Public spending cuts 'have hit ex-mining areas harder'

Long-term effect of pit closures researched

- Sentinel Reporter

STOKE-ON-TRENT was one of four areas of the UK that researchers focused on as part of a review into the long-term impact of the loss of the coal industry in the UK.

Experts from the University of Staffordshire and the universities of Cambridge and Leeds also looked at how the demise of mining had impacted Fife and South Lanarkshire in Scotland, Neath/Port Talbot and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, and Barnsley in Yorkshire.

The large-scale pit closures by Margaret Thatcher's government from 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.

Based on 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.