10 years on from colliery closure
THE chairman of Tower Colliery, the last deep coal mine in Wales which closed 10 years ago this week, hopes hundreds of homes and a new cultural centre will be built on the site within years.
Tyrone O’Sullivan, who has now been a part of Tower’s mining and then regeneration programme for 50 years, is “very optimistic” about the “muchneeded” development coming to fruition.
Mr O’Sullivan was speaking 10 years after the colliery, near Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley, closed its gates for the last time as a deep pit mine.
Now grandfather-offive Mr O’Sullivan, whose association with Tower dates from 1967, said: “We need money north of the M4. It would have a major effect on land owned by miners. I have no doubt in my mind that the Tower story is not over. This could be the second part of it.
“Why shouldn’t the pit become a facility for the community? A museum that no-one else in the world can boast? This could be a special story here in the Valleys.
“Hirwaun is 35 minutes tional march away from the mine that they had fought so hard to save.
Wales’ last remaining deep pit made headlines in 1995 when workers defied the Conservative Government and used their redundancy money to buy the pit, making it the only mine in Britain to be owned by its workers.
British Coal had decided to close the mine because it believed it was too expensive to run. When the miners protested, they were told to give up and find other jobs. But they ignored both suggestions and, having negotiated a loan from a national bank, instead paid £8,000 each to buy the mine.
The closure came almost 14 years after they had achieved what seemed impossible.
Ten years on from 2008, and Mr O’Sullivan, 72, has spoken of the “incredible” memories of his time at the deep pit.
He explained: “We changed what the mining industry was, and we made an incredible difference to the Cynon Valley.
“All our workers were in good jobs.
“If they were injured or their wife was pregnant, they were still paid.
“Everyone thought coal was no good. They just didn’t want to buy it, but we made millions’ worth of profit.
“People from other pits, when they closed, wanted to come and work for us. I had a load of brilliant workers who really wanted to be there. They didn’t want a redundancy. We made enough money to keep everybody in work, as well as distribute profits among the community. Hirwaun, Mountain Ash, Penrhiwceiber, Aberdare, Abercynon, Penywaun – all were better off because of us.
“We were the only pit in Britain who worked the last ounce of mining we could – who wouldn’t be proud of that?
“I am so proud to look back on it. We as a group of miners had done everything that other people thought couldn’t be done.
“I have incredible memories of when it was a deep pit. And even though my father was killed during that time, I saw the positive – it taught me how to deal with widows.
“Even in death, Tower did not become a sad place to me.”
But even after what seemed to many like the end of Tower in 2008, it lived on.
That was because officials at the colliery found there were around six million tonnes of coal close to the surface, and so began a huge operation to begin opencast mining at the 400-acre site.
Mr O’Sullivan said they had inquiries from six companies from across Wales, all vying for the contract, and eventually they went into partnership with Hargreaves Services.
Opencast operations began in 2012. The opencast mining was done with a view to create some sort of housing, leisure, manufacturing and retail park after the coal had been extracted, which would take around seven years.
In terms of the other men who had been employed at the deep pit, many were nearing retirement age, while others took roles at collieries or deployed their skills in the tunnelling industry.
But in March 2017, having mined 800,000 to one million tonnes of coal a year, Aberthaw Power Station in Barry announced it would no longer use Welsh or British produce due to its carbon content.
With its main buyer no longer in the market for its coal, Tower had to stop mining, around two years before it had planned to.
That took it to where it is today, with hopes for a visitor attraction on site telling its famous story.
Mr O’Sullivan added: “I have spent years trying to make sure my people and my family have survived on mining coal.
“Something will happen here – don’t you worry. We will get things running in the
Valleys.”