Welsh Journals

NATIONAL ENERGY POLICIES AND WELSH MINING COMMUNITIES. GRAHAM HUMPHRYS AND PETER MOUNFIELD Humphrys, G. and Mounfield, P. 1985: National Energy Policies and Welsh Mining Communites. Cambria, Vol. 12(2), pp. 61 to pp. 88. Part II of Davies, W.K.D. (ed) Human Geography from Wales: Proceedings of the E.G. Bowen Memorial Conference. ISSN 0306-9796. Explanations for the decline of mining in South Wales are related to changing U.K. energy sources, the loss of traditional markets and its uncompetitive situation vis a vis the new 'core area' of British mining in East Midlands and Yorkshire. Much of the prospects for the future depend upon the amount of coal used in electricity generation. The continued use of sectoral decision making in the energy industries is likely to have a detrimental effect upon the South Wales coal industry. Arguments for an integrated energy policy with appropriate regional accounting suggest the possibility of a radically different future. Graham Humphrys, Department of Geography, University College of Swansea, Swansea, Wales, U.K. SA2 8PP. Peter Mounfield, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester, England. LEI 7RH. The economic development of many parts of South Wales has been intimately linked with the coal industry. Even in 1960 coal mining still employed just under 100,000 men in nearly 100 collieries. In the subsequent twenty-five years massive and continual contraction took place, such that only 28,860 men were recorded by the 1981 Census of Employment as being employed in the industry, whilst estimates for the beginning of 1986 suggest that National Coal Board employment had fallen to no more than 14,000 men with only 17 collieries surviving. To understand these changes involves a review of the history of the energy industries and policies in Britain as a whole. Of more immediate importance are the fears for the future, for even with those drastic contractions the prospects for coal mining in South Wales in 1985 looked bleak. The year 1985, however, is likely to be a landmark for the future of the coal industry and its geographical patterns, in South Wales as well as the rest of Britain. Three very different events in 1985 can be proposed as both directly affecting and symbolising the problems of the future. One of the events was the end, in March 1985, of a year-long strike by the National Union of Mineworkers (N.U.M.). Despite the defiant march back to work of many miners, with banners flying, the strike had effectively collapsed, leaving the National Coal Board (N.C.B.) with much greater authority (rather than new formal power), to close pits