Killingley closes. The end of an era.

[Anna B]

The last deep mine in the country has finally closed with the loss of 450 jobs, and repercussions for the entire community around Killingley Colliery. 300 million tons of coal remains underground.

 

I understand that coal can be bought cheaper abroad, but is having to rely on importing all our coal from other countries, actually a dangerous false economy? This coal is cheap because it is subsidised by their governments and I don't know if transportation costs have been taken into account, and whether the emissions from that transport have been added to our carbon figures.

 

Personally i think we should have kept at least one deep mine going, just in case. What do you think?

[foxy lady]

I always thought it was Kellingley Colliery. But I did think it odd that in a region with such a high immigrant population every single miner looked to be white and clearly of British stock.

Edited December 18, 2015 by foxy lady

[Gamston]

A very sad day , but it is a global economy . One last heavily subsidised deep coal mine will be of little help if the price of foreign coal suddenly rockets . Asda are selling 10 kilo bags of coal for £3 .

 

I think it is ludicrous perfectly good coal power stations are closing when there is so much cheap foreign coal on the market . I have no problem if new coal power stations are not built , but it's a waste of resources to close perfectly good ones . Yes I am aware of carbon figures and emissions legislation forced on the UK .

[Mister M]

I always thought it was Kellingley Colliery. But I did think it odd that in a region with such a high immigrant population every single miner looked to be white and clearly of British stock.

 

Why should it matter what nationality they were? 450 have lost their jobs, just days away before Christmas.

[Eric Arthur]

The last deep mine in the country has finally closed with the loss of 450 jobs, and repercussions for the entire community around Killingley Colliery. 300 million tons of coal remains underground.

 

I understand that coal can be bought cheaper abroad, but is having to rely on importing all our coal from other countries, actually a dangerous false economy? This coal is cheap because it is subsidised by their governments and I don't know if transportation costs have been taken into account, and whether the emissions from that transport have been added to our carbon figures.

 

Personally i think we should have kept at least one deep mine going, just in case. What do you think?

 

You really think that we should be sending people to work underground in 2015? Thank god we've moved on from the misery of working down pits.

[mafya]

I always thought it was Kellingley Colliery. But I did think it odd that in a region with such a high immigrant population every single miner looked to be white and clearly of British stock.

 

Maybe they didn't like employing immigrants?

At least they can't complain that the immigrants took their jobs can they?

[tinfoilhat]

The last deep mine in the country has finally closed with the loss of 450 jobs, and repercussions for the entire community around Killingley Colliery. 300 million tons of coal remains underground.

 

I understand that coal can be bought cheaper abroad, but is having to rely on importing all our coal from other countries, actually a dangerous false economy? This coal is cheap because it is subsidised by their governments and I don't know if transportation costs have been taken into account, and whether the emissions from that transport have been added to our carbon figures.

 

Personally i think we should have kept at least one deep mine going, just in case. What do you think?

 

We are looking to phase out coal completely over the next few years aren't we? We're down to 9 power stations churning out 30% of our leccy and both numbers are going to drop in the next few years.

 

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/coal-generation.html

 

If for whatever reason we need a load of coal - we've got it. But really the planet needs to be using other ways of generating the rest of our electricity.

 

Then we need to start on ditching our reliance on oil.

[Quik]

While we continue to use coal we should continue to mine it. Foreign coal should be banned.

[lottiecass]

Maybe they didn't like employing immigrants?

At least they can't complain that the immigrants took their jobs can they?

 

A lot of miners come from immigrant stock,as did a lot of steelworkers,mainly eastern European.

[Anna B]

There was this professor guy from Sheffield University on 6.0 clock news talking about what happened after Grimsdyke pit closed 25 years ago.

 

He was saying what a success it was that the miners had moved on and got new jobs, but that it took time for communities to recover and new industry to take over. He then dropped it out quite casually that 49% of the unemployed miners from Grimsdyke had got new jobs. After 25 years! Does that mean that 51% have not worked since?

 

Not what I'd call a big success...