-long public earthwork sculpture carved from a disused coal tip.
‘Sultan the Pit Pony’ at Parc Penallta, Ystrad Mynach.
As well as tips, abandoned mines may themselves present opportunities for sustainable development – through mine water heat networks and mine methane capture.
Climate change increases risks
Climate change is making Welsh winters wetter, with more frequent and intense storm events, increasing the likelihood of tip landslides. In a recent assessment, the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) identified disused tips as an ‘urgent present-day climate risk’, and singled out south Wales as the UK’s highest risk area. Under the warmer climate expected in the UK by 2050, it says:
Increased rainfall and storms will increase the potential for mining tip landslides and the number of sites which require adaptation.
The CCC proposed a UK-wide target for assessment and adaptation of the most dangerous tips by 2035, based on the approach that has been taken in Wales.
The new Disused Tips Authority will be charged with managing these future risks. Coal mining was once central to Wales’ national identity and its emergence as an industrial nation. Now however, attention turns to how it handles the risks, and opportunities, of what industry left behind.
Article by Dr Matthew Sutton, Senedd Research, Welsh Parliament