July 20, 2010
GOVERNMENT MUST CONTINUE COALFIELD REGENERATION – MP
Regeneration programmes in former coalfields like those in South Yorkshire must continue, local MP John Healey argued at a debate he secured in the House of Commons last night.
The adjournment debate was on the contribution of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and comes as the government reviews the coalfields regeneration programme begun by the Labour government in 1999.
Former miner and Barnsley West and Penistone MP Mick Clapham is leading the review which is expected to report back next month.
Mr Healey highlighted the work of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust (CRT), which has put £190m into groups and activities across the country including nearly £10m in South Yorkshire in the last two years alone.
He feared the programme could fall victim to Tory cuts and urged the government to continue Labour’s investment in coalfields.
In response Andrew Stunnell, Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government, said the government recognised the need to give ongoing support to coalfields.
Mr Healey described the “devastation and deliberate destruction” of the coal industry in the 1980s and 1990s which left coalfield communities “reeling” many years later.
He said: “In one ward in my constituency, two thirds of men over 16 were employed in coal mining.
“There was unparalleled and unique reliance on a single industry.”
The CRT supports programmes which help people get back into work and provide skills, health care, child care and other assistance.
Mr Healey said good progress had been made in regenerating coalfield areas but there was still work to do because “unique challenges” remained.
He said: “The CRT is needed now as much as it was in 1999. It is needed in the coalfield areas that are still struggling and those that were hit harder in recession and will find it harder to grow again in recovery.
“The trust reaches people and parts of our communities that public agencies simply cannot reach.
“It is special because it understands the unique culture and character of the coalfields, because it is trusted by the communities and because it reaches back with families and through generations, sharing their history, but also helping them to shape their future.”
Mr Healey called on the government to back the trust.
“If they do so they will show that, despite our deep doubts, they are a Tory-led government unlike the Tory government of the 1980s and 1990s, and that they will not turn their back on the coalfields, as the previous Tory government did,” he said.
Mr Healey paid tribute to the trust chief executive Janet Bibby and trustees led by chair Peter McNestry.
He spoke of local projects the trust has supported:
• Cortonwood Miners Welfare club: a grant enabled a well-used building to become a one-stop shop for services and future hub of the community.
• Cortonwood Comeback Centre: a group of women originally formed as part of Women Against Pit Closures during the strike who took over the Methodist church and ran a support group.
• South Yorkshire Credit Union, based in Goldthorpe, is part of a programme of debt support across coalfields that helps more than 5,000 people and has managed nearly £38m of debt.
• Setting up a boat house on Manvers lake: after the pit was closed in 1988, the 1,100-acre site became the largest derelict areas in Western Europe but has now been overtaken by new jobs, businesses and housing, including the CRT’s headquarters.
Responding, Andrew Stunnell, Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government, said he could not make any promises ahead of the government’s spending review in October but said they had “no plans to dismantle the [coalfields regeneration] programme.”
He told the Commons: “I acknowledge many of [Mr Healey’s] points. I have heard his messages.
“The government remain supportive of action to meet the continuing need for land-based remediation, remain strongly supportive of community-led regeneration projects and are committed to helping communities to come together to tackle local problems and support local enterprises, especially in vulnerable areas such as the former coalfields. Those three strands were in the initial programme, and we intend to make progress with all of them.
“The spending review will be difficult, but we recognise the important work of the CRT in helping to improve coalfield communities, and we are absolutely determined to ensure that every penny spent gives full value for money not just to the taxpayer, but to the communities that it is designed to help.”
The coalfield regeneration programme runs in all 107 of the country’s coalfield areas and was set up in 1999 in response to the Labour government’s Coalfields Task Force, which noted coalfield areas had “a unique combination of concentrated joblessness, physical isolation, poor infrastructure and severe health problems.”
CRT fact file
• 119 new community facilities created
• 2,000 community facilities refurbished and improved
• 17,000 people helped to find work
• 115,000 people helped to get skills and training
• 10,000 new volunteers
• 250,000 young people involved in activities CRT supported
Notes to editors
Read the debate in full here.
Breakdown for 2008-10 grants for four local authority areas as follows:
Rotherham £2m
Doncaster £3.7m
Barnsley £3.8m
Sheffield £220,000