New Fotopic site - vintage railway images

"simon" wrote

Coming from mining stock I've heard the latter before, but always understood that it referred to the government and/or the NCB's management.

John.

He claimed it was all of em, from bottom to top, and from the stories he told it certainly was.

Cheers, Simon

That's why I put the word "uneconomic" in parenthesis. They were "uneconomic" in terms of NCB operation but some were bought by private companies or groups of former miners, reopened and run (for a time) quite efficiently. Where a deep mine has been closed for 20 years you can be quite sure there is no way of reopening it safely or viably. There are alternate sites which *could* be drift- or open-cast mined at much lower cost but have been prevented so far on environmental grounds.

(kim)

One of the early objectives of the Thatcher government was to 'break' a trade union as an example to the rest (see Admiral Byng). She tried and failed in

1979 with ACTT. From that she learnt the lesson on being prepared. Scargill was desperate to be the mug so she obliged him.

"kim" wrote

But why would anyone close a pit if it wasn't 'uneconomic', unless of course there was a temporary down-turn in demand (as presumably in the case of Hatfield) - but then that downturn would make the pit uneconomic anyway.

Sorry if there's a lot of negatives in that.

John.

It depends how you measure it. In 1983 the NCB was supplying coal at well below the free market price to the CEGB (presumably on government orders), they were opening new pits which were cheaper to run but not strictly necessary and they imposed a massive pay rise on miners which the NUM neither requested nor accepted. Remove those three factors and an older mine which was previously "uneconomic" suddenly becomes profitable again. On top of that there is the 'social cost' of closing a pit such as redundancy payments, loss of tax revenue, the closure of local businesses and increased spending on health, welfare and policing.

(kim)

You sound just like Arthur Scargill, except that he would have taken credit for the pay rise.

Of course the view you are putting forward makes no sense at all, being at variance with the facts as they were at the time.

First, the world market price for coal was substantially *below* what the CEGB were paying the National Coal Board for British coal.

Second, new pits were needed that could produce coal more cheaply than the old, expensive pits that dominated the NCB, as was planned in the case of the new Selby and Vale of Belvoir coalfields.*

Third, the pay rise was in no way a surprise to the NUM, who had requested a substantial rise in that pay round without putting a specific figure on it. According to Scargill, they got less than they would have wanted, so suggesting that the pay rise could have been reversed is completely unrealistic.

In any case, none of the three factors would have made the NCB profitable, either singly or together. To suggest that is a flight of fancy, nothing more.

*The fact that the savings did not materialise is merely a case of 20/20 hindsight; at the time, the geological problems that plagued Selby in particular could not reasonably have be predicted; the site investigation had been as detailed and thorough as any carried out for the NCB during its history.

"Tony Polson" wrote

But to look at that in a slightly different light Tony, should the true cost of closing a pit (or any other industry for that matter) include the additional cost to the treasury of redundancy payments, unemployment benefit and the like?

John.

There is certainly an argument for a statute placing that cost, or a substantial part of it, on the employer. That is certainly the case in Germany, and probably some other European countries too.

However I believe that, in the case of the National Coal Board, it actually faced very high costs of making people redundant. That is because its redundancy terms were far more generous than the stautory minimum. Furthermore, the NCB had generous schemes for voluntary redundancy.

So you could say that the NCB already had a very large incentive not to close of mines, and what that points to is that the deep mined coal industry was grossly uneconomic.

In the 1980s I worked for a time as a manager in the coal industry, but at an opencast coal mine. The detailed costs were, and still are, subject to a non-disclosure agreement, but in general terms the cost of coal at the washery was between a quarter and a third of the cost of UK deep mined coal at the washery.

That included allowing for the cost of some highly specified and very expensive restoration work as the mining progressed and was completed. No hidden costs, no hidden subsidy. The restored land is suitable for almost any use that you can think of and to all intents and purposes looks natural.

Just 70-75% cheaper coal, and my company still made a thumping profit. There are huge reserves of coal in Britain that could be opencast mined at very low cost. The problem is gaining planning permission for what is an extremely large hole in the ground. But the economics of deep mined coal are so far off the scale in the other direction that even a slightly different balance struck between the two could lead to a huge expansion of UK coal production.

Agree with Tony there !

Always amases me that people object to opencast. Should encourage it, say to the company, ok you can have it for x years under controlled conditions to minimise disruption (traffic, dust etc), then it must be restored to park land that is given to the local council. Specify exactly how its to be restored. Can then have a few local jobs created with managed woodland and ameneties. Those pits that have been reclaimed in south derbys are now beautiful sites in the national forest and we have one of the best nature/play areas around at Conkers ! To get on topic - theres rumours of a large hotel going up next to it and the ivanhoe line is to be resurrected for limited local passenger traffic. Unfortunately David Wilson nabbed some land for his housing estates - but incoming people are paying £1000's to live in some of these old pit villages and towns that the locals wouldnt pay a fiver for !

Cheers, Simon

Even 20 years ago, that is more or less exactly how it worked. The particular site I worked on took more than 5 years to complete, but there was progressive restoration so that, as the later areas were being opened up, the earlier areas were approaching full restoration.

The care with which it was done was quite impressive, even in those days, and the science of habitat creation has advanced a long way in the years since. So it is actually possible with today's techniques to end up with a richer and more diverse ecosystem than before coal extraction started.

Compared with opencast, deep mined coal seems to me enviromentally far more damaging. Massive, disfiguing spoil heaps remain above ground effectively for ever because no-one puts the majority of it back. Roads, public utilities, homes and other buildings are disrupted by subsidence (both planned and unplanned) and groundwater supplies are contaminated. It seems to me that, environmentally, opencast could be a much better option.

"simon" wrote

Why does it surprise you? The NIMBY mentality to any sort of industrial development has become profligate.

Locally there has been significant numbers of objections to some fairly modest wind farm developments, not because they fail any sensible cost-benefit analysis, but because of spurious worries about noise and other environmental impact.

If something like wind farms fail to attract support, what chance open-cast mining?

John.

Apart from the NIMBYs, there is another, more serious problem.

Any mention of opencast coal opens an awful lot of old wounds. Soon after, the supporters of the defeated NUM want to start their class war all over again.

Grind that axe, Tony, grind it!!!

ROB

Actually there is another problem where I live there was an open cast proposed on the outskirts of town, on the site of an old pit that had closed long before the miners strike. This was puzzling to us as the coal was sulphur rich and was worth a lot less than normal coal.

When the full business plan was revealed all hell broke lose. It was dig the coal out for 5 years and sell it for next to nothing, then sell the large hole for landfill and let the city 10 miles down the road dump there rubbish in it for the next 20 years contaminating the land for centuries to come.

Dont think its so bad here cos Leics miners were badly treated by the NUM and Scargill's supporters. Also some of the pits were bound to close anyway - slight lack of coal.

Simon

I have a vague recollection that the coal in the Vale of Belvoir coalfield would have been suitable for opencast or drift extraction. The coal seams actually outcrop (come to the surface) in several places. However, opencast working was thought impossible because of the scenic beauty of the area, which is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

I wonder if anyone can confirm that? It was pre-Google.

There were plans for a major mine there but it even that was rejected due to the effect surface structures on local countryside.

However theres a reference to the Duke of Rutland lying down in front of the buldozers to stop opencast at

Simon

Thanks for that, Simon

It was certainly an interesting debate to read, with the lighthearted humour in no way detracting from a very serious subject.

I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks again.

Tony