Austerity in former coalfield towns
A new report calls for an end to austerity, and sustainable long-term economic and social policies for coalfield areas
The report focuses on a number former coal mining communities across the UK (Image: Getty)
The Labour Government’s current welfare cuts follow years of austerity by the previous Conservative Governments and will only serve to exacerbate inequalities and destitution.
Researchers from University of Staffordshire, University of Cambridge and University of Leeds have examined the long-term impact of the loss of the coal industry in former coal-producing areas of the UK.
The report focuses on a number of coalfield areas; Fife and South Lanarkshire (Scotland) Barnsley and Stoke on Trent (England) and Neath/Port Talbot and Merthyr Tydfil (Wales).
Based in some of the most deprived regions of the UK, the researchers claim that successive Governments have failed these communities and are calling for a new type of sustained and long-term industrial policy.
The large-scale pit closures by the Thatcher Government in 1984 onwards, along with the ‘attack on trade unions and the welfare state’, leave a 40-year legacy of extensive inequality and deprivation, according to the report.
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