Communities across Wales continue to live with the legacy of past extractive and heavy industries – unsafe coal tips, opencast mining sites, contaminated land, and the threat posed by dangerous ‘forever chemicals’ such as PFAS.
Urgent action is needed to make former industrial land safe, protect public health, and deliver long-overdue environmental justice for the communities most affected. Plaid Cymru is clear that Westminster should foot the bill for clearing up these hazards, which long predate devolution in Wales.
We will:
- Deliver a national programme to secure and restore disused coal tips, ensuring every tip is properly monitored, maintained, and remediated. We will continue to insist that the UK Government funds this work properly and in full.
- Establish a Wales-wide strategy on remediating contaminated land – mapping, prioritising and progressively restoring post-industrial land so communities are no longer exposed to derelict sites, toxic soils, and polluted waterways.
- Explore ways of strengthening the ‘polluter pays’ principle, in conjunction with the UK government, so that those who have profited from the impacts of heavy industry are held legally responsible for fully restoring the land.
- Strengthen monitoring and regulation of harmful substances, including PFAS, with mandatory testing in high-risk areas and clear action plans to protect public health.
- Work with the UK Government to ban so-called ‘forever chemicals’ that continue to contaminate our land, rivers and seas.
- Review planning policies relating to aggregate quarrying to protect local air quality.
- Promote nature-based and sustainable remediation techniques, such as wetland creation, soil restoration and planting schemes that help absorb pollutants, stabilise slopes, and enhance biodiversity.
Plaid Cymru is committed to ensuring real fairness for those communities most affected by the legacy of heavy industry in Wales.
Environmental remediation will go hand-in-hand with our plans to grow businesses, provide good jobs, build community wealth, and renew town centres in coalfield communities still living with the environmental, economic, and health impacts of Wales’s industrial past.
We will work to turn this industrial past to our advantage – supporting projects that repurpose warm water from flooded mines as a source of clean, affordable heat for coalfield communities. We will develop new partnerships and explore innovative financing options to connect more places to mine-water heat networks, and support the creation of skilled local jobs in this sector.