1980s Silverwood Colliery Promotional Film

[michaeljohnwilcox]

My Dad worked at Silverwood for years on the coal cutting machines until he retired when the pit shut down. Funny really that I live on the new Woodlaithes estate nearby. The area looks completely different now. Love these types of videos. Ta

[reconxiredbull]

Mi dad worked there

[EyeIndependentFilms]

Being a dirty job is never an excuse to close an entire industry. Nor is it being dangerous for that matter.

As for costing us millions in losses - Silverwood was the most profitable and productive colliery in Europe. It broke it's own production records two years on the trot before it was closed in 1994.

In fact the government had ploughed millions of pounds worth of expenditure into developing a new coalface which it then stopped with no warning before it announced the closure of the pit.

[Salladsdressing]

@EyeIndependentFilms

The British governments subsidies of the coal industry had risen to an alarming $1.3 billion a year by 1982. It did this because if the plants and pits all over Britain was on the whole...let me repeat that because this doesn't usually sink in... ON THE WHOLE inefficient and outdated.

So, the plants that weren't inefficient made it just fine without the governments money and nowdays you are buying energy from other countries at a much cheaper price for your country.

[mistersmith6000]

@Salladsdressing Yes cheaper to get it elsewhere. Now we have huge open-cut mines in countries where the environment is cheap - we can buy half of the forests in West Papua for a pittance and dig it up piecemeal, paying off politicians left and right and when the inevitable media stories of destruction arrive 15 years later, like the oil fields in Nigerian delta have done recently, we, as in all of us with just a penny in a trust fund, invested on our behalf, have moved on. Up and onwards!

[adamramoth]

even if they open em up again, it'll take a generation to set up, just isnt practical any more. The pits cost us all millions in losses and people are still suffering from the effects back in the 80's. A dirty dangerous job. As we found out at Lofthouse many years ago.

[scottaner500]

it needs to come back to the uk

[55pepperpot]

load of rubbish, look at it now. filled in and leveled.what future now?

[jacklav1]

Quality video.