OHURA COAL MINES CLOSING EARLY

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 3

OHURA COAL MINES CLOSING EARLY

(New Zealand Press Association) NEW PLYMOUTH, March 26. The Ohura coal mines will close on April 30. This was announced when the Government inter-departmental committee met the Ohura Development Committee at Ohura on Thursday.

Twenty - four miners have already left the district, leading to an earlier closing than intended. The original decision was that they would close not later than the end of September. “If the men had stayed on,

the mines would have been kept open for as long as possible," a Government committee spokesman said in Wellington today, “but with almost half the men gone there is no option but to close the mines.”

He said there had also been some movement in the ground around the mountainside, and with the equipment getting out of line the maintenance upkeep would be considerable. “But the shortage c' staff has been the deciding factor.”

The town has taken the decision well. The secretary of the Ohura Development Committee (Mr J. L. Woodhouse) said the people were “not down in the dumps” over the early closing. They had expected it, and everybody was optimistic about Ohura’s future.

“We don’t rely only on the mines. There is farming development, the railways and the sawmill, and the Ministry of Works and the county both have offices in the town. Business is flourishing."

Mr Woodhouse said that about 12 men would be kept on at the mines to help with clearance work after April 30.