[Closed] End of deep coal mining in the UK

In first? I blame Thatcher. 😉

Coal is a huge part of the history and wealth that we enjoy in Britain today.

...so WAS slavery.

Huge up here in the NE too but long gone. Too inefficient to extract coal that was so once newer methods came along it was doomed.

Grew up in NE Derbyshire. Massive industry when I was a lad. My mum worked for a company that made pit head coal processing kit. Couple of my mates went down the pit at 16, both father's were miners. Strike hit when I was 17/18. Coal industry would have always struggled in face of globalisation, but Thatcher driven policy to face down union power accelerated that decline massively. Left wastelands of unemployment in mining villages across S Yorks.

As an 11 yr old on holiday in Derbyshire I spent a day fishing next to a striking miner - can still remember him and what he explained. Important part of my education.

Couple of uncles went to the mines in NE. Couple more worked in ship yards.

Thoresby closed here in the summer. We live in a former mining/steel area, mostly gone before Thatcher - didn't Wilson close more pits than Thatcher?

Hard dangerous work. Local guys I've spoken to say they are glad they never had to follow their Dads into it. I understand the problem of cheaper coal from abroad, not sure how much we could/should have carried on trying to keep our domestic supplies going in terms of energy security. Once you close it, it is gone.

Mate worked for a group who dealt with old pit sites. The number of experienced mine engineers who can deal with any problems that arise is also in decline.

back in my youth I got to about 20 shifts off being fully face trained at Bolsover colliery, quit not long before the miners strike & it took two weeks before I stopped coughing up black stuff, find if difficult to believe that my working life once involved crawling up and down a space no bigger than twice the distance from my knuckle to my elbow in absolutely filthy conditions

Edit - for someone who's parents both graduated from oxford uni (although I hasten to add we don't really move in those circles), its something I a damn proud of having done & was certainly both an eye opener & education of my young self

very good drac, I marvelled at the 50+ year olds who'd been there since 14 from the days of george orwells road to wigan pier

I can't find it but there was a BBC article that showed the Thatcher years had no impact (negative or positive) on Coal production or number of people employed in mining.

Both declined steadily from the end of WW1 at a fairly constant rate.

I can't find the article but this one includes the production numbers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22070491

Wonder if in 50 or 100 years we'll be going after it again, when all the oil and gas runs out?

(An idle thought, not a prediction, before you start 🙂 )

I can't find it but there was a BBC article that showed the Thatcher years had no impact (negative or positive) on Coal production or number of people employed in mining.

It was reducing anyway yes.

http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/a007.htm

Wonder if in 50 or 100 years we'll be going after it again, when all the oil and gas runs out?

It hasn't stopped just the process has. Many of the old colliery sites around here have or are being opencast now extracting millions of tones that deep mining couldn't.

Many years ago I worked in coal mines abroad. It is a frightening, noisy and truly awful work environment. Part of me is not sad to see its end.

The impact of the strike was to create a perception that unionised and heavy industry, coal steel etc was risky old fashioned and so not worthy of investment. Ironic given the labour costs of modernised heavy industry are actually realitively low so at the most basic level, decline from global competition is weaker. This lack of investment contributed greatly to the decline of traditional industries over time. Bringing a false sense that UK could survive as post industrial, finance and services led economy. The extent of the North South divide that resulted in late 80s and 90s was massive. But the NUM dud walk into the Tory trap, there really is something about picking your fights.

...so WAS slavery.

Mining is in decline across the world at the moment. Even the Chinese are struggling.

Opening open cast round us now. Wondering if there is scope for a trail centre when the first one closes in a year or so....

Slavery is in decline across the world at the moment. Even the North Koreans are struggling.

I worked on the Selby Coalfields in the 80s,hailed as the 'Superpits'. ,they lasted less than 20 yrs before becoming unprofitable. I am sure there is still a load of coal to be had,they just need an efficient method of extraction if the price ever does go back up.

I don't think anyone will be that sad to see it go as an industry unless you are some hardcore lefty. Grim work, with a dire safety record.

More mines closed under Labour than the Tories.

Oh and Big Pit is a great visit.

I don't think anyone is arguing that coal mining was a brilliant job or a that coal mining isnt inevitably on a worldwide downward spiral. But it is emblamtic of a conscious policy of non investment in industry and the creation of a finance and service based economy on one hand and the lack of any sort of exit strategy for communities where the employment heartvwas ripped out and no alternatives available. Don't you love the metropolitan politicians of every hue who get teary eyed about GreatvBritain as the cradle of the industrial revolution and the birth place of the modern world, and in the breath criticising the ."undesering poor" and ****less lazy dolites in areas where industry has gone and even after nothing has come to replace it

When they say "Deep Coal Mining" does this mean that no one is now going underground to mine coal or is it some other definition. Is this really the last coal mine?

I made no suggestion that mining (and the industrial gains from it) was anything other than something that has benefited us, even to this day.

People who slavishly trot out the old mantra that Thatcher destroyed the mines are living in cloud-cuckoo land. How do they think making the mines less competitive would have prolonged their lives? Mining and quarrying are knife-edge industries and are more subject than any other to the vagaries of labour costs and overheads, commodity prices, exchange rates and cheaper competition.

The old "blame the Tories" era was a sorry symptom of the stupidity and complacency of post-war Britain. Workers and management were still living in the time of the colonies when Britain enjoyed cheap raw materials and monopoly markets.

My buddy runs a huge glasshouse in Gloucestershire, heated by coal and woodchip. Colombian coal is cheaper than British, so why would he want to buy British coal?

Good.

You ever been down a coal mine? A real, working mine? Suspect not.

I have (not in the UK mind you), and it was the grimmest, most depressing, thoroughly unpleasant experience of my life. Hot, dark, painfully claustrophobic, dirty, noisy, wet... Everywhere you looked their were machines waiting to lop your head off, and the mine rescue team were on permanent standby with serious equipment and procedures to get people out if there was a problem.

There is no way that we should be sending people down to do this in the 21st century. No objection to coal mining if achievable by robots. I don't agree with Thatcher's reasons for doing what she did but am I sorry about it? Nope.

"way of life" blah blah blah. Believe me, I'd be happy to subsidise a minor's children on the dole for the rest of their lives than ask them to go down a pit.

conscious policy of non investment in industry

There's a clear difference between 'non-investment' and what was happening in the coal industry.

'Loss without limit' as Scargill proposed.

I think it was the pig headedness on both sides of the argument that caused so much hardship during the strike. Thatcher was a bully and Scargill was an ego maniac idiot. Why couldn't a settlement be reached, I was a teen and it did seem like a fight to the death.

Where Thatcher was wrong was the callousness of which the closures were done. There was no help given to soften the blow of losing an industry where most of the population worked or were involved. Between Risca and Brynmawr was devastated absolutely destroyed and still isn't the same now. That is a legacy of shame.

I work in North East Derbyshire/North West Nottinghamshire and it's a sad place now the mines have gone - not that they'd have been that nice when they were here but they're just hollow towns of unemployment now.

I have to visit the Coal Authority for work and the photos in there and the details on the plans make it sound horrific to work in there.

Globalti. I'm not arguing that completely uneconomic industry maintained, but combination of investment to improve productivity plus planned exit must better than just binning whole sectors and creating economic wastelands. You criticise the post war concensus, but the growth in that period was higher over that period until it all went tits up in the 70s than in the "free market" period since Thatcher.

The problem with small state is that big industry often needs longer term investment to improve productivity and maintain its global position, if the state will not provide then as it doesn't fit with political ideology or free trade rules then some other state will. China is the example now, massive manufacturing based sustained by artificially undervalued currency and Govt subsidy to uneconomic industrial production eg steel in a globally reducing market - and two fingers to free trade rules because they are powerful enough to do it. Even the most avid neo-classicist would argue that markets only work if everyone plays by the rules.

It will all end in tears.

I am sure there is still a load of coal to be had

Eventually they'll be profitable again.

Who knows where the miners will come from.

You ever been down a coal mine? A real, working mine? Suspect not.

As it happens, yes, I went down a pit, right to the face, in South Shields in 1977 and have explored plenty of derelict lead, copper and other mines in the UK since then so I do know what the conditions are like.

So why didn't British mine owners invest in automation at that time?

What do people think could have replaced mining in communities that relied almost 100% on the mines and their associated businesses for employment? The mines provided everything including the healthcare and social lives of the miners and their families. During the 18th and 19th centuries Britain made the jump from an agricultural to an industrial economy and urban populations exploded. Just what was the government supposed to offer those communities by way of employment?

What sort of automation are you talking about? The kit British Coal had in their high output pits was state of the art. It was never an industry that could be fully automated.

Hopefully they will all be back in work within 12mths, currently working on a tender for a new Potash Mine under the yorkshire dales that's hopefully starting late 2016.

seems to sum it up really and they managed to get silicosis into a punk song, bless em

Here they are on the coal face with their pick axes.

[img] [/img]

Just what was the government supposed to offer those communities by way of employment?

I know! Imagine a government having some sort of social responsibility for it's citizens. Far better to shut the bloody lot down and let the communities rot.

They could just move to where the jobs are. Like their great^n grandparents did. And the rest of us do.

Well, they could always do what I did and move to where the work is. I'm from a mining area (north Notts) and my dad was a miner for a while but I'd never go back again.

Finding yourself another job? What an utter dreadful suggestion.

> There was no help given to soften the blow of losing an industry

Yes there was, the place was awash with money. Every light industrial units with miles of my local pit was built with local development agency and EU money.

The difference is that in some areas they grabbed the money and helped people get jobs, in other areas they were too busy moaning to go out and take the opportunities available.

Finding yourself another job? What an utter dreadful suggestion.

My grandfather in West Yorks was and his greatest pride was to see his children and grand children was to go onto into further education and university. It was a dangerous occupation where death or serious injury was a constant threat and long term illness almost inevitable. The demand for coal is falling, in a few years the UK will have no coal powered power stations, so closure of the mines is almost inevitable.

To link the closure of the mines with the fight between Thatcher and Scargill is foolish. Even Scargill knew that the mines would close in the long run, he was trying to get the best for his members. However the previous battles with the unions and the rise of Thatcher, it was a fight he was never going to win. In doing this they (Thatcher/Scargill) drove the industry into teh ground, without any planning for the long term. The legacy of this can be seen in the old pit villages and towns and will be there for generations.

Coal won't be coming back. Not unless we can work out clean ways of extracting the energy from it.

Guardian have a nice graphic of the closures over the years at the link below. Interesting to see which areas closed when

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/dec/18/the-demise-of-uk-deep-coal-mining-decades-of-decline ]Coal mining decline[/url]

The problem is that in some areas, usually industrial northern parts of UK, the coal/steel/mine/chemical/power plant is the ONLY employment. When it closes, so do most of the other businesses. There is no other employment, certainly for the numbers that are laid off, and trying to start a business in an area where money is tight, no-one has a job...

You sounds like an ex miner. Loads around here found jobs when some of the biggest pits in the UK closed, they went to other industries, mining abroad or switched to a new career in areas such as healthcare. Others spouted there was no jobs and what were they supposed to do.

Why does the marking of a fairly historical event have to seemingly become an argument in this place, are you all drunk?

I admire the history of mining and the people and communities that embody the industry, but I am not sad to see it go.
I live in an ex coal mining area and it has taken 25 years for these areas to truly start to bounce back from the loss of mining. Now that they are recovering I have to say they are better places.

Problem is there is now little market for coal and coal by products, coal gas, coke and oil,a brand new plant was built in north wakles to extract oil and gas from coal, but closed down , Drax has recently been converted to imported biomass, iron bridge has closed both big users of coal, local gas works have also closed due to the north sea gas, people dont burn coal in their homes to the extent we had to introduce the clean air act to reduce pollution, and basicly because there was no alternative way of heating water or providing heat,there are still a few people who burn refined smokeless coal usually imported or in industry, coke isnt widely used now due to the demise of the steel industry, and what coal and coke is required is now imported or open cast.

as for reopening the pits a steelworks where i worked was once surrounded by coal mines, when the steelworks closed the first thing they did was open cast the site and ship the coal to ironbridge and fidlers ferry coal burning power stations.

people dont burn coal in their homes

/Looks at stove.

Thatcher didn't force the decline of the coal industry, she tackled the NUM on her terms.
In January-February 1972 the NUM called a strike during the heavy winter and won.
In January-March 1974 the NUM again voted to strike having worked-to-rule for several months running coal reserves low. Labour won the election that year and raised miners' pay by 35%, and another 35% a few months later.

Thatcher was voted in in 1979. We came close to another strike in February 1981 (a popular month) and the NUM had started sabre-rattling again. The announcement of the closure of Cortonwood Colliery was made in March 1984, which the NUM couldn't ignore, and led to a strike that this time took place through the warmer, lighter months. Some areas and some unions didn't strike, and this combined with the willingness of road haulage to deliver coal (train deliveries had also been disrupted) kept coal production going. Ultimately the NUM lost a lot of its power with an alternative Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) appearing.

Mines sometimes close due to geological problems with getting the remaining coal, or with its quality which needs "sweetening" with better quality coal from elsewhere. And in this climate-change world coal production (and use) has been on the back foot for some time

Not just the miners that lost their jobs though, all the support and convenience around the area such as shops, pubs etc. Lots of little towns in deepest darkest Ayrshire that thrived just never recovered, and are now utter shitholes. Not blaming the qovernment tbh, just saying. I used to work with a lot of ex miners, with the very rare exception they are the laziest buggers I've ever experienced, and have a massive sense of entitlement.

I'm sure one of them told me that more pits closed under james Callaghan than thatcher. Dunno if he was talking pish or not.

I believe it was under Wison, (first innings) not Callaghan.

A lot of small pits closed under Macmillan, but it really started to bite in the sixties - the Durham fields were decimated as the NCB centralised all their effort on the bigger pits, leading ultimately to the super pits.

'My' village pit was closed in 65, with the loss of 503 jobs (about half what it was at its peak) - but we were lucky, we weren't in a category D colliery village (tagged for no investment or new development, intended to be bulldozed) supposedly no man ever retired from our pit with a full set of fingers. They open cast a big chunk in the seventies. the pit head stables were finally turned into houses a few years ago, that's pretty much the only trace that remains apart from the village green, the old wagon way and a fenced off patch of scorched earth where a fire is still burning underground near the village boundary.

Is Big Pit suitable for kids? 3&5?

Don't start me on open casts ninfan!. There's a load of them round here that have been abandoned in the last few years, mining companies didn't have the money they were supposed to set aside for whatever it is that they do to remedy the eyesore.

They'll just lie there until the buggers decide the coal price is suitable for them to reopen, and the council will welcome them with open arms.

We had a turner at work who started his life as a fitter down the mines. On one shift a piece of machinery had broken down on the pit face and he was sent down to try and repair it with a supervisor. This seam was about 18-20 inches high so they used to tie their tool bag around their ankle and drag it behind them along the seam. This day luckily for him he'd left his bag back down by one of the main shafts. Just as they got out of the seam to walk back for the tools the seam collapsed and the air pressure blew them like rag dolls back along the shaft 20-30 yards. Several broken ribs, collar bone, ankle etc later when he recovered they tried to make him go back down. He never went underground again. They tried to finish him but luckily he got a job in the workshops.

Between Risca and Brynmawr was devastated absolutely destroyed and still isn't the same now. That is a legacy of shame.

It's a legacy that the local population have, in part, helped perpetuate. There are loads of people in the Valleys and surrounding areas that have hung on to the idea that your kids will do the same work as the parents and that job will be in the same town/village. It's known as the 'Valleys Mentality' and is still widely evident long after the last pit closed. The families who have gone out and found work in the wider area have found that reasonable jobs are available. The hoardes of people driving out in the morning and back in the evening in decent cars are a good indication. Also as the house prices are low they don't need to earn as much to have a good quality of life. I work with a lot of people from that area and they have the same view, we even have one or two that still bemoan having to leave 'their valley' to get work!

Parts of the Valleys are great with brilliant people there doing good work so it's not all doom-and-gloom but it could be so much better if people looked forward, not back.

Yes there was, the place was awash with money. Every light industrial units with miles of my local pit was built with local development agency and EU money.

The difference is that in some areas they grabbed the money and helped people get jobs, in other areas they were too busy moaning to go out and take the opportunities available.

Exactly. MTB was a big part of this with EU money helping the trail centres pop up in the South. Lots of local start-up businesses popped up due to the grants and funding for a plethora of subsidised industrial units. Loco was in one in New Tredegar and Mojo are in one in Risca. Dig around and you will find loads of small businesses supplying stuff to big names. I know of two places supplying F1 teams with bespoke kit and lots of places that supply aircraft parts and kit to GEAS in Nantgarw. Festival Park in Ebbw Vale exists due to the EU funding the Garden Festival in the early 90's and the subsequent regeneration into shops. The old steelworks below have been turned into a new hospital, leisure centre and college via a helping hand from the EU coffers too. Those that saw the new opportunities have prospered, to the benefit of the whole area.

As for people wanting the pits back/wishing they'd never gone? Just look at Merthyr. For as long as I can remember the locals have moaned that there's no work without the pits, despite there being a few blue chip employers in the area. A proposal to open an open-cast mine digging out the old spoil tips above the town was met with not relief at new work, but a huge petition to stop it as it would 'destroy the local landscape'. They totally missed the fact that it was a landscape made of waste material and pretty much wasteland full of burned out cars and illegal fly-tipping. Thankfully the petition failed so now it's an area that is being regenerated as the diggers move from one spoil tip to the next.
I work in Merthyr regularly and the place is full of two distinct types of people: those that work and those that don't.

The opportunities are there if only people would take off the blinkers and grab them.

Don't start me on open casts ninfan!. There's a load of them round here that have been abandoned in the last few years, mining companies didn't have the money they were supposed to set aside for whatever it is that they do to remedy the eyesore.

They'll just lie there until the buggers decide the coal price is suitable for them to reopen, and the council will welcome them with open arms.

A lot of that is because the old mining methods took only a small percentage of the coal out, they had to leave most of it to prop the roof up.

As an aside, I know a bloke who is working closely with some of the companies to try and design in MTB trails as part of the remediation and landscaping planning process - it's an ideal time as there's big machinery and a completley blank canvas, could show real benefits in future years.

Don't start me on open casts ninfan!.

A lot of that is because the old mining methods took only a small percentage of the coal out, they had to leave most of it to prop the roof up.

Most of the open casts are to strip out remaining coal from long abandoned underground mine seams

Most of the open casts are to strip out remaining coal from long abandoned underground mine seams

That's only partially true. I know the old method by the name 'stoop and pillar' mining, whereby as you correctly say coal is left behind to prop up the roof, however in some cases many of the pillars could be retrieved upon retreat, if the intent was not to go any further, perhaps for geological reasons.

I worked at one opencast site with no previous workings, and a few where only one or two seams of up to dozens were worked. Opencast mining allows seams to be extracted that are too thin for traditional methods.

From a feasibility point of view, predicting expected tonnages largely based on previously mined seams can be quite risky. Old coal plans can be misleading and often incorrect or non existent, particularly in sites worked pre Second World War.

Also, pre start exploratory drilling is vital in pinning down tonnages, however it is an expensive process, especially if it becomes unviable. In the privatised era, distances between exploratory holes have increased, with greater assumptions made on the coal thicknesses between.

I heard of one unlucky site long ago that put a series of exploratory holes into an area, and upon excavation found unexpectedly that a 2m thick seam of coal had been about 70% worked, and every one of the test holes went through a pillar.

Apart from a grandfather that was a miner, I haven't got much to add to the discussion. If you've time though, I thought this BBC Radio episode of The Reunion was good. Available on podcast too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zxmyt

I was extremely disappointed at this news, if it were for entirely green reasons it might have been more palatable but it's not, it's the difference between £43.0 per ton and £30 per ton from Columbia, then I heard on the radio that is subsidised which I found even more unacceptable given this God Awful Governments own lack of Green credentials.
Then it's Christmas, why do these things always seem to happen just before Christmas, I feel so bad for those guys, what the hell can they expect in their future. This country is so ****ed up, casting it's skill so readily on the scrap heap for the sake of short term profit. I'm beginning to hate the place.

Global coal prices have generally been on the slide since 2010, I think partially due to American switch to energy production from gas rather than coal due to fracking. The effect was that America has dumped large quantities of cheap coal on the market.

Most of the open casts are to strip out remaining coal from long abandoned underground mine seams