Regenerating the English coalfields : sixteenth report of session 2009-10, report, together with formal minutes and oral and written evidence

Reviving the former English coalfields is one of the largest regeneration challenges over the last 30 years.

Between 1981 and 2004 over 190,000 people lost their jobs in coal mining.

The speed and extent of pit closures resulted in severe economic, social and environmental deprivation in many communities.

In response, the Department for Communities and Local Government developed three specific initiatives to regenerate coalfield areas, involving almost 1.1 billion pounds of public money.

As at July 2009, the three initiatives had spent 630 million pounds and had brought 54 former coalfield sites back into working use, and enabled private development of 2,700 houses and 1.1 million square metres of employment space.

Thirteen years after the start of the initiatives, the Department still lacks a clear vision and has no overarching strategy for the regeneration of these areas, has not sufficiently coordinated the three strands of the regeneration, and has failed to coordinate wider Government activity.

In consequence, training and support to help former coalfield communities find employment has rarely been linked to job opportunities created on coalfield sites. The Committee is concerned about the value for money of these initiatives.

The Department does not know what improvement has made to the lives of people in the coalfield areas.

It does not have a robust assessment to prove to the true number of additional jobs created nor the business occupancy rates for employment space on the redeveloped sites, or the number of people from former coalfield communities who have benefited.

Although progress has been made regeneration has cost the taxpayer much more than originally expected and taken longer than planned.

The Department needs to develop more sophisticated benchmarks that take into account the different levels of contamination on a site and allow separate evaluation of the incremental costs to develop housing and employment space.