Strange but I just don't see "vast areas of land that cannot be built on because of the threat of subsidence", instead I see landscaped areas where slag heaps used to be and lots of new housing estates where collieries used to be located - take a look at the landscape in a five mile radius of Xscape and you'll see the same.

I lived in two locations that were built above former colliery workings, a simple "coal" survey is now the norm for conveyancing and if the mortgage provider is still nervous then an indemnity policy is all that is required,

Take a further drive down the M1 and you will see large areas that are the opposite. Especially where the Selby Coal Seam reaches near the surface.

My point is simple, many of those suggesting we should still be mining are opposed to Fracking - why? I think we both know the answer to that.

You're most fond of claiming to be misquoted yourself, so quotes please as support for these claims, because I'm struggling to remember when I have been "so supportive of mining".

To help, I'll point out that noting that energy security was not thought through when the mines were closed on the basis of political ideology, or pointing out entire communities were thrown on the scrap heap because of the same ideology, is not the same as being "so supportive of mining".

I only claim when I know its not correct - and many times no evidence has been produced to the contrary - so even you would accept that is fair?

If I have misunderstood your postings then I apologise - maybe my recollections are wrong but I am sure you have suggested we should still be mining as the coal is more energy efficient than the imported stuff we use to fuel our power stations?

You may be misquoting me there

Possible - that is the case

Do you mean the M62 ?

I was involved in a very small way in establishing the first buildings on what became Whitemoor Pit on the Selby coalfield back in 1978-ish (or so) and the size of that development with five or six individual pitheads in the area meant that it attracted miners from all over the country, and large new build housing estates followed - no problems in building on what were technically quite shallow mines, the problem with coal mining has never really been subsidence which when it happens is usually very localised, its the waste produced over decades that left a problem but even that has been dealt with - take a look at what was the mountain of slag left by the Prince of Wales pit for instance after it was re-mined for coal that had been considered too "dirty" to collect previously.

The environmental concerns over fracking are totally different to that of underground coal mining and even the companies doing the fracking don't really know what will happen until it happens - read the article that I linked to previously and the quotes from the company who caused the problems.

I wouldn't describe the Selby coalfield as technically quite shallow, they were deep mines.
Even though Gascoigne Wood was a drift mine, it went deep to the Barnsley seam, which incidentally gets deeper the farther east one goes. 550 to 600m deep on average.
The strata had to be frozen to sink the shafts and drifts.

Hmmm, now I've looked it up three of them were even deeper than that, the old museum of recollections was influenced by the idea that Gascoigne Wood didn't need a shaft as such and initially back in the 70s it was suggested that they could surface mine it - I've been to Gascoigne Wood some years ago as a bio-tech company of some description had moved in and led us a merry dance on some equipment they wanted to buy from us, they disappeared a few months later, we also had some business with RJB there too when they were running the place AND at Hatfield where I got a tour of the pithead structures, nothing ever came of those enquiries either

So of course you've got me curious now as to what the pit was like that one of my brother in laws worked at until its closure during the 1985 strike and while the info isn't the actual shaft that he worked down its part of the overall complex of Cowpen colliery which became known as Bates, some of those seams that are named on the chart are ones that he worked on although by the 1980's they were working well out under the sea, he used to tell us that the face workers had a journey of at least an hour to get to their place of work - anyway here is the geology of a 700 foot coal mine ... http://www.dmm.org.uk/shafts/c031-01.htm In 1985 Bates employed 1735 men, 1454 of them below ground.

So of course you've got me curious now as to what the pit was like that one of my brother in laws worked at until its closure during the 1985 strike and while the info isn't the actual shaft that he worked down its part of the overall complex of Cowpen colliery which became known as Bates, some of those seams that are named on the chart are ones that he worked on although by the 1980's they were working well out under the sea, he used to tell us that the face workers had a journey of at least an hour to get to their place of work - anyway here is the geology of a 700 foot coal mine ... http://www.dmm.org.uk/shafts/c031-01.htm In 1985 Bates employed 1735 men, 1454 of them below ground.