Derelict Kent colliery to be transformed

Plans have been submitted to Dover council, to redevelop Snowdown colliery, the South East England Development Agency wish to turn part of this site into business space, and also create a 30 hectare country Park.

The regeneration of Snowdown, would apparently create 400 new jobs, obviously nowhere near as impressive, as the 3500 employed during the peak of the Kent coalfield but this new development can only be good for East Kent.

The photograph taken outside Snowdown gates, last year, perhaps gives some indication of the bitterness still felt in parts of the local community, as the chalked sign on the left of the picture carries the legend 'Welcome to Thatcher's handy work'.

Whatever your political standpoint, the decimation of the coal industry, appeared savage at the time, and I wonder, as North Sea gas reserves decline rapidly, and we soon become increasingly dependent upon Russia for much of our domestic fuel supply, whether we will become increasingly nostalgic about our past Coal Industry, perhaps even reconsidering the possible economic benefits of having an additional source of carbon fuels such as coal.