To pay for the removal of the tips, £150,000 was taken from the disaster fund—lowered from the initial £250,000 first requested—the NCB paid £350,000 and the government provided the balance, with the proviso it was only up to a million. The final cost of the removal was £850,000. The trustees of the fund voted to accept the request for payment after realising that there was no alternative if they wanted the tips removed. S. O. Davies, the only member of the committee to vote against the payment, resigned in protest. There was a reminder of the danger for the residents of Aberfan when, in August 1968, heavy rain caused slurry to be washed down the village's streets. At the time, the Charity Commission made no objection to this action; the political scientists Jacint Jordana and David Levi-Faur consider the payment "unquestionably unlawful" under charity law.