[Closed] The unbearable sadness...

Many of the people of Blaenau appear to have given up on God. A decade ago less than a quarter of people here said they had no religion - now the census shows it is over 40%.

Why such a negative headline when things are clearly improving?

I saw that.

I don't think we can bring back heavy industry, I'm not sure that's the leftie position.

How would I resolve it? I don't know. Perhaps tax breaks for industries to move there? I'm sure that's been tried though.

I think the population is falling though, it surely must.

Firstly, not have a referendum on the EU which puts off multinationals from investing in the UK, due to the uncertainty that goes along with it.

I read the article and thought it tragic as well, Wales is scattered with such towns. There is always a massive contrast between the beauty of the surrounding coutryside and the depressed former mining towns.

There used to be large incentives for businesses to setup in Wales. I remember visiting a new industrial estate near Crickhowell once. I am not sure if the incentives still exist. The problems is even 'thriving' areas of Great Britain are strugglin at the moment.

A bunch of high-tech companies set up in South Wales, like Sony, but they've been struggling because of the downturn in consumer need for new tellies every year, and closed the factory.
This isn't just a UK problem; look at America's Rust Belt, particularly Detroit, which is almost a ghost city now.

A bunch of high-tech companies set up in South Wales, like Sony, but they've been struggling because of the downturn in consumer need for new tellies every year, and closed the factory.

no they haven't, they make raspberry pi's there now.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/sony

Yeah it's pretty shit (used to live in not far from there) but there's no easy solution, you'd not only have to spend shit loads of money to attract significant numbers of jobs to the area but the available workforce that is there is now mostly unskilled so what jobs would they be? Aside from ever more call centres if they try and set up an engineering base or something a lot of the workforce is going to have to come from elsewhere, at least for a good 5 years or so.
Maybe the current plan is to make the areas so depressing that people stop having kids or the young adults all move away so the towns disappear. Ultimately trying to sustain populations that are there due to an industry that's long since gone is pretty futile.

Communities and settlements have come and gone over the centuries and once the reason for them existing has gone, they will fade away. This website is full of abandoned communities: http://www.abandonedcommunities.co.uk/index.html

Look at Detroit - in some small ways the city is going through a rebirth similar to that of towns like Hebden Bridge after the wool and then cotton industries collapsed; cheap proprty attracts creative types who slowly begin to revive the town. It won't happen all over the Welsh valleys but I'm sure it will in a limited way.

I lived in Ebbw Vale in the late 80s just before it held the national garden festival .I moved because I couldnt afford a house in Somerset .At that time the steel mill and Marine Colliery were still working .It was quite run down then but actually a great place to live as a mountain biker and caver because the great outdoors was just the other side of the head of the valleys road

The comparison with the US is pertinent. If you don't pay people to do nothing they migrate to where the work is. Like any other mining, oil or natural resources dependent town when the resource runs out or is no longer economically exploitable, the town's reason to be is gone and the pragmatic solution is to abandon it.

There are fewer than 60,000 adults in Blaenau Gwent. Each month almost 10,000 prescriptions are issued for anti-depressants. It is a statistic so shocking it is hard to comprehend.

I think as a society we need to realise that either subsidising industry or leaving it to to fail come at a cost

It is difficult to see what can be done in towns that existed for just one or two industries. Now that has now stopped...the whole place is literally ****ed...I know I am from one.

Without massive outside investment it wont change

The current benefits system keeps plenty of towns from disappearing long after their main economic activity has vanished. Obviously it's difficult to even conceive of using benefits as a lever to move people away from unsustainable and uneconomic towns. Perhaps find a way to incentivise people to move elsewhere - but even this would be fiercely resisted in the name of a 'community' which is being kept alive by artificial means.

I haven't seen much of the S Wales towns mentioned, but a similar situation exists in NE England, with towns like Easington Colliery kept hanging on drowning in unemployment, poverty and poor health long after the reason for their existence has gone.

I think if this was in the US the villages would just be abandoned - plenty of former mining ghost towns dotted around the US countryside.

In the UK we seem to let these towns and village die a slow death instead. I'm not sure which option is better, but this sort of post industrial landscape does seem to be a big problem in large parts of the UK.

Wales seems particularly badly affected though.

I think decentralising a lot of large government from London (or Cardiff for that matter) might be a start.

Hard as it is to say the people "stuck" in these towns need to look at their options too.

I grew up in an area of declining heavy industry in south west Scotland. I went to university and moved to the big city up the road. It seemed a much better alternative than scraping out an existence in a town with failing prospects - even if it was my "home"

There used to be large incentives for businesses to setup in Wales. I remember visiting a new industrial estate near Crickhowell once. I am not sure if the incentives still exist. The problems is even 'thriving' areas of Great Britain are strugglin at the moment.

Even if they do exist, I wonder how they stack up against things like the cut price loan from the EU's European Investment Bank given to Ford to move their factory to Turkey. Especially when you consider they probably have massively lower energy, wage etc costs too. Difficult to compete against that. Or do/can the EU offer those kind of deals to Wales too?

I just read some of the comments underneath that article. Blimey!

Maybe the current plan is to make the areas so depressing that people stop having kids or the young adults all move away so the towns disappear.

I wouldn't call it a "plan" but it is the most likely long term result. I have sympathy for the older sections of the current working age population, as in the article there's not much more incentive for an unemployed, unqualified, 50-something ex-miner with no savings to migrate elsewhere to futilely look for work, but for the younger generations, this is surely what will happen.

But this is hardly new, and neither is the American experience unique. Go and look at the picturesque industrial archaeology in Swaledale - once a hive of industry, now a rural backwater. Look at "ghost towns" the world over, deserted when the oil/gold/coal ran out.

These towns are done. Finished. Kaput. Over.

The only thing keeping them going, frankly, is benefit dependency. The only reason anyone other than an older, unemployed ex-miner waiting for death would stay rather than looking to migrate to somewhere with more prospects is the idea that you can sustain a life, in the long term, on "hand-outs" from the state.

Well sitting in a Hotel in Detroit at the moment and having in-laws in South Wales I can see why people draw comparisons however the comparisons are not valid. Detroit is still in decline and has huge debt ($17B) due to the loss of many industries and depopulation. The Re-generation PR is good but largely PR. However outside the city limits you will find huge car factories producing record numbers of cars (ford Dearborn) and very affluent area (eg. Grosse Pointe).

South Wales, this industry has gone and the people are still there. However unless they move to the South East there aren't so many options for them to move to find work. I can't see an easy option to bring industry back to South Wales. It was there originally due to the resources (coal and iron) and once they have gone, why move your industry back there? I've seen the "high tech business parks" in these areas S.Wales towns and they employ small numbers of people.

Well sitting in a Hotel in Detroit at the moment and having in-laws in South Wales I can see why people draw comparisons however the comparisons are not valid. Detroit is still in decline and has huge debt ($17B) due to the loss of many industries and depopulation. The Re-generation PR is good but largely PR. However outside the city limits you will find huge car factories producing record numbers of cars (ford Dearborn) and very affluent area (eg. Grosse Pointe).

South Wales, this industry has gone and the people are still there. However unless they move to the South East there aren't so many options for them to move to find work. I can't see an easy option to bring industry back to South Wales. It was there originally due to the resources (coal and iron) and once they have gone, why move your industry back there? I've seen the "high tech business parks" in these areas S.Wales towns and they employ small numbers of people.

Without massive subsidies there is no economic future for these places, low skilled labour, poor transport links, physically remote - nothing business wants or needs there. People migrated there for the coal, that was the only reason these places ever became anything more than small farming villages. Without the coal, that's what they will return to.

I haven't seen much of the S Wales towns mentioned, but a similar situation exists in NE England, with towns like Easington Colliery kept hanging on drowning in unemployment, poverty and poor health long after the reason for their existence has gone.

It is true that the desire to stay in the land of your forefathers etc is a strong one and i suppose the debate is whether we want to support hat and encourage it or make everyone move to the South eats of the country and work there instead.

To blame benefits is both heartless and stupid

The only reason anyone other than an older, unemployed ex-miner waiting for death would stay rather than looking to migrate to somewhere with more prospects is the idea that you can sustain a life, in the long term, on "hand-outs" from the state.

DP

The ultimate example of an abandoned town is Detroit, now the car manufacturers all migrated East. Its now a ghost town of abandoned buildings. Grim! But it makes for some stunning photographs of urban decay

[img] https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQCG3-FMFoXrQmGnEmgXmn2zdQOkEr-Y0EqV-wJI83Xm2l26WPSuw [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

The leisure potential for the South Wales valleys is virtually untouched...Mountain Biking is one of the few things that has had a (small) impact. Removing the fixation of the authorities of chucking money at big overseas companies to come and "invest" in South Wales would be a start (has the Amazon warehouse taken money out of or put money into South Wales economy..I suspect the former).

building small scale sustainable niche businessess around leisure and recreation industry will attract and crucually keep money in South Wales. Merthyr Tydfil could genuinely become the outdoor sports capital of southern britain...it has everything on its doorstep except ambition.

Good luck to the Gethin lot.....hopefully thats gonna startsomething in Merthyr...but how about turningthe abandoned Tower Colliery (you can see it from the back of the Skyline) into a cable car uplift.

Go and look at the picturesque industrial archaeology in Swaledale - once a hive of industry, now a rural backwater.

An interesting comparison. As an owner of a cottage in Swaledale I know the area very well. It seems to have re-adjusted very well. Eg Take the village of Muker, population 200 ish, it had 1000s living there during the mining boom, but has now re-adjusted and is doing pretty well for a small village. Crime is very low, village is clean and tidy, very little poverty, very few on benefits (other than pensions), good local schools etc....

All or these thousands of people who you would encourage to migrate: where would you house them? And where are the jobs for them to do?

To blame benefits is both heartless and stupid

It's not a question of 'blame', I was simply pointing out that they do contribute to these towns continuing long after the economic reasons for their existence have gone. I was at pains to say that altering the benefits system to address this imbalance was pretty much unthinkable, unless you are going to actively incentivise people to move, rather than penalise them for not moving.

We all want more of the people who currently live in Easington Colliery and some of these S Wales communities to be economically productive - it is good for them and their families, and the economy in general.

I'm not sure that inward investment in terms of subsidies for employers is going to provide the longer-term solution, at least not at a very local level. Perhaps at a regional one though, which could concentrate resources on towns further away which are better placed to attract big employers because of the quality of their existing workforce.

Ohnohesback - and it's at that point, when there is hopefully a forecast labour shortage in Sunderland or Hartlepool, that you could start incentivising people to get moving out of Easington.

All or these thousands of people who you would encourage to migrate: where would you house them? And where are the jobs for them to do?

I don't think it's about encouraging them, I think it's what will inevitably happen.

But it makes for some stunning photographs of urban decay

As does the death of industry in Wales:

[url= http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3423/3879293452_7e9a4944e2_z.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3423/3879293452_7e9a4944e2_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/cycleologist/3879293452/ ]Welsh Mine 3[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/cycleologist/ ]Ben Cooper[/url], on Flickr

Parts of Scotland have this problem too, and it's hard to think of a simple solution. Without a particular reason to be there, the industry won't come back, but the people who live there can't afford to move elsewhere - and there aren't exactly loads of jobs elsewhere anyway.

It's called Broken Britain...

If this is the Only reason you can think of then the education system has failed you.

Okay then, guru of urban regeneration, what have I missed? We've tried the macro stuff - government incentives to international businesses to come and build factories. They've tried the micro stuff - painting the disused shops a pretty colour and putting some old PCs in the community centre. Leisure and Tourism? I'd suggest there's a place for it but I don't reckon you can replace the employment /economic opportunities of a large coalfield and an extensive steelmaking industry with a couple of mountain bike uplifts and a tearoom here and there.

Everywhere else, throughout human history, when the reason for a large community to exist in a certain place has gone, the people follow.

So Junkyard, what have I missed?

Broken Britain...

Broken record more like.

The population boom in south wales was caused by immigrants coming to find work. I think that might be a clue.

Interesting points being made. 2-3 generations ago people had to move to where the work was, and towns withered and died. Maybe the benefits system is delaying that process.

I live near, and work with several people from, the former East Midlands pit area. During the recent anniversary of the miners strike lots of former miners were on the local news bemoaning the fact that no new jobs had been moved to the area. It never seemed to have been an option for them to have been proactive in moving to where the work was in the intervening 30 years, and even some of their kids/neices/nephews seemed to feel that fault now lay on both sides

It's called Broken Britain...

Show me a developed country that doesn't have this problem.

As for the Valleys being remote - they aren't that remote. You're two hours from the SE, almost all the Valleys have good roads now and they all have a train line.

It's true that there's no economic reason for the population to be there any more. However they've become communities, and as above people don't like to move away from their friends and families. Young people will, but I suspect it's mostly people who've been to university, thereby setting up a bit of a brain drain.

This isn't just a UK problem; look at America's Rust Belt, particularly Detroit, which is almost a ghost city now.

There was a documentary on Detroit not so long ago about the imigration of young whites (fixie riding hipsters / 'creatives') to the city over the last 5 years displacing the previous black population who'd worked in the car factories who had now moved on (either retired to the countryside, or followed the work out of town).

There was a similar report on London, and how waves of imigration ripple outwards, with a net imigration of whites into some central/eastern parts of London for the first time in decades, whilst areas like Dargernham in Essex were experienceing the reverse as other ethnic groups who'd moved to London since WW2 retired and moved out to the subburbs and country.

Everywhere else, throughout human history, when the reason for a large community to exist in a certain place has gone, the people follow.

There are a number of factors that may prevent a number of people from moving on.

Lack of education, Jobs elsewhere, Cost of living/property prices in other parts of the country to name a few. Simply cutting benefits to get people on the move is quite knee jerk...and when taking into context of the above factors, a bit silly.

But I also think that since these communities grew during the industrial revolution and as such have been around a while, there is a sense of community that still exists within them.

We have moved from large industries to a financial and service based economy in a short time, without getting those left behind in former industrial centres to come along for the ride, so to speak. It went from heavy industry to next to nothing in a just over a decade.

That's not what I would call a managed decline, and the current situation is certainly not a managed decline either.

Moving across the country when you're broke and your family's broke isn't particularly easy btw.

There never has been a managed decline in history. Boom and bust is the norm.

Move where to do what? Most of them are largely unskilled and uneducated - we don't have a great need for that anywhere in the UK, except maybe seasonal farm work eg fruit picking.

During the recent anniversary of the miners strike lots of former miners were on the local news bemoaning the fact that no new jobs had been moved to the area. It never seemed to have been an option for them to have been proactive in moving to where the work was in the intervening 30 years

Okay, you're a fifty five year old ex-miner. The only thing you have ever done for a living is mine coal. You have no qualifications in anything other than hacking coal out of the ground, and no money.

What work are you going to move somewhere to do?

How are you going to move there to do it?

To be honest, I don't have a problem with benefit dependent ex-miners. History has dealt them a crap hand and there's not a whole lot can be done about it. Sure, send them all on basic IT skills courses down the "JobClub" and show them how to write a CV, but the reality is many of these guys will not work again. Let the state pay them a pittance, they earned it and they'd still be earning it now if the pits hadn't closed.

The benefit dependency that is, I think, delaying the inevitable is among those who grow up in a culture of worklessness and expect to enter that stream themselves. The cliched teenage girl who's life plan extends to getting pregnant so she can get social housing and benefits. The spurious sick who not only take the piss but lead to the demonisation of the many who are genuinely dependent on sickness related benefits because they are genuinely sick. We have created cultures in pockets of urban Britain where a workless life, dependent and expecting state handouts is not only acceptable, but is the norm.

Perhaps if we forcibly relocate anyone who lives in Dalston and has an Instagram account to the Valleys?

On second thoughts, we don't want to make things even worse for the locals.

There never has been a managed decline in history. Boom and bust is the norm.

There has. Thatcher did it with Liverpool. Which is why every town and city in the world is now full of exiled scousers banging on an on and on and on about the Pool being the greatest place in the weeeeeeerld 😉

Trying to put myself in their position, if I suddenly couldn't work where I live for whatever reason, I'd move. I'd need to provide food, shelter and hopefully a decent life for my family and the best chance possible for the kid(s).
I'm sure I'd miss my wider family and friends but needs must. Looking after the nearest and dearest is number 1 priority. I'm not being preachy or critical of the people mentioned, just thinking aloud. Slow work day.

As for what to do about the current situation in the valleys, haven't a clue. Sorry.

The words 'Thatcher', 'Managed decline' and 'Liverpool' combined in one concept. The internet equivalent of daring to disagree with Charles Saatchi...

Capitalism innit.

Stopped off once to chat to the folk at the Burberry factory when they had their strike. Plant was employing locals, AND making money, but owners of Burberry realised that they could make MORE money making stuff in Malaysia...People thrown on the scrap heap for the difference of a couple of zeros on a balance sheet.

We have legislated our industries to death.

Take environmental and health rules for industry. Basically a good idea, nothing wrong with stopping them pooping in our nest or working people to death.

But, this increases costs so now a product from a 3rd world country becomes much cheaper and our local industry with its higher overhead cannot compete.

All that needs to be done is to impose a tariff on goods imported from countries with poor environmental and health conditions so that pricing advantage is removed and we have a level playing field.

Of course this is ideologically unsound and against free trade, so our jobs and industries continue to disappear until we also become a 3rd world country.

Our political parties work for the interests of their major donors, not the electorate.

All that needs to be done is to impose a tariff on goods imported from countries with poor environmental and health conditions so that pricing advantage is removed and we have a level playing field.

.. and push inflation through the roof at the same time?

Take environmental and health rules for industry. Basically a good idea, nothing wrong with stopping them pooping in our nest or working people to death.

But, this increases costs so now a product from a 3rd world country becomes much cheaper and our local industry with its higher overhead cannot compete.

Nothing to do with lower labour costs then.....

Moving across the country when you're broke and your family's broke isn't particularly easy

and why should they move? we all pay into the same pot and we all take out of it. This is an emotional response I know but I think we owe to the region and to the people there to create a sustainable economy. Yes it will cost a fortune but thats mainly because it requires the complete rebuilding of a shattered economy, this should have happenes a decade or more ago. Start with schools and low level community projects, then move on to subsidising businesses and external investments. If you create a region with good or outstanding schools combined with affordable housing and falling crime rates and funded opportunities for small businesses the rest will follow.

Yes an emotional response but we 'are' talking about people and their lives. They deserve the same opportunity as everyone else on this island.

Trying to put myself in their position, if I suddenly couldn't work where I live for whatever reason, I'd move. I'd need to provide food, shelter and hopefully a decent life for my family and the best chance possible for the kid(s).

Therin lies the problem, you've inadvertently deamonised them as somehow different to you. Hypothetialy if I were a miner, I'm sure I'd move too, if I wasn't living in a house in a village with no imigration and work prospects and therefore no value, who's going to buy it to fund the deposit on my new house? And once I'm in the land of milk and honey/south east, what am I going to do with my GNVQ (or whatever) in Mining Coal?

We have legislated our industries to death.

Take environmental and health rules for industry. Basically a good idea, nothing wrong with stopping them pooping in our nest or working people to death.

But, this increases costs so now a product from a 3rd world country becomes much cheaper and our local industry with its higher overhead cannot compete.

All that needs to be done is to impose a tariff on goods imported from countries with poor environmental and health conditions so that pricing advantage is removed and we have a level playing field.

Of course this is ideologically unsound and against free trade, so our jobs and industries continue to disappear until we also become a 3rd world country.

Our political parties work for the interests of their major donors, not the electorate.

Who are these 'interests', presumably no industries as you've just said they're working against them?

@yossarian

While I am sympathetic to what you say, I don't see that it can be fixed in situ. The fact is that you have got decent sized towns in places where decent sized towns cannot be sustainably supported now that the raison d'etre for them being there is gone (the coal).

Creating a sustainable economy is possible, but it will be at a smaller scale - look at the example given earlier of a now prosperous village in Swaledale that was once industrial, and much larger. If we'd had interventionist economists and politicians when the lead was worked out, you could be looking at a still decent sized town, with staggering levels of poverty and deprivation and people wringing their hands about why they couldn't attract Panasonic to built a new factory in the middle of nowhere.

Somehow over the last century we seem to have come to consider coal mining as a permanent industry. Yet mining and quarrying, as any outdoorsman knows, are activities that function on a knife edge of profitability depending on the market price of the commodity against the cost of extraction. Mines and quarries open and close and re-open for a while then close. Lead, copper, tin, slate and other traditional industries boomed and went bust as market conditions changed so why shouldn't coal?

I always wonder what that area would have been like before the mines moved in.. stunningly beautiful I imagine.

why shouldn't they be again? What is stopping the areas being developed as country parks and other recreational facilities? Genuine commitment from central government is what.

As time has passed we seem to have accepted that certain regions of the UK are just going to be abandoned along with the poeple who live there. That is clearly unjust and reflects accurately the real political philosophies of the past 30 years.

depressing innit?

Therin lies the problem, you've inadvertently deamonised them as somehow different to you.

Hypothetialy if I were a miner, I'm sure I'd move too, if I wasn't living in a house in a village with no imigration and work prospects and therefore no value, who's going to buy it to fund the deposit on my new house?

? Even if they did own their houses, they don't anymore so they've gained zero by staying put. They'd have been better off taking the hit at the time, and as said numerous times in this thread we have a very generous benefits system throughout the UK. My obligation to my family would have been greater than the obligation to my mortgage provider.

And once I'm in the land of milk and honey/south east, what am I going to do with my GNVQ (or whatever) in Mining Coal?

The same as anyone else. Most people don't have a skill/specialism and live happy lives. What I wouldn't have done is stay put and wait in the hope that someone will provide for my family.

why shouldn't they be again? What is stopping the areas being developed as country parks and other recreational facilities? Genuine commitment from central government is what.

Isn't the WAG in charge of the country's finances/budgets now?

Great thread with some really interesting posts.

I think that 'martinhutch' has some valid points about benefits. If you look at migration into the South East/London of Eastern Europeans, that shows that when you have nothing at home you will to move to find a better life.

I work with a lot of migrants and the picture they paint of 'back home' would encourage many people to seek a better life elsewhere, especially the young (many of them with little or no skills but hungry to learn/earn). Many of them inform me that if you don't earn any money, then you go hungry. They somehow manage to get enough money to travel to the UK and do what they have to do when they arrive here. This means shit jobs for shit pay and living in a house with 8 or 10 other people. I have been speaking to one individual today who has been working for £15 a day in a butchers in London for months. It's not right but sadly that's what happens.

Luckily we have a society where we can (and should) look after people who are unable to work but I don't think it encourages people to move to look for work. I don't think people should have to move away from their home to look for work but the present reality is that if you live in one of these deprived area's, you might struggle to improve your life if you don't.

It would take a momentous change of policy/thinking for this to change. The biggest challenge as I see it, is for job sustainability. It doesn't help anyone for a factory to open on the back of government incentives only to close again a few years later.

I was trying to think what I'd do if it happened to me.

Imagine you're 55, no qualifications, and only have skills in mining. You haven't enough money for the deposit on a house either. Still want to up sticks and move?

Most people don't have a skill/specialism and live happy lives.

Most people pick up specialisms and skills when they are young and free.

Whenever I visit Wales I always think it punches below its weight in terms of tourism potential. The beaches and mountains are amazing. On a summer’s day, the Lake District will be rammed and yet you can (thankfully) drive around parts of Wales and it’s virtually empty.

English subtitles.

In one simple move you'd increase tourism.

Luckily that'll never happen and it'll stay nice and quiet.

Imagine you're 55, no qualifications, and only have skills in mining. You haven't enough money for the deposit on a house either. Still want to up sticks and move?

Edit; After years of holidaying in devon/cornwall, I persuaded to in laws to try wales (carmarthen). They loved it; the people, the beaches, the prices. We all go every year now (and I get to go biking 😉 ). Wales has masses to offer as a tourist destination and as Molgrips pointed out; it isn't difficult to get to any more.

For everyone espousing tourism as the solution, what form of tourism do you envisage ro provide the number of jobs that coal mines used to?

Yes, tourism could and should be developed further, but it is not going to replace heavy industry as an employer of thousands and thousands of workers. It just isn't.

It does get plenty of tourists of course, but the reason the Lakes are busier is that it's a more compact area with more intensive tourist stuff (both natural and man made), but mainly because it's really close to big conurbations.

Re tourism in Wales, don't get mixed up. The article is about the Valleys, and no tourists want to go there. The lovely scenery etc is elsewhere, where population is light and it's mostly tourism and farming. Not exactly boom time there either but a quite different social situation. I dare you to take your next holiday in Merthyr Tydfil.

I don't know the ins and outs but wasn't social housing available in the 80s

Yes, but I'd imagine that most of it elsewhere was full or nearly so.

Not compared to cornwall and wales is at least as nice and even closer to the rest of the country.

Merthyr Tydfil could be a bonafide tourist destination with a bit of investment and a change in attitude from the locals.
I visited Blaenau Ffestiniog recently, as did many others. The uplift is ace 😉

A bit?!

OK, maybe a little more than a bit but it isn't and shouldn't be considered a lost cause.

I love Wales, my family's from the Valleys, and parts of the Valleys are beautiful, but I just can't imagine Merthyr being a tourist destination! It would need to be almost completely buldozed and rebuilt...

I was born in Tredegar lived in Brynmawr until I was four then grew up in Abercarn, even in the boom times places like Cwm were miserable.

There is a certain mentality that is inherent in some valley people, when I was 19 me and a mate runaway to London. I was back visiting some mates and bumped into a bloke I hadn't seen for a couple of years, he asked me what I was doing with my self and I told him I was a despatch rider in London, his reply was " not good enough round here for you, you f*****g ****er"

It's hard to explain places like Ebbw Vale, Abertillery Pontypool

One thing I know is that the valleys I grew up in are spectacularly beautiful, in a way I think it is sad that all the slag heaps have gone, there is only one I know left which is up by the mast on Machen Mountain and Bedwas has one. It's like taking part of our heritage away.

If you create a region with good or outstanding schools combined with affordable housing and falling crime rates and funded opportunities for small businesses the rest will follow.

Bullshit. The fact of the matter is that the South East of England is going to prosper and the rest of Britain is largely going to shit. You can do all you want to try to create jobs, opportunity, education etc in the provinces but at the end of the day you're pissing in the wind. Most of the big business will gradually move to the SE.

Look at Astra Zeneca in Alderley Edge...
Cheap Houses - Yes (obviously not in AE itself :-))
Educated workforce - yes
Experienced workforce - yes
Skilled workforce - yes
Existing factory and laboratory buildings - yes

And what are they doing.... closing the whole lot down and moving it to Cambridge because they think Northern/Middle England is too far away from SE England to sustain. They have everything they need but are moving/binning all they have built up over the years to join the drain to the SE.
If a company that big with a commitment that big to Cheshire and a set of skilled workers that good is giving up the fight and moving away then that clearly says that the rest of Britain to completely *&^)ed quite frankly. The valleys in Wales with only 1 of the following items in their favour have zero chance.

Cheap Houses - Yes
Educated workforce - no
Experienced workforce - no
Skilled workforce -no
Existing factory and laboratory buildings - no

Sorry, none of this is really relevant to the OP, but the drain in the UK annoys me like nothing else. Nearly every part of Britain contributed important things to make Britain Great and as part of that process made London and SE England prosperous. Now that general wealth has gone, but London continues to reap the benefits whilst the rest of the country dies.
Yes, I know you were talking about small business, and I mentioned big Pharma, so my point makes no sense at all. I just wanted a rant.

It can be just as grim in the South East. The closure of Ford in Southampton, Pfizer in Kent... In fact Kent used to have a mining industry, and Portsmouth dockyards were much bigger than now. Some of the dockers loading the Falkland task force did so with redundancy notices in their pocket.

The solutions are never easy, but cramming more people into an overcrowded south-east isn't the answer.

Things they could do-

Do high speed rail links properly, west coast going up to Glasgow, East coast going up to Edinburgh (or maybe all the way up to (Aberdeen), and another going out from the Se through Bristol and along the south coast of Wales. Also a link across somewhere central, say hull to Liverpool. And do it soon.

Move the Countries political centre away from London.

Stop London pay weighting on all Public service jobs.

For everyone espousing tourism as the solution, what form of tourism do you envisage ro provide the number of jobs that coal mines used to?
Yes, tourism could and should be developed further, but it is not going to replace heavy industry as an employer of thousands and thousands of workers. It just isn't.

A Centreparcs style business, an Alton Towers type venture, a safari park, a motor racing circuit etc etc etc. Get one or two of these off the ground and functioning and the knock on effects for the local economy would be palpable.

You can't replace heavy industry with one thing, there'd be little point would there?

in a way I think it is sad that all the slag heaps have gone

Don't get the communities mixed up with the place. The valleys were there long before the coal was worked, and will still be there afterwards. I was probably not even born when this was written, but Max says it beautifully as ever. Dusty in here, somehow..

SIRHOWY HILL

A steel town was waking as dawn it was breaking
And talk was uneasy 'bout things at the Mill
And talk is uneasy in the streets of a valley
For flowers are growing on Sirhowy Hill.

Chorus :

For the wheel is full turning
And flowers are learning
To grow once again
On Sirhowy Hill.

I wandered my way on that shabby old morning
In a broken old valley where the pitwheel is still
Where tired old terraces built in a hurry
Are painted so gaily on Sirhowy Hill.

The smoke and the sulphur I knew as a lad
On thinking it over, it wasn't that bad
So let those old furnaces do what they will
Now flowers are growing on Sirhowy Hill.

Those hills that were crippled of hawthorn and heather
Of fern and of flower strangely are still
For the wheel is full turning and flowers are learning
To grow once again on Sirhowy Hill.

They'll sit and decide in the seats of decision
On the fate of a valley should the furnaces chill
And offer new work in some marshmallow factory
To men of a valley long forged in a skill.

100 years ago there were a quarter of a million men working in the coal mines in Wales. Now there's about 1,200.

How many employees does a Centerparcs or an Alton Towers have? A few hundred? It's simply not going to provide employment at anything like the same scale. Even during the 1980s there were upwards of 20,000 employed in the South Wales coal field. Tourism may mitigate the decline, but it surely won't reverse it.

EDIT: And most tourism jobs are seasonal, casual, or both. A motor racing circuit may provide employment to a fair few people, but for how many days a year?

Don't forget to add low-paid and low-skilled to that description. I despair whenever I hear of 'solutions' involving tourism, cafes, eateries, or 'circuses.'

And don't get me started on 'destination retail'...

I think the communities and the places are intertwined.

Bullshit. The fact of the matter is that the South East of England is going to prosper and the rest of Britain is largely going to shit.

Absolutely spot on with this and the rest of your post IMO. London is a giant subsidy-hoover and look how well being in thrall to the city is doing for us.

I don't have a lit to add, but this is one of the better threads here recently and very enjoyable to read. Please keep it up all.

Trying to put myself in their position, if I suddenly couldn't work where I live for whatever reason, I'd move. I'd need to provide food, shelter and hopefully a decent life for my family and the best chance possible for the kid(s).
I'm sure I'd miss my wider family and friends but needs must. Looking after the nearest and dearest is number 1 priority.

It's a question of degrees isn't it. It's pretty unlikely that you live [i]precisely[/i] where your best opportunities lie, but you haven't moved there because of family, friends and familiarity.

What if family, friends and familiarity are the only good things in your life? It's an [b]immense[/b] decision then to move away from that for the promise of an equally difficult life elsewhere without those things.