Hugh James

Brynlliw Burning Coal Tip

 

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In October 1998 residents living in the village of Grovesend near Swansea contacted Hugh James for help. They lived near an old coal spoil tip that had caught fire in 1996 causing choking sulphurous fumes that made their lives a misery and caused some residents to seek medical advice. The fire burnt for over 3 years and smoke caused the nearby M4 motorway to be closed on 9 occasions.

The tip was left over from the old Brynlliw Colliery, which closed in 1982 and had not been operational since 1972. In 1987, the National Coal Board undertook a remediation scheme at the colliery, re-shaping and partially landscaping the tip. In 1995 it was sold to a group of West Glamorgan Commoners for £1.

The Coal Authority became responsible for former coal industry property under the Coal Industry Act 1994 but denied liability for the fire.

The Chairman of the residents committee had however put together a dossier of information on the tip including evidence from former British Coal employees that the tip had a history of self-heatings leading to spontaneous combustion. Hugh James advised the residents to pursue a case against the Coal Authority on the basis that it was responsible for the creation of a foreseeable risk of nuisance.

The fire was eventually put out and made safe by Swansea City Council with the benefit of a grant of £1.2 million following which the residents offered to settle their claims out of court. The offer was rejected and proceedings were issued. The case was bitterly contested by the Coal Authority who refused to entertain any suggestion of an out of Court settlement.

The Coal Authority argued that the fires were caused by the acts of third parties who it could not take responsibility for. They also argued that it was not foreseeable that the tip would ignite as a result of spontaneous combustion.

Following a 2-week trial at the High Court in Swansea the Honourable Mr Justice Pitchford held The Coal Authority liable. The Judge accepted the evidence of the former British Coal employees who said that the tip was liable to self-heating. The Judge found that on all the evidence the tip fire started as a result of spontaneous combustion and that this was a foreseeable risk that British Coal failed to take sufficient steps to prevent. The Judge awarded each household £3,500 plus interest and subsequently awarded penalty interest and costs against the Coal Authority as they had failed to accept a settlement offer put forward by the Claimants.

Argument at trial focused on whether the tip presented a foreseeable risk of spontaneous combustion with both sides calling extensive expert evidence. One of the key issues for the experts was that fact that the tip-contained a mixture of dry steam and anthracite coal, which are both coals of low volatile rank. Both sets of experts agreed that theoretically the coals in this tip were unlikely to spontaneously combust. The Judge, however, accepted that there was enough evidence to displace the theory and found that, in the absence of evidence of third parties lighting fires; the most likely cause was spontaneous combustion. The Judge relied primarily on the evidence of Dr Richards, Associate Principal Mining Engineer with Steffen Robertson Kirsten UK Ltd of Cardiff. Dr Richards based his views on causation on the evidence of heatings at the tip, and self-heatings in coal stocks at Brynlliw. He also considered evidence of spontaneous combustion underground at Brynlliw as well as incidents of other tip fires at nearby collieries mining the same seams as Brnylliw.

South Wales is littered with more than 300 disused coal tips left over from the Coal Industry and the Judgement has wide ranging implications.

The tip in this case was largely constructed before the Aberfan disaster of 1966.  New rules regarding tip construction were introduced as a result of this disaster. However the witnesses called to give evidence for the Authority argued that the new guidelines were not applied retrospectively to old tips.

The case discredits the Coal Authority’s belief that coal tips in South Wales generally don’t catch fire spontaneously and proved that the Coal Authority didn’t do enough to prevent a foreseeable risk.

The Judge found that the Coal Authority’s use of land was unreasonable exposing nearby residents to the risk of spontaneous combustion. This combination of circumstances meant that the Coal Authority remained liable even though they no longer owned the tip.

The Coal Authority sought permission to appeal but the Court of Appeal Judges refused this.

The case was funded under a Conditional Fee Agreement ('no win no fee').

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