Jane from Mountain Ash blogs here with a story on the proposed opencast plans for Mountain Ash…
We had a knock at the door last night from a nice man called Ian. It was -3*C and he was going door to door with a petition. Ian was collecting residents signatures for his petition to raise awareness of one anonymous landowners intent to dig for coal on a small plot of land behind the graveyard in Caegarw, Mountain Ash.
We had been wondering about the sounds of heavy machinery and the Apex Drilling vans seen on our street over the past few weeks.
It appears that the plot of land was sold by Lord Aberdare in the ’60’s to this man and he has twice been denied permission to excavate the coal from a 100 year old tip.
We understand that the land has a preservation order on it due to its environmental value following the tree planting which has occured on it. It is close to a hospital and two
schools, not to mention hundreds of houses.
We wonder why this is being attempted again, when the council and Welsh Assembly Government have spent over £20 million on cleaning up the Cynon Valley, when there are plans for a new community hospital less than half a mile from the site and when there are concerned residents, the authorities have done nothing.
Has planning permission again been sought? If so, wouldn’t the residents who live within 500 metres of the plot have been told? Where is our voice in all this? We understand that the land is an old tip. We don’t want a return to dust and smoke - we value our environment and hope that the council and WAG do to. Anyone know anything about this???
The residents of Caegarw are a vociferous bunch and we welcome any information that can help us get to the bottom of the drilling, digging and the looming threat of coal dust again…
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Get it off your chest… Blog a reply to Jane’s story or Add Comments.
Now that Tower Colliery has finally closed, the new language that has been incubating there during the past thirteen or so years finally emerges.
Tyrone O’Sullivan and Tower Colliery shareholders now speak the language of business development and exploitation, the language of managers of men and land, of balance sheets, profit and bottom lines.
Over the past year or so, stories have been drip-fed via the corporate press about possible developments at the Tower site after its closure, including entrepreneurial-sounding visions for a waste processing plant, a housing and retail development, a museum and a range of other schemes.
There has been much talk about creating “sustainable jobs” at the former Colliery site, but one is skeptical of this type of lofty talk. The only idea not discussed by Tower Colliery shareholders is that perhaps the land be left to recover after nearly two hundred or so years of gross industrial exploitation.
No discussion has taken part with the communities of Rhigos or Hirwaun, or indeed any other community that will be blighted by more industrial expansion or development at the Tower Colliery site.
The new language of Tower Colliery is the language of a business class.
Many people visit Aberdare Blog looking for creatures that inhabit Aberdare Park including the Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus) a rare and elusive African antelope, the black rhino, the bush pig, or giant forest hog.
We apologise, but we are only able to offer ducks, geese and other birds, trees, flowers, a variety of fungi, the annual colourful Carnival and road races, and of course, last but not least, the Aberdare Park grey squirrels.
We are nonetheless very, very proud of our local wildlife, flora and fauna.
Aberdare Park in Wales is around 50 hectares. Aberdare National Park in Kenya is around 77,000 hectares. The mind boggles at this scale.
If our mathematics are correct, you could fit nearly 3790 Aberdare Parks into the Kenyan Aberdare National Park.
Why did the Kenyans name such a vast nature reserve Aberdare National Park ?
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We have prepared a collection of Aberdare Grot Spots using photos from a variety of locations across Aberdare and Rhondda Cynon Taf.
One of the ugliest grot spots is perhaps at the top of the Mountain overlooking Aberdare. Hereabouts people dump their fast-food flotsam.
Visitors coming to Aberdare via Maerdy in the Rhondda are greeted by the sight of wrappings from the local junk food merchants.
In fairness to Aberdare’s local Council, they clean up the mess left by other people pretty soon, but perhaps, Rhondda Cynon Taf Council should prosecute a few more litter-bugs to ‘get the message across’.
Local recycling mascot Rhyscycle does an excellent of educating young people about the importance of recycling. Maybe it is now time to invent a similar cartoon character to help educate the Neanderthal adults in our midst who have not yet discovered the modern invention called a dust-bin!
Click on the thumbnail photos to see larger versions.
Trecynon will get a good spring clean in the latest round of Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s street care ‘blitzes’.
Cleansing teams will be in Trecynon on Thursday December 6th with a range of equipment - including chewing gum removal machines, road sweepers and graffiti removers.
The street blitzes were launched three years ago, as part of the campaign to make Rhondda Cynon Taf a cleaner and safer place to live, work and visit.
