Memorandum by North Warwickshire Borough
Council (COA 22)
I am writing concerning the above, with particular
reference to the review of the reclamation and regeneration of
sites.
The economy of North Warwickshire was strongly
driven by the coal mining industry until the late 1980's when
the last but one pit closed. Now only Daw Mill colliery remains—the
only working coal mine in the region.
There has been an increasing push by the Regional
Development Agency to move away from coal mining issues in favour
of embracing the future. While we are making every effort to move
forward, the fact remains that coal mining is still of relevance
to our local and national economy and the legacy of the closed
pits is being passed from one generation to the next, which reflects
in the low aspirational and low skills base of our local economy.
With regard to the regeneration of sites we
would report that while we welcome the remit and role of English
Partnerships, progress has been slow with one of our key sites
(Pooley Colliery) making the reserve list and another (Baddesley)
which does not seem to be included. It has been almost impossible
to make any sort of contact with whom to open a dialogue and this
problem is also being mirrored in our invitations to Advantage
West Midlands, our Regional Development Agency. In fact AWM'S
key Brownfield representative admitted at a recent CERTA conference
on Brownfield land that she knew little about our Borough. We
have written twice to invite them to open a dialogue with us with,
to date, no response.
The main problem that we are experiencing is
that our sites seem to be too small to attract any real interest
although their redevelopment would make a big difference in the
regeneration of our borough. We did investigate the possibility
of the Network Space programme but our sites appeared to lack
the commercial viability needed to maintain them. This is a major
problem in the borough as we have a proven need to diversify the
local economy and provide smaller, modern start up and incubator
units. At present there seems to be no real way of achieving this.
Coalfield issues are being increasingly recognised
in some regeneration sectors, such as the targeting of coalfields
for Heritage Lottery funding to help overcome the fact that lack
of capacity has hampered access to funds in previous years and
this is appreciated. Likewise the Coalfield Regeneration Trust
programme is highly valued. However as with the majority of regeneration
funding streams, their short term, finite nature means that it
is difficult to plan for the long term and much staff and community
capacity is put into pursuing continued funding for good projects.
In addition it is difficult to recruit and retain experienced
staff to deliver initiatives on short term contracts.
A key example of this is a project known as
"Recruitment North Warwickshire". This is helping to
overcome the legacy of the low aspiration/low skills base left
by the closure of our mines by linking local people with local
jobs. The project provides a package of support including training,
help with transport, childcare and so on. It is very successful
and is fortunate to have an excellent manager but is coming to
the end of its co-financing support and so we are seeking to continue
it through whichever means we can. It is this sort of problem
that we face continually, when true regeneration can only take
place over a much longer term. This sort of issue is being recognised
in urban areas through the Neighbourhood Renewal scheme and related
initiatives, but small rural coalfield areas like North Warwickshire
continue to have to operate this short term approach as there
is no alternative.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this
evidence in relation to the Select Committee. I trust that it
will be helpful and I look forward to any benefits the review
may provide in assisting coalfield communities in the long term
and sustainable regeneration of their areas.
Clare Eggington
Economic Development Manager
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