Open-pit coal mining in the United Kingdom

[citation needed] Until 2014, statistics on open-pit coal mining were compiled by the British Geological Survey from information provided by local planning authorities.

[5] Miller Argent ran the Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme in eastern Merthyr Tydfil, which involved mining the coal from under 367 hectares of land made derelict by earlier coal-mining operations; the coal was provided to the Aberthaw Power Station on the Glamorgan coast.

[12][13] Banks had three additional operation sites in Shotton, and Brenkley Lane both in Northumberland, and Rusha in Scotland.

[24][25] Hargreaves plc announced in 2016 the closure of the following operations:[10][26] The deep mine at Tower Colliery closed in 2008, but there is a plan to build an 80-hectare 165-metre open-pit mine to extract a remaining 6Mton reserve of anthracite, for which a planning application was registered in July 2010.

[27] The opencast operation stopped production in March 2017 after it was unable to sell the coal to Aberthaw Power Station due to stricter environmental controls.

Miller Argent planned to extract 6m tonnes of coal at Nant Llesg, near Rhymney.

[33] Banks Mining applied in October 2015 for planning permission to extract about three million tonnes of coal and other minerals from the Highthorn site in Northumberland.

[39] The Sunday Herald reported on 13 July 2014 that "Mines in Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Fife, abandoned by Scottish Coal when it went bust in April 2013, are threatened by rising water levels, contaminated lagoons and erosion".

[45] Open-pit coal mining is opposed by the Loose Anti-Opencast Network (LAON)[46] and by Greenpeace[47] and Friends of the Earth.