Two pits will be closed

Press, 21 October 1986, Page 13

Two pits will be closed

NZPA-Reuter London British Coal will close two loss-making South Wales pits employing 1330 men, almost 20 months after the end of a bitter year-long strike in the industry. A spokesman for British Coal said the pits — at Cwn near Pontypridd and Nantgarw near Cardiff — would close because of serious geological problems and combined losses of £lO million ($28.2 million) in the last six months.

“The men will be given the offer of transferring to other mines or taking voluntary redundancy,” the spokesman said. “The mines will be closed within the next six months.”

South Wales, one of the heartlands of Britain’s coal industry, has been hit hard since the abortive strike over pit closing which ended in March last year and closed one of the most controversial chapters in British industrial history. Eleven South Wales pits have been either shut or merged since the dispute, with the loss of about 7000 jobs. But the industry achieved its best performance for years in 1985-86 with a loss of only £5O million ($l4l million). This compared with a £875 million ($2.47 billion) deficit in 1983-84. News of the closing coincided with the release of figures showing that Britain’s miners had set a productivity record for the third successive week.