REGENERATION - The Tower Story
Introduction
Tower Colliery was the last operational deep coal mine in the South Wales Valleys, located near the town of Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley. It was on the Northern edge of the South Wales coalfield. The coal was close to the surface and drift mining was practised between 1805 and 1941. Later on a 160 metre shaft was sunk and in 1951 a branch railway line was extended from Aberdare to the colliery to enable mined coal and freight to be transported.
The mine was in constant use up to 1984/5 when the Conservative government authorised the closure of the majority of the deep mines in the UK, prompting the National Miners strike. The Tower mine was still economically viable, so Tower continued to operate and in 1986 combined operations with Mardy colliery. Coal from both pits was then raised at Tower. Mardy closed in 1990 and Tower was scheduled to close in 1994. The miners led by Tyrone O'Sullivan and supported by the Cynon Valley Labour MP Ann Clwyd, protested against the closure, staging an underground sit-in. Despite these protests, British Coal closed Tower Colliery on 22nd April 1994.
This was not the end of the story as 239 miners formed a plan to buy back Tower from British Coal, using their redundancy money and then re-open the mine. The initial payment was £2,000 each to establish a fighting fund to start their bid. This put them on a short-list, but a further £6,000 was required from each miner for the final buyout. This money was collected by Glyn Roberts, the Chairman of the Tower Lodge of the National Union of Mineworkers. As the money was collected on a Saturday night at the local miners hall and Glyn could not bank it at the weekend, he had to store £200,000 in cash and more than £1,200,000 in cheques under his bed over the weekend.
Their offer was finally accepted and the 239 miners formally bought the newly named "Goitre Tower Anthracite" mine in January 1995. On the 2nd January 1995 Ann Clwyd cut the ribbon to officially re-open the colliery. Work started the next day in the new mine owned by all the 239 miners. The colliery continued to operate until the coal was mined out in January 2008 and it was finally closed on 19th January 2008.
Tower Surface Mine
Although deep coal mining was not viable at Tower after January 2008, there was still an estimated six million tons of anthracite near the surface. The Tower directors proposed extraction by open cast mining on the 253 hectare site next to the Tower railway line.
The scheme was a joint venture between Tower Colliery Ltd. and Hargreaves Services PLC to extract coal for a period of seven years from 2012. The company expected to remove a million tons of coal each year to provide fuel for Aberthaw Power Station. The coal price at that time was £50 per ton and the company turnover at that price would then be double that of the Tower deep mine. Planned Coal reserves were due to last at least six years, but in 2016 concern over the high nitrogen oxide emissions at the power station brought this closure date forward to March 2017.
Tower Colliery was the last operational deep coal mine in the South Wales Valleys, located near the town of Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley. It was on the Northern edge of the South Wales coalfield. The coal was close to the surface and drift mining was practised between 1805 and 1941. Later on a 160 metre shaft was sunk and in 1951 a branch railway line was extended from Aberdare to the colliery to enable mined coal and freight to be transported.
The mine was in constant use up to 1984/5 when the Conservative government authorised the closure of the majority of the deep mines in the UK, prompting the National Miners strike. The Tower mine was still economically viable, so Tower continued to operate and in 1986 combined operations with Mardy colliery. Coal from both pits was then raised at Tower. Mardy closed in 1990 and Tower was scheduled to close in 1994. The miners led by Tyrone O'Sullivan and supported by the Cynon Valley Labour MP Ann Clwyd, protested against the closure, staging an underground sit-in. Despite these protests, British Coal closed Tower Colliery on 22nd April 1994.
This was not the end of the story as 239 miners formed a plan to buy back Tower from British Coal, using their redundancy money and then re-open the mine. The initial payment was £2,000 each to establish a fighting fund to start their bid. This put them on a short-list, but a further £6,000 was required from each miner for the final buyout. This money was collected by Glyn Roberts, the Chairman of the Tower Lodge of the National Union of Mineworkers. As the money was collected on a Saturday night at the local miners hall and Glyn could not bank it at the weekend, he had to store £200,000 in cash and more than £1,200,000 in cheques under his bed over the weekend.
Their offer was finally accepted and the 239 miners formally bought the newly named "Goitre Tower Anthracite" mine in January 1995. On the 2nd January 1995 Ann Clwyd cut the ribbon to officially re-open the colliery. Work started the next day in the new mine owned by all the 239 miners. The colliery continued to operate until the coal was mined out in January 2008 and it was finally closed on 19th January 2008.
Tower Surface Mine
Although deep coal mining was not viable at Tower after January 2008, there was still an estimated six million tons of anthracite near the surface. The Tower directors proposed extraction by open cast mining on the 253 hectare site next to the Tower railway line.
The scheme was a joint venture between Tower Colliery Ltd. and Hargreaves Services PLC to extract coal for a period of seven years from 2012. The company expected to remove a million tons of coal each year to provide fuel for Aberthaw Power Station. The coal price at that time was £50 per ton and the company turnover at that price would then be double that of the Tower deep mine. Planned Coal reserves were due to last at least six years, but in 2016 concern over the high nitrogen oxide emissions at the power station brought this closure date forward to March 2017.
Since moving to South Wales ten years ago, I have been interested in the mining heritage of the South Wales Valleys. My photographic journey started back in 1968 and since then Documentary and Street Photography have been my principle genres. I recently completed a project titled "Coal, The Last Train from Tower to Aberthaw. This documented the last year of the Tower Colliery and Hargreaves surface mine supplying coal for Aberthaw Power Station. The final week of production started in February 2017 and the photo-book showed coal extraction, loading coal, the power station operation and the final rail journeys.
Tower are now deep into the regeneration phase, restoring the landscape for future development by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council. This project follows on to document this phase of the scheme. My initial intention was to produce images showing some of the work in progress on the site with portraits of key people associated with the project. I anticipated producing at least six portraits of people involved with the project, but the recent Covid 19 virus prevented me from completing all the portraits.
This body of work is part of an on-going series representing how we deal with the industrial landscapes in South Wales and the wider world. I am trying to communicate how people feel about their mining heritage and the "Land of their Fathers". Most people outside of the Tower work force I have spoken to are very proud of the work done by the miners, also of the landscape around them.
The Regeneration Phase
After the coal extraction from the surface mine, the plan was to restore the land for future development by the Rhondda Cynon Taf Council. The original submission to the council in 2012 proposed that the site be restored to it's pre-mining profile to blend with the hillside and existing landscape. The new planning application of 2017 suggests producing a flatter plateau for future development of dwellings and an industrial area. Approval for the groundwork was granted by the council on 8th March 2018. The regeneration phase is a long-term project that will extend for many years past the final restoration work carried out by Tower.
The council has already granted planning permission to Zip World Ltd. for plans for three zip wire courses at the Tower deep mine site. The plans include access roads, parking and pedestrian routes. Construction and groundwork started early in 2020. There is also a longer term outline plan for a planetarium to be built on the site. If built, this would be one of the world's largest planetariums.
Tower are now deep into the regeneration phase, restoring the landscape for future development by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council. This project follows on to document this phase of the scheme. My initial intention was to produce images showing some of the work in progress on the site with portraits of key people associated with the project. I anticipated producing at least six portraits of people involved with the project, but the recent Covid 19 virus prevented me from completing all the portraits.
This body of work is part of an on-going series representing how we deal with the industrial landscapes in South Wales and the wider world. I am trying to communicate how people feel about their mining heritage and the "Land of their Fathers". Most people outside of the Tower work force I have spoken to are very proud of the work done by the miners, also of the landscape around them.
The Regeneration Phase
After the coal extraction from the surface mine, the plan was to restore the land for future development by the Rhondda Cynon Taf Council. The original submission to the council in 2012 proposed that the site be restored to it's pre-mining profile to blend with the hillside and existing landscape. The new planning application of 2017 suggests producing a flatter plateau for future development of dwellings and an industrial area. Approval for the groundwork was granted by the council on 8th March 2018. The regeneration phase is a long-term project that will extend for many years past the final restoration work carried out by Tower.
The council has already granted planning permission to Zip World Ltd. for plans for three zip wire courses at the Tower deep mine site. The plans include access roads, parking and pedestrian routes. Construction and groundwork started early in 2020. There is also a longer term outline plan for a planetarium to be built on the site. If built, this would be one of the world's largest planetariums.
Tony Shott has been my main point of contact since I started this project. I called into the site on October 15th 2019, and after showing him my previous work, I asked him for permission to do some shoots at the site. Tony said it was OK straight away and then gave me a tour around the site. He has always been helpful, but never told me about his own major part of the Tower process. I have discovered from various sources that he started at Tower as an apprentice surveyor in 1969 and that he had also worked at the Penalta colliery. He had a break to study geology at university and at the time of the miners buyout in 1995 he was the chief surveyor at Tower and also one of the six elected directors.
Tony is currently the managing director at Tower, responsible for the overall running of the regeneration work.
Tony is currently the managing director at Tower, responsible for the overall running of the regeneration work.