The coal tips have become part of the landscape

If the go-ahead is given for the project in Merthyr Tydfil, locals would see more than10 million tonnes of coal being moved over the next 15 years.

The developers, meanwhile, have promised to pay more than �6m in royalties to the local council to be spent on public schemes.

The Miller Argent consortium wants to extract the coal to sell to Aberthaw Power Station over a 15-year period.

Members of the Merthyr Tydfil Anti-Opencast Alliance have collected 1,000 signatures against the Ffos-y-Fran scheme in just a few weeks of campaigning.

Protesters say that, if Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council allows the scheme to proceed, it would mean work taking place just a few hundred metres away from homes in the villages of Dowlais, Mountain Hare, and Penydarren.

Canon Steve Morgan, Rural Dean of Merthyr, and chair of the Alliance, said local people were vehemently opposed to the scheme, and he warned that re-opening the Merthyr site could lead to similar proposals elsewhere.

"If they let this one through, it will open the floodgates to the others," he said.

The Alliance plans to continue holding public meetings to make people aware of the proposals.

Petitions are also being circulated to rally support, and many people have written to the council's chief planning officer, calling for full public consultation.