The showpiece Selby coalfield will close in spring 2004 - ten years earlier than had been predicted. So what has gone wrong? Dennis Towle reports on the rise and fall of the world's largest pit complex

THEY came from all parts of Yorkshire to the Mecca of the coal industry - young miners who thought they had a job for life. Today those same miners, many of them in their 30s and 40s, are facing the dole queue after the £1.5 billion Selby pit complex went into economic meltdown.

Its three mines at Riccall, Wistow and Stillingfleet, together with the coal exit and washing point at Gascoigne Wood, have lost £93 million in the last three years - and have lost a further £14 million in the first half of this year.

UK Coal says it is losing £5 to £6 on every tonne of coal mined at Selby and that's the reason the complex is closing, not the poor geology.

Company chiefs concede there are still millions of tonnes left to be mined under the Vale of York, but high "standing charges" and increasing geological risk make the reserves uneconomic - a view, they say, which is supported by a report put together by International Mining Consultants, an independent company.

UK Coal insists that while Selby may not have fulfilled all its early day promise, neither is it a failure.

When the then Environment Secretary Anthony Crosland granted the National Coal Board permission to work the new coal bonanza at Selby in April, 1976, it was hailed as a "new mine for the Eighties" and a "windfall for the nation".

The new jewel in the NCB crown was also seen as the catalyst that would breathe new life and optimism into a declining and demoralised industry.

Mining engineers, hardly able to contain their excitement, said there were 600 million tonnes of coal to go at in the Barnsley seam alone - and a further 1.4 billion tonnes in other seams. There was enough "black gold" to last 30 years or more.

Now, 19 years after the first coal was produced, at Wistow, in 1983, the end is already in sight. Only 112 million tonnes of coal have been dug out at Selby since 1983, compared to the 236 million tonnes that were forecast when the flagship project was launched.

Dean Howson, 43, worked at Selby's Whitemoor Mine before it closed and then transferred to Riccall Mine where he works as a coalface supervisor. He is also leader of Selby District Council.

He said: "A great many of us, in our 20s and 30s, came from West and South Yorkshire expecting to retire at Selby.

"It's true that the men have earned some good money here and there will be a lot of belt-tightening once the complex closes.

"There are 15 to 20 million tonnes of coal left at Riccall. We have just spent millions on developing the new Stanley Main seam and we've been told we will mine just four of the 15 planned coalfaces.

"We feel we've been given unrealistic targets. We can't help thinking we've been hung out to dry and it leaves a lump in our throats after all the effort we've put in."

One of the keys to unlocking the full potential of Selby was Gascoigne Wood Mine, the site where all the coal comes to the surface and is washed before being transported by train to customers, the main one being Drax Power Station.

But Gascoigne Wood, the hub of the complex, gobbles up £30 million a year in overheads.

Dean Howson says: "We were told there was no dirt in the coal but that didn't turn out to be the case. Gascoigne Wood ended up having to wash every tonne of coal and it has become a millstone round our necks. Without it, stand-alone pits might have survived."

The coalfield, which covers 110 square miles, has suffered badly at the hands of nature. Major faults have regularly fragmented the Barnsley seam, leading to the closures of Whitemoor and North Selby mines.

The complex enjoyed its best run in the early 1990s, first under British Coal and then with charismatic coal baron Richard Budge at the helm. In September 1995, just eight months after RJB Mining bought the complex from British Coal, Wistow Mine set a new European weekly output record of just over 200,000 tonnes. It was the stuff of dreams.

The complex, then comprising five pits, was digging out up to 12 million tonnes a year and turning in annual profits of over £100 million. In the last two years it has struggled to turn out less than five million tonnes.

The writing was on the wall when Whitemoor Mine merged with Riccall in 1996 and North Selby was swallowed up by Stillingfleet the following year - both victims of poor geology.

Ironically, Mr Budge is now seen by some miners as the man who could have saved Selby. Although not exactly top of their Christmas card list, they saw him as someone who was prepared to fight for the industry.

Ken Rowley, National Union of Mineworkers' branch secretary at Wistow Mine, said: "We're a pit, not a nuts and bolts factory, and geological problems come with the territory.

"We need breathing space to get through faulting and develop new reserves but we've been sacrificed on the altar of short-termism.

"Richard Budge wanted to plough profits back into the industry but the board members wanted to give the money to shareholders. This industry isn't suited to privatisation - it's as simple as that."

NUM Yorkshire area secretary Steve Kemp says closing Selby is the "economics of the madhouse" when the country is importing 35 million tonnes of coal a year - some three million tonnes more than the UK's entire output.

He said: "Yes, the foreign coal coming into this country is cheaper but only because it's heavily subsidised.

"Profits are being put before the nation's interests and we have called on the Government to take the industry back into public ownership."

Updated: 11:11 Tuesday, July 16, 2002