'With a little help from our friends': the role of new solidarities and alliances in the remaking of Warsop Vale.

Introduction

Industrial and political developments since the 1984-5 miners' strike have resoundingly vindicated the sobering prognoses of academic commentators who forecast the decimation of the mining industry and its related community life (see Winterton & Winterton, 1989). Following the heroic defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the number of British deep mines has plummeted from r69 to a mere 8, physically and politically enfeebling a workforce variously mythologised as the 'praetorian guard' or 'shock troops' of the labour movement (Adeney & Lloyd, 1985; Pitt, 1993). The systematic annihilation of the coal industry has wreaked hardship and disorientation in communities reeling from the loss of their traditional raison d'etre (Waddington et al., 2001).

Thus far, there have been few academic investigations of attempts by mining communities to organise themselves against the economic deprivation and social exclusion resulting from industrial contraction (1). This article attempts to remedy this situation by tracing the processes of community activism, development and regeneration fundamental to the tenuous and, at times, improbable survival of the 450-strong Nottinghamshire community of Warsop Vale since the year-long strike.

Though Warsop Vale is situated just inside North Nottinghamshire, its local colliery (Warsop Main) was included in the Derbyshire administrative areas of both the National Coal Board (NCB) (latterly, British Coal) and the NUM. During the strike, the Warsop Main workforce was unique among Nottinghamshire miners in wholeheartedly supporting the NUM.

The termination of the dispute in March 1985, and the subsequent closure of Warsop Main four years later, accelerated the pattern of community demise first precipitated by the purchasing of former Coal Board houses by neglectful private landlords in the early 1980S. Such was the rate of social and economic degeneration immediately following pit closure that, in 1992, a specially commissioned report by the Civic Trust Regeneration Unit referred to Warsop Vale as a 'community close to death' (CTRU, 1992).

This article sets out a longitudinal study of the attempts by local actors to resist, initially, and subsequently to reverse, the physical and social impact of industrial contraction, and to provide the village with an alternative economic rationale.

Based on over a hundred interviews carried out between 1998 and 2004 with local residents, community development workers and representatives of regeneration agencies (2), the study emphasises the importance of grassroots political activism, and the nurturing efforts of dedicated professionals in rekindling community morale and strengthening its social capacity. Such seminal activity was vital in enabling Warsop Vale to successfully lobby for, and ultimately benefit from, regenerative funding made available by New Labour following the publication of the Coalfields Task Force report in 1998.

The day after the report's publication, a national newspaper exemplified Warsop Vale as precisely the type of rundown village that the government was hoping to rescue from oblivion:

   Today most of the 210 houses in the Nottinghamshire
   village are owned by private, absent landlords. There is
   just one shop, one pub and one public telephone. People
   have to travel by bus two miles to a doctor's surgery or to
   a supermarket. The school has closed, the building having
   become a factory making shower curtains and offering
   mainly part-time work to local women.

   The children travel by bus the two miles to schools in
   Shirebrook or Warsop. Many of the houses have fallen
   into decay or have been vandalised, and are empty and
   boarded up. The 'dreadful' housing conditions in Warsop
   Vale shocked the task force set up to devise a regeneration
   strategy. (The Times, 18 June 1998)

Since 1999, however, the village has been the beneficiary of 500,000 [pounds sterling] worth of investment, enabling it to establish a flourishing community resource centre as the driver of community regeneration. Local properties are also scheduled to undergo wholesale renovation as part of an innovative housing redevelopment scheme.

The major steps in the collapse and rejuvenation of the village are retraced in this article. Its major objective is to emphasise how the process of community activism and local political support contributing to Warsop Vale's recovery reflect ongoing continuities and changes in the traditional structures and solidarities of mining localities, and in their relationship to political and regenerative institutions.

The first section of the article comprises a literature review of studies concerned with the enduring and changing features of late-twentieth-century mining communities. The second section outlines the main contemporary developments (notably, the sale of former NCB houses, the year-long strike and the eventual pit closure) that threatened Warsop Vale's long-term viability.

A third section then traces the early attempts by a local community development worker and village activists to organise the recovery of Warsop Vale. Section four analyses the process by which the village's plight became central to the work of the Coalfields Task Force.

There then follows an overview of New Labour's coalfield regeneration measures and the progress made in Warsop Vale since the implementation of government policy. The article concludes by underlining the role of new solidarities and alliances in the remaking of the village.

Social solidarities in mining communities: Continuities and changes

Thirty years after its publication, Bulmer's (1975) ideal-type characterisation of mining communities continues to provide a useful benchmark for understanding possible continuities in the social relations of such localities, and the extent to which they are liable to vary or have undergone change. For Bulmer, the ideal-typical traditional mining community tends to be physically isolated, making contact with 'outsiders' a rarity. The predominance of mining in the locality, allied to working practices promoting intense solidarity between colleagues, induces a militant industrial and political culture, harnessed and represented by the trade unions and local political organisations. Strong employee camaraderie spills over into leisure activities outside the home, from which women are generally excluded. By contrast, miners' wives are preoccupied with servicing their families' needs. Such women are rarely engaged in paid work, are relatively apolitical (but are morally supportive of their spouses during industrial disputes), and are apt to spend their leisure time at home with neighbours or close kin.

This customary view of mining communities was reinforced by articles published both before and after Bulmer's publication, which characterised the miners as 'traditional proletarians' (Lockwood, 1966) or 'proletarian patriarchs' (Campbell, 1984). However, literature reviews by Graham Crow (Crow, 2001: 71-89; Crow & Allan, 1994: 27-30) emphasise that, while elements of Bulmer's ideal type are still evident in particular studies of mining communities, the overall impression is one of structural and cultural diversity.

Such variation is apparent in Crow and Allan's reference to a study by Gilbert (1992), underlining the greater militancy of the residents of Ynysybwl in South Wales compared to those of Hucknall in Nottinghamshire. Part of the reason for this mismatch may lie in the fact that, as Gilbert points out, Hucknall was more occupationally diverse than its Welsh counterpart. However, it is also probable that the more moderate political culture of the latter is a legacy of the 'butty system', unique to the Nottinghamshire coalfield. Here, powerful subcontractors hired and fired labourers on a piece-rate basis to perform specified tasks (see Krieger, 1983). Gibbon (1988: 175) has made the point that, in contrast with other coalfield areas where 'work-group self-regulation' was the norm, 'the main residue of the butty system was a highly individualistic and incentive-oriented attitude to work, management and trade unionism'.

Further departures from Bulmer's ideal type have been induced by changes occurring in the mining industry since the 1960s. In the twelve-year period from 1957 to 1969, 378,000 jobs hemorrhaged from the industry, as 505 collieries were closed (Allen, 1981). The relocation of miners and their families from the worst-affected areas--of Scotland, Durham, South Wales and, more latterly, Derbyshire--meant that migrant workers arriving in (say) the Nottinghamshire coalfield would find their militant attitudes incompatible with those of their indigenous colleagues (Coulter et al., 1984). Such discrepant political attitudes were at the root of the differential responses of Nottinghamshire miners to the 1984-5 strike (Waddington et al., 1990.

Another reason for this growing communal diversity is that the achievement of higher wages by mineworkers following the 1972 and 1974 disputes, and the opportunity to earn large bonuses with the inception of the incentive scheme of 1978, afforded the younger generation of mining families the opportunity to leave their traditional communities in favour of more lucrative private housing settlements (ibid.). The increased value placed by the hum on college education for miners and their dependants has also encouraged greater social mobility since the late-1960s (Allen, op. cit.). Conversely, the uptake of National Coal Board housing stock in the early 1980s not only by sitting tenants, but also by local authorities, housing associations, private landlords and non-mining commuters, further diluted the traditional mining composition of such communities (Waddington, et al. 1990.

Traditional gender relations have also been transformed. Crow (1980: 80) emphasises that married women living in mining communities in the late-twentieth century were far more likely to have entered paid work than their mothers, and that 'the gradual loosening of the bonds that tied women to traditional domesticity were an indispensable precondition for the upsurge in community consciousness during the strike to take the form it did'. Due to their efforts in support groups, in food kitchens and on picket lines, women played a more prominent role in 1984-5 than in any previous miners' strike (Warwick & Littlejohn, 1992), becoming more socially assertive and politicised in the process (Witham, 1986). Men, women and children in mining communities were also forced to re-evaluate their attitudes to ethnic and sexual minorities, whose members conspicuously supported the strike (Callinicos & Simons, 1985).

With the weakening of union power following the post-strike formation of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM), the omnipresent threat of pit closure, and the growing impotence of the parliamentary Labour party, women's groups re-emerged during the campaign against pit closures. With the announcement, in October 1992, of the Conservative government's intention to close twenty-seven of the nation's remaining fifty mines and 'mothball' four more, Women Against Pit Closures responded by setting up Greenham Common-style 'pit camps' outside collieries earmarked for closure. This was starkly indicative of women's increasingly greater involvement in community affairs (Waddington et al., 1994).

Government indifference to this and nationwide expressions of public sympathy for the miners was reflected in an acceleration of the pit-closure programme. With the resulting disappearance of local jobs, many former miners uprooted themselves and their families in search of alternative employment, leaving behind disproportionate numbers of the elderly and unemployed. Rented accommodation proved increasingly difficult to let, except to poorer, often welfare-dependent tenants deemed to be threatening the identity and 'integrity' of the villages (Crow, 2001: 81). Thus mining communities became breeding grounds for antagonisms between older residents and disaffected youth; between indigenous mining families and 'newcomers' (Waddington et al., 200l).

Not surprisingly, this growing heterogeneity of mining communities has been reflected in recent regeneration activity. Bennett et al. (2000) observed that the thirty-nine community initiatives featured in their study of regeneration in Nottinghamshire and South Wales fell into three overlapping categories: those initiated by long-term local residents; those instigated by 'socially entrepreneurial immigrants'; and those formally created by government and other institutions (op. cit.: 24-30). As we shall now see, the redevelopment of Warsop Vale was fostered by individuals and organisations common to each category, reflecting new social solidarities and alliances induced by the aforementioned patterns of change.

The village and its decline

Lying five miles north of Mansfield and one mile from the Derbyshire border, Warsop Vale was built in the early 1900S to provide homes for Warsop Main miners and their families. The 210 red-brick miners' cottages, initially erected between 1901 and 1908, still comprise the village's five terraced streets.

From the outset, the local mine was the major source of employment, not solely for the village, but also for neighbouring settlements in the Warsop parish and the nearby town of Shirebrook. At its peak in 1911, the colliery employed 2,700 mineworkers, though only 250 of these were indigenous to Warsop Vale (Calvert & White, 2000). By the late-1970S, the workforce remained some 1500-Strong. However, the following decade proved disastrous for the village and its mine.

In 1981, the National Coal Board began selling off its housing stock, initially to sitting tenants. The price of these dwellings varied between 2,500 [pounds sterling] and 3,000 [pounds sterling], according to condition and location. Three years later, 110 unsold houses were bought up by private landlords, notably Ashby Properties Ltd, owned by Mr Derek Pye (3). These properties quickly fell into chronic disrepair.

Between March 1984 and March 1985, Nottinghamshire became the principal battleground of the bitterly-contested miners' strike. While colleagues at nearby pits like Welbeck (in the Nottinghamshire area NCB/NUM) continued to work, Warsop Main miners (from the Derbyshire area) came out solidly on strike. With the gradual drift back to work of Warsop Vale miners (commencing in July 1984), the colliery became the focal point of recurring clashes between pickets and the police. Interviewees estimate that 100-200 Warsop Main miners were on strike from start to finish.

During the next three years, the workforce was reduced from 1,320 to 800, due to cost-cutting exercises (Calvert & White, 2000). In 1988, Warsop Main made a loss of 12.6 [pounds sterling] million and, contrary to management reassurances, was closed down in August of the following year, though the salvaging of equipment was not concluded until November 1991.

Thereafter, the NUM played no part in the village's regeneration, except to encourage the transfer of miners to neighbouring Derbyshire collieries. This was because the union did not consider itself responsible for clearing up the social wreckage wreaked by pit closures. Moreover, the NUM'S once-traditional influence in local politics was now negligible due to inroads made by sympathisers of the UDM. With the trade union thus irrelevant, there were few signs of organised village activism to spearhead Warsop Vale's possible regeneration.

One notable exception was the small village Community Association, formed by a handful of senior citizens in 1979 with the primary aim of organising social events such as bingo sessions, sports days and galas. As recently as 1988, the association had mounted a rare, politically-motivated campaign to pressurise Nottinghamshire County Council and Mansfield District Council into resurfacing the village's roads and pavements. Preliminary consultations had angrily terminated, though, when the county council agreed to carry out the necessary repairs--but only on condition that residents foot the bill.

With the closure of the mine, endemic unemployment compounded the increasingly negative social and physical consequences of the sale of former NCB houses. The future viability of Warsop Vale now depended on the emergence of new forms of community organisation and activism to replace traditional pillars of political representation. Fortunately for the village, such processes were already starting to evolve.

First steps to recovery

At roughly the same time that the campaign for road improvements was occurring, a similar movement--aimed, this time, at cajoling local landlords into carrying out much-needed repairs to rented houses--was also quietly gathering momentum. This second campaign was instigated by a Nottinghamshire County Council community development worker called Michael Stephenson.

The son of a Shirebrook miner, Stephenson had temporarily left the area in 1976 to complete a two-year course in community and youth work at Goldsmiths College, London. He then lived and worked on the Broadwater Farm Estate, north London, until the death of his father in 1982 prompted him and his family to return to the North in order to be closer to his mother. According to his line manager, Stephenson's professional approach was underpinned by a particular philosophy: 'Because of his class background, his education and resulting awareness of class politics, he wanted to make his impact in a small but meaningful way that involved giving communities the confidence and wherewithal to make their world that vital bit better' (head of partnerships, Nottinghamshire County Council).

Stephenson's involvement in Warsop Vale began in 1988, when he started working in conjunction with the housing charity, Shelter, on a project offering assistance and advice to local residents concerned about their insecurity of tenure and/or trying to get their houses repaired by uncooperative landlords, especially Derek Pye.

As part of this process, Stephenson often had cause to appeal to Mansfield District Council to carry out inspections and, if necessary, to impose repair notices on errant landlords. In this regard, he received invaluable support from a district councillor whose efforts on behalf of the community have been equally unwavering.

Unlike Michael Stephenson, Councillor Sheilla Tudor was born into a Conservative-voting household, and spent the first seventeen years of her adult life working for a finance company. Following her marriage to a Warsop Main miner, she and her husband settled in nearby Meden Vale, a community more closely associated with the Nottinghamshire area's Welbeck colliery.

Tudor soon became a stalwart of her community, being prominent, for example, in a campaign for a school safety crossing; but during the 1984-5 dispute, she and her spouse were alienated from their erstwhile friends and neighbours, due to the fact that Welbeck continued to operate while Warsop Main was strikebound.

Tudor immediately joined a local women's support group, and quickly found herself embarked on another tortuous campaign in which she and her colleagues eventually overcame local opposition to a primary school kitchen being used to provide food for striking miners and their families. Tudor subsequently represented the Nottinghamshire striking miners' wives at the European parliament and, in 1984, she broke with her family tradition by joining the Labour party. Three years later, the tenacity she had exhibited before and during the dispute saw her elected onto the district council with the support of constituents from both sides of the strike.

By making full use of Tudor's political influence, Stephenson succeeded in forcing Pye and other landlords into carrying out essential housing repairs. However, this was a slow and frustrating process involving countless legal loopholes, which landlords repeatedly exploited. Nevertheless, Stephenson took satisfaction from the fact that his work had earned him the trust and respect of the entire community.

His morale was further boosted in 1992, when Tudor and like-minded councillors persuaded Mansfield District Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and the Rural Development Commission to instruct the Civic Trust Regeneration Unit (CTRU) to prepare a strategy for the regeneration of Warsop Vale.

The resulting report (CTRU, 1992) emphasised that many of the social and economic problems currently existing in Warsop Vale stemmed from the sale of former NCB properties. The majority of the houses obtained by private landlords were now exhibiting signs of neglect and dilapidation. The village's appearance was further being spoiled by the poor physical condition of its roads and pavements. Moreover, the transfer of Coal Board houses into the private sector had induced an influx of new residents who 'had no links with the colliery or mining' and who showed themselves 'reluctant to become involved in community activities' (ibid: 85). This had undermined the community's traditional cohesion.

The CTRU recommended that the district and county councils should respond to the village's plight by authorising a housing and environmental renewal scheme. They also advised the councils to meet the cost of the road repairs and, if possible, to employ a community development worker capable of 'working closely with the community to heal the rifts, restore a sense of pride in the area, and create a sense of shared purpose through the development of a community plan for Warsop Vale' (ibid: 98). This latter recommendation constituted a mandate for Michael Stephenson to assume a more prominent role in village affairs.

Initially, this enhanced involvement took the form of Stephenson's helping council colleagues to prepare a successful bid to the European Regional Development Fund for the resurfacing of local roads. Then, in attempting to resolve the ever-worsening state of the village's rented accommodation, in 1994 Stephenson helped to instigate the Warsop Vale Residents' Action Group (WVRAG), a twelve-person coalition of long-term mining residents and recent settlers. The group comprised four men (an unemployed former striking miner, a plumber, a joiner, and a London-born author) and eight women (a publican, a print-worker, a graphic designer, a factory worker and four women not in paid work at the time).

With Stephenson's help and encouragement, the WVRAG began lobbying for a central play area for local children. This was seen as an ideal mechanism by which to promote greater cohesion between indigenous and newly-arrived residents. Central to this and subsequent campaigns was the action group's chairperson, Rhona Ashton, a young lesbian woman who had settled in the village in 1990 in order to be closer to her ageing parents, a former miner and his wife from nearby Meden Vale.

Having grown up in Meden Vale, Ashton had since spent time in the Women's Royal Air Force before entering the printing trade. She now lived in a North Street terrace, purchased at a knock-down price from a small private landlord. Her natural affability and the self-confidence she had developed in the course of her career made her a popular and highly respected chair.

Acting on Stephenson's advice, Ashton approached another sympathetic local professional, Peta Shaw, who had, in May 1991, been appointed by Nottinghamshire County Council to act as Rural Development Officer for the North East Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire coalfield areas. Shaw was a lifelong resident of a Nottinghamshire mining community and, like Sheilla Tudor, an active supporter of the strike. She, too, became earnestly committed to helping the village wherever possible.

With Shaw's help and advice, the WVRAO successfully bid for joint funding of 15,000 [pounds sterling] from the Rural Development Commission and Mansfield District Council for essential materials and equipment. Once planning permission had been granted, the eight female members of the action group set about clearing and flattening the eventual play area in readiness for its actual construction.

According to Peta Shaw, this was a crucially formative and encouraging experience for village activists, not least 'Because it happened--it came off--and in the grand scheme of things I suppose that's a small little project, but you need to achieve something to give you the momentum to go on to something else. I think it really spurred Rhona and the others on'. In refusing to be deterred by unhelpful and dissuasive council officials, Ashton had demonstrated a rare and inspirational resolution:

   The progress that's been made down there now wouldn't
   have happened if it hadn't been for Rhona. She's stuck
   with it, she's fought with it and she's had some real down
   times as well, but Rhona's got that strength of character
   and she's really learnt well. I think it's very easy to forget
   just how demoralising it all was in those early years. A lot
   of people have fallen by the wayside and, if it hadn't had
   been for her refusing to be knocked down, starting with
   the play area, then I don't think so much would have
   happened. (Peta Shaw)

Other interviewees, including Ashton herself, concede that, at this time, her natural exuberance was complemented by the more measured approach of a London-born writer who was secretary of the action group:

   Joe Goode was very involved from the start. He was, dare
   I say it, slightly more considered and thoughtful than
   Rhona in that he'd sit back and think about something
   rather than shooting from the hip. He came from a
   different class background and that provided a very
   interesting counter to Rhona. Where he would appeal to
   the logic of the situation and assume that people of
   goodwill would eventually see your argument, Rhona's
   experience was more: 'Unless you make the buggers
   change, they ain't gonna!' ... Between them, they struck a
   very effective balance. (Head of partnerships,
   Nottinghamshire County Council)

This relates to a more general point--that the committee's relatively broad social base imbued it with a useful diversity of experiences and perspectives, in addition to a wide repertoire of relevant skills and aptitudes. Henceforward, this cohort would act as the driving force of community activism, making key strategic decisions in the knowledge that other local residents could be safely relied upon to publicly support them wherever necessary. This enhanced social capacity would be used to telling effect in the coming years of struggle.

Stopping the rot

The establishment of the play area had a galvanising effect. In 1996, the WVRAG used funds obtained by Stephenson from Nottinghamshire County Council in order to carry out a 'safety survey' of local residents, the results of which were used to lobby the same council into installing burglar alarms throughout the village. Even more significant was a condition survey of the village's rented accommodation, which was carded out following pressure exerted by Stephenson and Sheilla Tudor. The resulting 'Stopping the Rot' report (Nottinghamshire County Council Health and Housing Group, 1996) highlighted the fact that the majority of these properties were 'unfit for human habitation'.

Just as crucial was the way in which these findings were publicly disseminated. Here, a vital role was played by a Nottinghamshire parish councillor and Labour party activist called Kathleen Taylor, who had just been appointed as Nottinghamshire Rural Community Council's rural housing enabler. Taylor was the wife of a striking Nottinghamshire miner. She and her husband had moved into the county in 1972, when he was transferred from a closed Derbyshire mine. Her political epiphany occurred during the national miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974, and was consolidated by the upheaval of pit closure. Such politicisation was reflected in her decision to stand, successfully, for the parish council, and in her membership of a women's support group in 1984-5.

With her long experience of political activism to call upon, Taylor relished her new role, which involved identifying housing problems in former mining areas and formulating the most effective means of addressing them. She quickly settled on a strategy of highlighting conditions in Warsop Vale as a powerful way of exemplifying what can happen to politically marginalised mining communities, and to provide leverage for economic intervention in the coalfields. To this end, she quickly gained the trust of the WVRAG, and duly helped it to organise a national publicity launch of the Stopping the Rot report.

A public meeting was duly held in January 1997, to which representatives of the local authorities, the police, selected politicians and the national media were all invited. Although Rhona Ashton was undaunted by the prospect of chairing such a meeting, she wisely decided that it would be better to defer to Kathleen Taylor's superior experience in that role:

   But when it came down to it, the local MP thought that it
   was his blasted role and, if I hadn't have been there, he'd
   probably have taken over completely. In fact, initially he
   did take over ... I let him go on for about five minutes
   and then I said, 'Well, actually, we do have an agenda
   here, and I've been nominated as chair.' ... I think Rhona
   would admit that she would probably have lost her temper.
   I drummed it into her beforehand: 'Go out and kick the
   cat afterwards, have a row with me; but whatever you do,
   don't lose your blinking temper or else you'll never win!'
   And the other thing I told her was: 'We need to
   choreograph the event: we need people planted in that
   audience with particular questions to be asked. You can't--and
   you wouldn't want to--stop the rest of the community
   from having its say; but be sure to use your committee.
   Rehearse it if need be. Have it written down.' (Kathleen
   Taylor)

By employing this combination of pre-planning and self-discipline, the WVRAG comprehensively informed the invited audience not only of the full scale of the housing problem, but also of that of the related issues of crime, unemployment and lack of facilities, especially for local youth.

The meeting achieved two important outcomes. First, it elicited a number of immediate commitments by district and county council officers, including an agreement to set up two new youth worker posts in the village, and a promise to increase the speed and quantity of repair notices brought against private landlords.

Then, several weeks after the meeting, the head of partnerships for Nottinghamshire County Council was directed by his executive to set up an officers' support group for Warsop Vale, consisting of representatives of the Mansfield District Council housing department, the county council community development services, the Regional Development Commission, the Rural Community Council, the Groundwork Trust, and local housing associations. Henceforward, this group would meet up with representatives of the WVRAG in order to generate new development ideas and explore possible ways of realising them.

True to its word, Mansfield District Council began serving more repair notices on Ashby Properties Ltd. In a major setback, though, the landlord retaliated by requesting a judicial review of the council's actions. He argued that it was unreasonable of the council to expect him to renovate unoccupied houses since the village no longer constituted a 'viable economic unit'. The issue was to remain unresolved for three more years.

It was therefore all the more important that Kathleen Taylor was meanwhile engaged in an intense programme of lobbying on behalf of Warsop Vale. At Taylor's request, the MPS for Bassetlaw and Bolsover each made speeches in the House of Commons, highlighting the deplorable housing conditions in Warsop Vale. Then, once the composition of the Coalfields Task Force had been publicly disclosed, Taylor contacted two of its members--the national director of the Coalfield Communities Campaign (ccc), and the director of Development Services for Mansfield District Council--in order to persuade them to include Warsop Vale on the Task Force's scheduled tour of coalfield areas. These contacts were totally cooperative. According to Taylor, 'The tenants were therefore able to speak to them. I still think to this day that if we and the local politicians hadn't pushed so hard, the Task Force would never have been set up in the first place.'

By this stage, it was clear that local activists, 'ordinary' village residents and professional community workers were doing their utmost to instil new life into Warsop Vale. It now remained to be seen how far the prospects of recovery might be further enhanced by New Labour's coalfields regeneration policy.

New Labour's coalfield programme

Acting on thirty-nine recommendations set out by the Task Force, the government unveiled a ten-year programme for arresting social deprivation in the coalfields (DETR, 1998). The 354 million [pounds sterling] package included:

* 196 million [pounds sterling] to allow English Partnerships to expand its acquisition and redevelopment of former colliery sites;

* 70 million [pounds sterling] from round five of the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB5), to be invested exclusively in coalfield areas;

* a 45 million [pounds sterling] investment over three years in a new Coalfields Regeneration Trust (CRT) to promote community-based initiatives;

* 28 million [pounds sterling] of additional funding for coalfield councils' Housing Improvement Programmes; and

* a 15 million [pounds sterling] Coalfield Enterprise Fund for developing small firms.

In addition, the government promised to take steps to bring the proportion of lottery funding entering the coalfields up to the national average. It also pledged to undertake a review of existing legislation on Compulsory Purchase Orders, with a view to simplifying and speeding up the procedures for seizing former Coal Board housing stock being neglected by private landlords. The responsibility for coordinating the regeneration strategies customised to different coalfield areas (including the allocation of SRB funding) was devolved to eight newly-constituted Regional Development Agencies (RDAS).

In contrast to the allegedly lukewarm attitude of other relevant coalfield RDAS (see CCC, 1999 for named examples), the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) adopted a highly supportive approach to regenerating the coalfield area in which Warsop Vale is situated. According to Mansfield District Council's task force representative, EMDA'S chief executive had been 'visibly distressed' by the scenes he had witnessed in Warsop Vale, and immediately committed his institution to reversing the village's fortunes.

Accordingly, some 24 million [pounds sterling] of SRB5 funding was channelled into the relevant coalfield via the newly-formed North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire Coalfield Alliance, a formal coalition of seven local authorities charged by EMDA with the task of formulating 'joined-up' policies for the entire sub-region. The responsibility for delivering those components of Alliance strategy targeted at the districts of Mansfield and Bolsover was invested in a custom-made local regeneration agency, the Meden Valley Partnership (MVP).

EMDA'S financial commitment to coalfield regeneration was further evident in its allocation to the Alliance of 15.2 million [pounds sterling] over six years, out of its SRB6 budget. Here, EMDA took the proactive step of insisting that 5.6 million [pounds sterling] of this sum was to be ring-fenced as funding for an ambitious housing improvement initiative spanning the entire Meden Valley. MVP representatives were instructed to collaborate with Mansfield and Bolsover district council housing officers in devising such a scheme, or risk forfeiting this vital piece of investment.

Thus, in the late summer of 2000, the Mpv publicly unveiled its 'Special Purpose Vehicle' ('SPV'), a housing programme drawing together private and public-sector funding and expertise in order to tackle the area's eleven worst housing 'hotspots', starting with Warsop Vale.

Community development since 1998

This announcement was warmly welcomed in Warsop Vale, where the continuing dilapidation of rented accommodation was detracting from impressive progress in other areas of community life. The most significant recent development had been the completion of the Michael Stephenson Resource Centre in March 1999. The 'Stephenson' was so-called in recognition of the efforts and example of the charismatic community development worker, who had died suddenly a year earlier. The responsibility for running a wide range of day-to-day social and regenerative activities in the centre now rested with Rhona Ashton.

The finance required both to establish and staff the Stephenson, as well as to start up relevant activities like a homework club, had been derived from successful applications for grants from the National Lottery, SRB4 and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Such applications were submitted prior to the introduction of the government's coalfield regeneration package. Thereafter, the WVRAG drew extensively from the financial resources established by New Labour, accumulating 100,000 [pounds sterling] by mid-2001 in the form of SRB5 grants and allocations from the National Lottery's 'New Opportunities' scheme. These funds were used partly to expand and equip the Stephenson, but also to introduce an out-of-school care programme during school holidays, and a village minibus for transporting children and the elderly.

More success soon followed. In the spring of 2002, the WVRAG (which had since been renamed the 'Warsop Vale Village Association') obtained the huge sum of 346,000, [pounds sterling] comprising 173,000 [pounds sterling] from the National Lottery's Community Fund, 104,000 [pounds sterling] from the CRT, and 69,000 [pounds sterling] from the Rural Development Partnerships. Part of the purpose of this grant was to sustain staff salaries for three more years. However, its other primary function was to enable Rhona Ashton and colleagues from the Stephenson to use their expertise in order to promote a wider sharing of resources and greater collaboration between community groups throughout the wider parish. Existing track record and reputation had clearly been significant:

   You see bloody Warsop Vale and you think, 'Wow! Why
   has this poxy little hole got this wonderful facility?' And
   it's down to an individual who is inspired, has got the
   vision, got some leadership, got good people around them,
   and we need to encourage those people. (Regional officer,
   Coalfields Regeneration Trust)

These developments were critical in maintaining village morale just when it seemed that plans to commence the housing redevelopment were being stymied. Although residents had been consulted as part of the planning process, the SPV was not showing any signs of progress, breeding renewed cynicism across the village. 'Insider' accounts suggested that such inertia was due to English Partnerships' developing cold feet at the prospect of diverging from its traditional role of rejuvenating colliery sites to become involved in housing redevelopment.

With the entire project now imperilled, the MVP'S regeneration manager appealed to local MPS to apply pressure on English Partnerships, at which point the Labour MP for Bassetlaw prevailed on ministerial colleagues to get the project back on track. Thanks to this timely intervention, the SPV received full Treasury approval on 4 July 2002. Villagers were informed of the development at a public meeting on 9 September, by which time 'delicate negotiations' had already been resumed with Derek Pye.

These negotiations were soon deadlocked. Amid growing public scepticism, in March 2003, a new not-for-profit company, Meden Valley Making Places Ltd (MVMP) was created with the sole purpose of managing the SPV. In addition to the main public-sector partners, EMDA, English Partnerships and Mansfield and Bolsover district councils, the Leicester Housing Association and the South Yorkshire Housing Association were now enlisted to act as Registered Social Landlords for any rented accommodation developed by the SPV.

Following a consultation process involving public exhibitions and drop-in sessions for residents, in March 2004 MVMP outlined its plans for the reconstruction of Warsop Vale (see Mansfield Chad, 3 March 2004). These included the proposed demolition of just over half of the village's 210 houses and their replacement by 108 new properties, ranging from two-bedroom homes for the elderly to luxury, four-bedroomed detached houses.

Remaining houses would be subjected to extensive refurbishment. By July 2004, however, the perennial problem of the dominant landlord was still unresolved. Though still cautiously optimistic of a breakthrough in negotiations, MVMP were preparing to invoke a Compulsory Purchase Order procedure that might potentially take two years to be completed.

Seemingly undeterred, Rhona Ashton and her colleagues continued to hatch plans designed to secure Warsop Vale's future viability. By August 2004, they had succeeded in transforming a roadside building on Carter Lane into a 'community shop'. Aside from its intrinsic utility as a post office and general store on the doorstep, this would provide a funding stream for other community ventures.

Also, following Ashton's intervention, MVMP had agreed to designate local land owned by English Partnerships for future industrial development. Ashton was thus in the process of working with the Leicester Housing Association (LHA) village companies project manager to secure funds for an alternative curriculum centre, capable of training young people as plumbers, joiners, bricklayers and other tradespersons currently in short supply.

   If we can actually get the training units operational, the
   kids will start coming in from 13 onwards; but there's
   also an opportunity there to take on some of the ex-miners
   and upgrade their skills so that they, in turn, can train and
   mentor the youngsters. And if you think about it, the kids
   are gonna feel a lot better interacting with the miners:
   they'll understand each other's language and have a nice,
   easy-going atmosphere--none of this stiff-arsed 'Think
   on, I'm your teacher!' type of nonsense. (Rhona Ashton)

In interview, the LHA village companies projects manager resoundingly endorsed the plan to build a training centre on the edge of Warsop Vale.

He cited four major reasons for wishing to locate it there: (i) a desire to give the community a new economic raison d'etre; (ii) the availability of huge tracts of brownfield site on which to build and develop; (iii) its ideal location from which to attract potential students from twenty-five schools in the surrounding area; and (iv) the fact that 'It's a further bonus for us that, in Rhona, you've got just the type of person we need to drive it.'

Following the introduction of New Labour's coalfield package, the CRT had awarded LHA almost 500,000 [pounds sterling] for investment in its village companies projects, scattered across the coalfields. This allocation had now expired and was not about to be renewed, fuelling obvious resentment on the part of the projects manager:

   That's the thing about 'initiatives': politicians, both
   Labour and Tory, like to stand up and say, 'We're here to
   solve your problems!' And it's click!--a photo-opportunity
   and off to the next project before the first one's really
   done and dusted. And the same can be said for the likes
   of EMDA, the CRT, et al. because, let's face it, they're all
   government-funded. Whereas, we're starting to feel that
   people know that we're prepared to champion their cause
   and work at the coalface with them, for however long it
   takes.

For him, the most beneficial effect of government measures had been to increase the confidence and independence of communities like Warsop Vale, and to reduce their traditional reliance on trade union and local government institutions:

   Of course, that was the social structure until pit closure
   had its impact. There wasn't a lot of self-help because all
   that had been bred out. Now, I take personal delight on
   seeing in places like Warsop Vale a growing pool of
   individuals with the requisite skills and self-belief to say,
   'Sod the council! Sod the New Labour bloody
   government! We can actually do this by ourselves'.

Conclusions

The very idea of an unmarried lesbian woman, not indigenous to Warsop Vale, leading the campaign to restore employment for local children and former miners potently suggests that the notion of a 'proletarian patriarchy' is no longer adequate to explain the type of community organisation and activism occurring in such villages. The ongoing resuscitation of Warsop Vale--a community debilitated by pit closure and the unscrupulous attitudes of neglectful absentee landlords--reflects the impact of social changes occurring prior to and during the year-long miners' strike, and as a consequence of subsequent pit closures.

Within Warsop Vale, the sale of NCB houses to the private rental sector, the loss of the strike and the eventual pit closure resulted in poor housing conditions, high unemployment, a loss of political power and rapid population change. Such issues created an urgent need for an alternative form of community organisation--one capable of campaigning for better housing and new jobs, and promoting greater social harmony between longstanding residents and 'outsiders'.

Vital preparatory attempts to organise the village residents and strengthen local social capital were undertaken by a university-educated, Derbyshire-born community development worker (Michael Stephenson), who had initially gained the trust and respect of the community by trying to promote more compassionate and responsible attitudes on the part of private-sector landlords. Stephenson used his considerable rapport with the village to encourage the formation of the highly cosmopolitan Warsop Vale Residents' Action Group (WVRAG), before introducing them to supportive contacts within local government and political institutions.

As befitted an increasingly diverse local population, the WVRAG comprised a coalition of long-term residents and 'entrepreneurial immigrants'. The committee was also female-dominated, reflecting an overriding concern with family and community-oriented issues, as opposed to trade unionist or Labour party politics. Hence its foremost priority was to establish a play area, designed to facilitate greater community integration.

The local government and political contacts recommended by Michael Stephenson were, without exception, highly capable women whose active roles in the miners' strike had imbued them with greater social and political acumen. Acting independently or in concert, Stephenson and these other sympathetic individuals (namely, Sheilla Tudor, Peta Shaw and Kathleen Taylor) played key supportive roles in the campaign for the play area, the community safety survey, and the commissioning and dissemination of the Stopping the Rot report.

It is conceivable that the publicity surrounding 'Stopping the Rot' and related political lobbying were pivotal to the eventual formation of the Coalfields Task Force and the resulting government measures. Additionally, such publicity was influential in the development of an officers' support group for Warsop Vale, whose political and strategic acumen, and access to budgets and institutional networks, were used to the benefit of the community.

For the most part, the officers' support group comprised representatives of longstanding institutions, such as the district and county councils, or agencies grafted on to existing structures, such as the county council-sponsored Rural Community Council and Rural Development Area. Following the government's response to the Task Force report, a plethora of relatively new regeneration agencies (EMDA, the CRT, the North Nottinghamshire/North Derbyshire Coalfield Alliance, the Meden Valley Partnership and Leicester Housing Association) became central to developments. In contrast with other RDAS, EMDA played a crucially pivotal role in facilitating the formation of sub-regional and inter-district partnerships, designed to produce the most effective 'joined-up' regenerative strategies. These newly-instigated bodies have contributed, between them, the bulk of the 500,000 [pounds sterling] invested in Warsop Vale since 1998.

The recently-conceived Meden Valley Making Places Ltd is now the main driver of an innovative redevelopment scheme (the 'Special Purpose Vehicle') that is set to eradicate the diabolical housing conditions affecting Warsop Vale. The community's future economic viability is now heavily dependent on its ability to establish an alternative curriculum centre for industrial training on the periphery of the village. English Partnerships has allocated, in principle, the requisite stretch of land, and members of the Warsop Vale Village Association are exploring, alongside the LHA, ways of financing the necessary construction work.

The post-closure experience of Warsop Vale suggests that community activism and community development strategies have the potential to enhance not only the condition and prospects of former mining communities, but also the confidence and autonomy of their residents. The fact that a planned development in the village has been complicated by the CRT's decision to cease funding the LHA has failed to puncture the prevailing sense of optimism. As Rhona Ashton recently explained,

   We here in the village have hopefully shown that it's
   possible for former mining communities to adapt and
   evolve new forms of organisation that allow you to be
   more democratic--more effective and self-determining.
   We're sensible enough to know that, regardless of what
   we've achieved, we've only taken out a temporary new
   lease on life. We may have to go through a similar process
   again, depending on the changing circumstances. If that's
   the case, we'll just do what we've always done in the past:
   we'll innovate and improvise; we'll come through it that
   much stronger--with a little help, of course, from our
   friends.

References

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Allen, V. L. (1981) The Militancy of British Miners (Moor Press) Shipley.

Bennett, K., H. Beynon & R. Hudson (2000) Coal Regeneration: Dealing with the Consequences of Industrial Decline (Policy Press/ Joseph Rowntree Foundation) Bristol.

Bulmer, M. (1975) 'Sociological models of the mining community', in Sociological Review, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 61-92.

Callinicos, A. & M. Simons (1985) The Great Strike: The Miners' Strike of 1984-5 and Its Lessons (Socialist Worker) London.

Campbell, B. (1984) Wigan Pier Revisited (Virago) London.

Civic Trust Regeneration Unit [CTRU] (1992) The Warsop Area: Working Together (Nottinghamshire County Council) Nottingham.

Coalfield Communities Campaign [CCC] (1999) How Much Difference? Progress in Implementing the Government's Response to the Coalfields Task Force (Coalfields Community Campaign) Barnsley.

Coalfields Task Force (1998) Making the Difference: A New Start for England's Coalfield Communities (Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions) London.

Crow, G. (2001) Social Solidarities: Theories, Identities and Social Change (Open University Press) Buckingham.

Crow, G. & G. Allan (1994) Community Life: An Introduction to Local Social Relations (Harvester/Wheatsheaf) London.

Coulter, J., S. Miller & M. Walker (1984) State of Siege: Politics and Policing in the Coalfields (Canary Press) London.

DETR (1998) Making the Difference: A New Start for England's Coalfield Communities--The Government's Response to the Coalfields Task Force Report (DETR) London.

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Warwick, D. & G. Littlejohn (1992) Coal, Capital and Culture: A Sociological Study of Mining Communities in West Yorkshire (Routledge) London.

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Notes

(1.) Although Smith and Schlesinger (1993) and Woodside (1997) have produced summaries of local authority-led community initiatives in County Durham and South Yorkshire, respectively. See also Bennett et al.'s (2000) overview of community regeneration efforts in North Nottinghamshire and South Wales, referred to later in this article.

(2.) Almost half of the interviewees were local residents. The remaining interviews were carried out with representatives of the following: Bolsover District Council, the Coalfields Task Force, the Coalfields Communities Campaign, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, the East Midlands Development Agency, English Partnerships, Leicester Housing Association, Mansfield District Council, the Meden Comprehensive School, Meden Valley Making Places Ltd, the Meden Valley Partnership, the North Notts/North Derbyshire Coalfield Alliance, Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottinghamshire Rural Community Council, the Rural Development Commission, Nottinghamshire Rural Area Partnership, Warsop Vale Residents' Action Group, and the Warsop Vale Village Association.

(3.) The names of this person and the company he owns, as well as those of other people mentioned in this article, have been changed in order to conceal their true identities.