The Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield: The Focus of the Coal Board's Investment Strategy

Abstract

The challenge to National Coal Board (NCB) expansion plans mounted at the Belvoir public inquiry (1979-80) has tended to obscure the full extent of changes already under way in the largest coalfield in the United Kingdom. Over a long period the Yorkshire-Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire (YND) field has been increasing its relative share of UK coal production, and has experienced an eastward trend in mine location. The current investment strategy for the YND field includes the sinking of new mines on the eastern boundary and massive reconstruction schemes at existing collieries. Opposition to new greenfield mine development is encouraging the NCB to make maximum use of existing collieries to extend the mining frontier. Current NCB capital expenditure is heavily concentrated in this region. The detailed strategy of the NCB is described, including new mine prospects, reconstruction, and colliery closures. 1980 WAS A very significant year for the United Kingdom's coal industry. The National Coal Board's annual report for 1979-80 showed that for the first time since 1962 (if we ignore the fluctuation of the strike-torn 1972-74 period), annual overall output rose above that for the preceding year. Moreover productivity improved in the wake of the incentive schemes introduced in 1978, after nearly a decade of stagnation. Any euphoria, however, proved short-lived as the worsening economic recession depressed coal demand, and presented the NCB with severe marketing and stocking problems in the short term. But the year was significant in other ways. The Coal Industry Act radically altered the system of financing. Government financial aid over the next three years was to be substantially reduced and the NCB expected to break even by 1983-84 with the aid only of social costs grants. (It will, however, be to the NCB's advantage that, under this Act, it will be able to defer interest payments on some capital projects until these start to show a return.) The growing problem of competition from cheap imported coal (from the USA and Australia especially) broke into open conflict in South Wales with the 'blacking' of the m.v. Maria Lemos by Newport dockers. It was the combined effect of the new financial constrictions and plummeting demand that precipitated the crisis of February 1981 when the announcement of an accelerated colliery closure programme by the NCB (subsequently aborted), brought the country to the brink of a national strike. Earlier in 1980 attention had focused upon Stoke Rochford, near Grantham, where the public inquiry into the NCB's plans for its North-east Leicestershire (Belvoir) prospect was concluded; here for the first time a serious challenge was mounted to the Board's intentions of opening a series of new mines on greenfield sites under the 1974 Plan for Coal (National Coal Board, 1974). Although the public inquiry ended in April 1980, no official announcement of the Secretary of State for the Environment's decision had been made by October 1981. It appeared that the issue may have become a pawn in the 1981 round of wage-bargaining in the coal industry. However, a report circulated at the July 1981 conference of the National Union of Mineworkers suggested that the Secretary of State was recommending rejection of the NCB's proposals?despite the advice of the Inspector who had headed the public inquiry. Although the Minister denied that such a decision had been made, in an atmosphere of severe public expenditure restraint the omens are not propitious from the coal industry's standpoint. Irrespective of the wisdom of the final decision, the case is a graphic illustration of the length of 'planning lead time' which has to be faced when major greenfield projects are