The Welsh Development Agency has been refused permission to bury almost 200,000 tonnes of contaminated industrial waste in south Wales.

Councillors in Rhondda Cynon Taff Council said they believed the waste from the Phurnacite Smokeless Fuels plant - which closed ten years ago - should be moved off site.

Residents who had protested outside the meeting were triumphant.

Many are former workers fighting to prove that they developed job-related cancer from the plant.

Problems

The phurnacite plant at Abercwmboi, near Aberdare, made smokeless fuel, but the process produced a cocktail of chemicals which polluted the surrounding environment.

A decade after the plant closed, ex-workers and their widows claim the area suffers from an unusually high rate of cancer.

Residents had claimed burying the waste in special cells on the old industrial site would simply store up problems for the future.

Councillors backed their campaign and rejected their own planning officers advice to allow the WDA to go ahead.

But the decision means that the waste still remains at Abercwmboi.

It would have cost �5m to bury it, but moving it will double the cost.

Council Leader Pauline Jarman wants the National Assembly to intervene and said it should investigate whether it has the powers to force the landowners - the Coal Authority - to carry out the work to make the site safe.