Mining 2000 Conclusions

The miners have never been great friends of Government of any description and visa versa. Future potential and prospects will come down in the end not to actual reserves but whether the government of the day can safely put the miners to bed once and for all and end mining per sae in Britain. To that end a measured run down to extinction would seem to lie before us, without some groundswell of opposition changes their view. In the eleventh hour of the final day, that would seem unlikely, and we are indeed seeing the Last days Of Coal.

	Mining 2000 Conclusions Mines Prospects Map Click to see full image ( 52K ) We do not know the terms of reference given to The Mining Consultants advising the DTI as to Potential New Prospects. Clearly from our own experience these 'prospects' are not the sum total of all remaining reserves in Britain. We have mentioned already the massive reserves which run between Snaith and Pollerton / Thorne Hatfield and right to the coast and probably far off beyond that too. Only the Snaith reserve is sited in the plan. We are reliably informed of massive reserves between the former Durham coalfield and York, these are not illustrated. Neither can it just be the case that the consultants have simply sited reserves accessible from current working collieries. The coalfields at Oxfordshire and North and South Dee and Canobie would seem to cancel speculation along those lines. Perhaps such speculation is matter less, pits and whole coalfields were never closed by and large for exhaustion but because of economic and social policies favoured by whichever Government was in office at the time.
	The miners have never been great friends of Government of any description and visa versa. Future potential and prospects will come down in the end not to actual reserves but whether the government of the day can safely put the miners to bed once and for all and end mining per sae in Britain. To that end a measured run down to extinction would seem to lie before us, without some groundswell of opposition changes their view. In the eleventh hour of the final day, that would seem unlikely, and we are indeed seeing the Last days Of Coal.
	The huge stockpile of coal at Hull's Queen Elizabeth Dock.
	However, the biggest source of commercial coal in Yorkshire is found in a huge stockpile at the Queen Elizabeth Dock in Hull. It is the reason why the other sources of coal have been abandoned in Yorkshire and elsewhere, in favour of this massive dump of highly subsidised imported coal.

	Ayle - Betws - Blenkinsopp - Clipstone - Daw Mill - Ellington - Gleision - Harworth - Hatfield Main - Hay Royds Hill Top - Kellingley - Longannet - Monument - Maltby -Phoenix and Hopewell - Prince of Wales - Rossington The Free Miners - The Selby Complex - Thoresby -Thorne - Tower - Welbeck - The Nottingham Coalfield Mining 2000 Conclusions