Britain’s last remaining deep coal mine closed on Friday, with miners walking out after their final shift in a historic milestone for what was once one of the country’s most important industries.
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Defiant to the end, miners at Kellingley Colliery in northern England sang a hit by Tom Jones the son of a coal miner as they headed underground for their final shift.
The 26-year-old told Sky News that he had tried for years to get a job at Kellingley and was “ecstatic” when he finally achieved his goal.
But now cheap coal imports and shale gas development mean there is little demand for coal from this site.
Ms Cooper also believes the Government and UK Coal should have done more to assist the workforce at Kellingley prepare for new careers outside mining.
Last month it announced plans to close its coal-fired power plants by 2025, becoming the first major economy to put a date on shutting coal plants to curb carbon emissions.
Many said they were heading straight to the pub to celebrate their last day.
Miners at Kellingley are expected to join a march planned to take place on Saturday at nearby Knottingley, West Yorkshire, to mark the closure.
“This is what makes us very special, the mining community”, said Nigel Kemp, who worked at the mine for more than 30 years.
UK Coal will oversee the run-down of the pit before the site is redeveloped.
“We played hard and worked hard”.
“There was a market for our coal, coal will still be burned at Drax power station for the next 10 years or more and that’s what’s angering a lot of these men”. Brian Ricketts, the secretary general of the European coal lobby group Eurocoal, said his industry had been unfairly vilified like modern-day slave traders by politicians at last week’s climate change talks in Paris. The coal they cut through generations powered the industrial revolution, stoked the trains, lit the furnaces, and kept the home fires burning. Everyone at Kellingley should be congratulated as they have met the managed closure plan safely.
It said the United Kingdom owed “a debt of enormous gratitude to those who have done so much to help power this country over many decades”.
Kellingley Colliery, in North Yorkshire, will cease production just before 1pm today, after 50 years.
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The company said the closures follow a long period of hard trading conditions, largely due to low worldwide coal prices. The UK coal industry will now consist of a handful of opencast mines that will produce about 8 million tons of the fuel a year.
