STILL SHAFTED
Wounds inflicted by Tory closures remain open in 2020
BY CHRIS McCALL
SCOTLAND’S former mining communities are still struggling decades after pit closures because of a shortage of local jobs and learning opportunities, a report has found.
Almost 20 years after the last Scots deep mine was shut, coalfield towns and villages remain among the most disadvantaged in the country.
Analysis by the Coalfields Regeneration Trust found that many old mining communities had lowerthan-average life expectancy and higher-than-average numbers of 16 to 19-year-olds not in education or work.
The report found that while some mining towns and villages had turned the corner and prospered, there was still “significant and concentrated deprivation” in some parts of Fife, South Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire,
North Lanarkshire and Clackmannanshire.
Nicky Wilson, chair of the CRT trustees in Scotland, said: “Too many former mining areas are still among Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities, and many people are lagging behind when it comes to education.
“Rates of unemployment and child poverty are too high, and health and wellbeing still need to be improved. The Covid-19 pandemic has also taken its toll. It is having a big impact on people’s health, wellbeing and finances.
“Issues caused by the pandemic have hit many former mining areas particularly hard, as such communities are often already suffering from deprivation and poor health.
“Our work remains vital for the continuing rejuvenation of former mining areas. We’re committed to ensuring our communities do not remain disadvantaged by their legacy.”
Dr Ewan Gibbs, an expert on industrial heritage at Glasgow University, told the Record: “The coalfields are still suffering from the effects of the closures of the 1980s and 1990s.
“Collieries began closing a long time before that, but earlier closures which took place between the 1940s and 1970s were accompanied by investment in jobs in manufacturing.
“This demonstrates that poverty, and education and health inequalities, are not an inevitability. They are the result of political choices made under successive governments.”