Carwyn the hypocrite (no, we haven't forgotten about him)

The Western Mail has exposed Carwyn Jones's environmental hypocrisy - this time allowing opencast mining within 500m of homes in Merthyr while opposing the same thing in his own constituency.


ENVIRONMENT Minister Carwyn Jones has been accused of hypocrisy after welcoming the withdrawal of a plan for an opencast mine in his own constituency while supporting another.

Reacting to the news that Celtic Energy has withdrawn proposals for an opencast mine at Pyle in his Bridgend constituency, Mr Jones, pictured, said, "The opencast would have had a hugely detrimental impact on people in the Pyle and Margam areas.

"I have been working closely with local residents and campaign groups to ensure that their quality of life was not adversely affected by the proposal."

Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly leader Mike German sought to contrast Mr Jones's position on the Pyle scheme with his support for opencast at Merthyr Tydfil.

He said, "As Minister for Planning, Carwyn Jones has the opportunity to protect all communities in Wales from the 'detrimental impact' of opencast by introducing a 500m buffer-zone between opencast sites and people's homes. So far he has not done this.


"The people of Merthyr Tydfil deserve just as much protection from what Carwyn Jones himself describes as the 'adverse affects' of opencast mining as the people of Bridgend." Mr Jones replied "It is not open to me to impose a buffer zone in Merthyr because the issue was decided by a committee nearly two years ago."