This is one little acre of a country that’s on its arse.
We need to build again, from the bottom up.
And you can’t get anymore 'bottom' than the mine.
Whitehaven, in coastal Cumbria, is a town with a rich mining history,
scarred by years of decline since the closure of the Haig pit in 1986.
The 720 men learned of the coal board's intended rundown a week after the dispute began.
It is a resigned acceptance, and for some 200 miners under 45,
finding another job will be essential.
Today, the town sits at the centre of a storm around plans for a new coal mine,
the first approved in Britain for 30 years.
On one side are those that argue for the mine's necessity,
its green credentials and the much needed investment it would bring to the area.
Everything's closing down. Shops is closing down.
So everything’s just psht.
On the other are those concerned about its environmental impact
and what it symbolises for a country that sees itself as a leader
in the global reduction of fossil fuel dependence.
It’s not going to be green at all.
It’s going to be increasing global emissions at a time when we need to be cutting them, fast.
With both sides disputing the claims of the other,
common ground appears vanishingly slim.
Aye there's a lot of people comes on telly that aren't even from round here,
so it doesn't matter to them.
I’ve come to Whitehaven to attempt to understand why,
amid an existential climate crisis,
an overwhelming majority of local people support the plan.
My heart is for the mining industry, but I'm fully aware that we could lose the planet.
My first stop is to meet one of the new mine's most enthusiastic backers,
Copeland’s conservative mayor Mike Starkie.
See you later.
Bye.
There's a huge history to this town.
I mean, how much of what's going on at the moment
and I guess the psyche of the people around here
is informed by the strong history and the strong relationship with mining?
Obviously, it's a factor.
A lot of the old coal miners are absolutely thrilled to see it coming back.
There was a strong belief that the mines should never have been shut down
when there was so much coal in there.
Hello.
Dave, it's Mayor Mike.
Who?
Mayor Mike - Starkie.
Hello Mike, how are ya?
Aye not bad mate.
Dave, I'm with The Guardian, would you be able to catch us up anywhere?
Mike is driving me to the proposed site of the new mine,
to the south of the town.
He’s invited local miner turned poet Dave Craduck to meet us there.
Is he going to come armed with poetry?
Hi, nice to meet you.
We’ll have to break in through the fence.
Oh we've got to break in.
Fantastic.
It's the biggest unofficial dog walking site in the country.
Ok, so watch your feet.
So this will be like the road entrance into the surface building.
Electric vehicles all coming down here, dropping off the miners.
Isn't it?
I thought it was.
If they've got electricity.
Did you bring some poetry, Dave?
Yes.
I knew you would.
But why, these grey haired old miners say, do we ship it here from far away?
There's millions of tons of it ‘neath our feet, dig it up and save the fleet.
Before you climate warriors gathered here, off to Glasgow, disappear.
Reflect on this and tell your peer, close all them mines, and mine it here.
But don't sit on the fence.
Dave, where do you really sit on the prospect of mining around here?
It's a very evocative industry, isn't it?
Everybody thinks about the hard drinking miners and, you know, that's all they did.
But it wasn't true.
There was a lot of people that grew chrysanthemums and things like that.
Huge camaraderie though Dave.
Oh, brilliant, aye. Everybody knew everybody else.
Everybody was looking out for everybody's backs,
because it was a dangerous industry, I'll admit that.
And how much of your support of the mine now is based on that kind of,
that memory, of, kind of the community it fostered and the camaraderie and the support network.
It's all based on that.
In my heart, I'm still an old miner.
I'm just wondering if it's possible to get that back
or if even a new mine here will not quite replicate that, sort of,
that community spirit that you're speaking about.
Well, if we don't get the mine, we'll never find out, will we?
To the east of the new mine site sits Mirehouse
or as the locals call it, ‘Myrus’,
one of the most deprived estates in the country.
Katrina MacEwan has been working in this community for over 20 years.
90% of people in this area want the mine.
You're from a mining family yourself.
How wedded are you to the idea of not wanting the mine?
Well, yeah, well, I'm wobbling.
My concern is the environmental one.
As is most people's concern.
Yeah, but I have the luxury of having two jobs
and I can think about the environment.
You can't afford to have aspirations if it's a daily struggle to feed your children.
That's where people are
- not like 50 years’ time we’ll have destroyed the environment.
I’m following Katrina to the community centre on the other side of the estate.
Aha.
I want to learn more about the legacy of mining in the area.
I was just wondering if I could see a show of hands for people who have been married to a miner.
In the sense that they worked down the pit, not a child.
What about dads?
Brothers?
Uncles?
Everyone's related to a miner in some way, right?
Yeah.
There you go.
Thank you.
How has Mirehouse changed since the mines were closed?
I think we lost a lot of good spirit and that.
Yeah.
It was cruel really, which way it was done.
It’s which way they done it.
Yeah.
Are you for the mine?
Of course, yeah.
When I was a little girl and me dad used to go down the pit,
he always took bread and jam to eat down there.
Right.
And I always asked him, please bring me a piece back
and he used to bring me a piece of bread and jam from the pit
and I thought it tasted wonderful.
Really?
And I always wanted to say that to somebody.
Oh.
And I'm pleased I've got to before I die.
Oh, no.
£5 for the line, £11 for the full house.
Can I?
People seem very nostalgic about the idea of having a mine in the area
And I wonder, do you think that a lot of people,
they're actually longing for a strong community?
I do.
But I think it's always a case of looking back,
things always looked great, didn't they?
I mean there were a lot of problems with the mines and the strike was horrendous,
because I was a child when my dad was on strike in the mines
and it was just like ...
All of those weeks and weeks and weeks with no money.
The closure of the mines meant the end of prosperity for a lot of people.
That's what dropped them into poverty
and trying to get people out of poverty isn't easy.
So, yes I think the mine will be - it will appear,
and be, you know, whatever.
But I can't see it providing - making that much of a difference to this area financially.
That's very pessimistic.
Isn't it just.
You sound quite resigned to kind of, I suppose, being let down in some way
by what happens next, is that just through experience?
Yeah. These communities are always let down.
The government initiatives - and there have been many of them
- just like raise hopes for people and then the next thing,
There's not much money left, there's a bit of a trickle.
It's not anything that's going to change people's lives.
People become disheartened, but also they've become accustomed to it.
Meeting at the nearby Whitehaven miners’ club
are Dave Craduck’s 'Pit Crack' group.
Is there any uncertainty in this room about the new mine?
You?
Yeah.
I'm ambivalent and I wouldn't come down on either side.
Yeah, it's a tricky one right?
Yeah.
Knowing how important the mining industry has been to West Cumbria,
because it was one of the few, you know, the few possibilities
of gaining a livelihood for a long, long time in the way that the nuclear industry is now.
It is embedded, truly embedded in the history.
That's where we worked, that's Haig pit.
Oh, yeah, OK.
The winding gear.
Where’s that one with you on Mike?
Yeah, this chap here.
You look happy.
Well, I loved it. I’d have worked in the pit for nothing.
Those were the days, eh.
Them were the days.
Brilliant.
I wish it were still happening.
Yeah.
Today, local industry is dominated by the Sellafield nuclear site
a little further down the coast.
Employing thousands of workers and skewing the area's employment statistics,
locals complain many of the higher paid jobs there
go to skilled workers based outside Copeland.
When the mine was closed,
do you feel that there wasn't the support,
for the community, to put something else in its place?
They just wanted to ship us all up to Sellafield, which we did.
Good jobs, easy jobs.
Yeah, so what's the problem?
No community.
Right.
Do you think that some of the hope that is placed on this new mine is misplaced?
It would be no surprise if it was another false promise.
When you look at false promises, right, in this area alone,
we've lost the silk mills, we've lost Kangol, we've lost Marchon,
we've lost the pits, we've lost high duty alloys
and there's been nothing coming to replace them except for work at Sellafield.
Yeah.
Were things better?
You know, a generation ago, when the mines were open?
The community spirit was greater,
because most of the community grew up around the mines.
When the pit closed, the village died to some extent.
Despite the nostalgia for the camaraderie of the pit,
the mine closures are clearly just one aspect of the area's gradual decline,
compounded by a lack of diversity in the local industry.
What support was there from the government
when the operations sort of closed down in this area?
Minimal.
Isn't that part of the problem?
No, because I don't think we need to hark back to then, you know?
We’re harking back all the time though, looking at the history of the area.
There is an impact from a lack of investment here for, you know, for time immemorial.
We are the furthest constituency from London,
you know, we're in a remote area,
you know, we've not had the investment, you know, for ever.
In a picture echoed across underfunded communities throughout the country,
Mirehouse residents have taken matters into their own hands.
You all right?
This is my son.
This is your son.
Does he have an opinion on the mine?
I’m not working in the mine.
Local men are gathering here this evening for a training session
for community football team Tubby FC,
one of a number of programmes aimed at addressing social issues on the estate.
Some lads have never been out of their house.
Some fellas haven't even kicked a football.
I would say a majority, well, 90% will have suffered from mental health
and now they're just there with a good group of friends
kicking a football on a Monday and Friday night.
And that's basically what we're doing.
But it's amazing how something so simple can have such an impact.
And it's not just about kicking a ball.
It's getting people in, these guys coming in and socialising and talking.
And like Kris is saying there,
some of these lads right through lockdown and after,
they didn't leave the house for two years.
And it's a massive stigma for men, you don't want to talk.
It’s just taking that step to go and talk to that person.
Community is such an important aspect of life here
and with that, I suppose, comes kind of the great sort of mental health benefits
of just kind of being in a group.
Is the answer to a lot of the problems here just giving people that sense of camaraderie,
which obviously was there when the mines where open a generation ago.
I think the mental health side with the fellas, if they can’t support their family,
they think, you know, I'm not a man.
It's fantastic what these lads are doing.
Yeah.
But there's got to be sort of a light at the end of the tunnel.
For some of these people that I speak too, there isn’t.
They’re picking the dole up every two weeks and doing the odd job here and there.
500 jobs, can that really on its own be the catalyst for better times?
If people's got money in their pockets
and they can afford to go out and do things with their families, with their friends.
You're getting that brotherhood back, which they used to have, all the miners,
I think that’s something which is talked about quite a lot.
You bring that back to Whitehaven.
I'm not saying it's disappeared,
but it's more fractured than it's ever been, since Covid.
You know some people, a lot of people haven't recovered.
For this community this is, this is a light at the end of,
it's been a really dark four or five years.
And if that light goes out and there is no mine,
where would that leave Mirehouse?
Well, it would leave us exactly where we are now.
But it wouldn't - because it would be a further dent in, kind of in hope I suppose.
I’m a firm believer that if this doesn't happen, some other pipe dream will come
two or three years down the line and get everyone's ears pricked up.
Yeah we had trouble before, it may happen again, hopefully not this time.
On my visit I’ve found plenty of examples of the community spirit
many of Mirehouse’s older residents are nostalgic for
and that a modern mine might struggle to replicate.
But critics of the plan point to fleeting benefit
clouding a long-term environmental disaster.
It is this same short-term thinking that has left Mirehouse neglected
and its residents yearning for the return of coal.