South Wales Valleys - Decline

Decline

The coal mining industry of the South Wales Valleys was artificially buoyed throughout the war years, though there were expectations of a return to the pre-1939 industrial collapse after the end of the Second World War. There was a sense of salvation when the government announced the nationalisation of the British Coalmines in 1947; but the following decades saw a continual reduction in the output from the Welsh mines. The decline in the mining of coal after World War II was a country wide issue, but South Wales and Rhondda were affected to a higher degree than other areas of Britain. Oil had superseded coal as the fuel of choice in many industries and there was political pressure influencing the supply of oil. Of the few industries that were still reliant on coal, the demand was for quality coals, especially coking coal which was required by the steel industry. Fifty percent of Glamorgan coal was now supplied to steelworks, with the second biggest market being domestic heating, which the 'smokeless' coal of the South Wales coalfield became once again fashionable after the publication of the Clean Air Act. These two markets now controlled the fate of the mines in South Wales, and as demand fell from both sectors the knock-on effect on the mining industry was further contraction. In addition exports to other areas of Europe, traditionally France, Italy and the Low Countries, experienced a massive decline; from 33 per cent at the turn of the century to roughly 5 per cent by 1980.

The other major factors in the decline of coal were related to the massive under-investment in South Wales mines over the past decades. Most of the mines in the valleys were sunk between the 1850s and 1880s, which, as a consequence, meant they were far smaller than most modern mines. The Welsh mines were in comparison antiquated, with methods of ventilation, coal-preparation and power supply all of a poor standard. In 1945 the British coal industry cut 72 per cent of their output mechanically, whereas in South Wales the figure was just 22 per cent. The only way to ensure the financial survival of the mines in the valleys was massive investment from the NCB, but the 'Plan for Coal' paper drawn up in 1950 was overly optimistic in the future demand for coal, which was drastically reduced following an industrial recession in 1956 and an increased availability of oil. From 15,000 miners in 1947, Rhondda had just a single pit within the valleys producing coal in 1984, located at Maerdy.

In 1966, the village of Aberfan in the Taff valley suffered one of the worst disasters in Welsh history. A mine waste tip on the top of the mountain slid down the valley side and destroyed the village primary school, killing 144 people, 116 of them children.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Her policies of free market economics soon clashed with the loss-making, government-owned National Coal Board. In 1984 and 1985, after the government announced plans to close many mines across the UK, mineworkers went on strike. The ultimate failure of this strike led to the virtual destruction of the UK's coal industry over the next decade. No deep coal mines are left in the valleys since the closure in 2008 of Tower Colliery in the Cynon Valley. Tower had been bought by the workers in 1994, despite government attempts to close it.

Since the mid 1980s, unemployment rates in the valleys have been among the highest in the whole United Kingdom, and have been seen as a major factor in the rise in drug abuse in the local area, which was highlighted in the national media during the autumn of 2002 and largely linked to drug dealing gangs from Birmingham and Bristol.

In the new millennium, the last of the steel works closed, as Corus Group (formerly British Steel) closed its plant in Ebbw Vale.