AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

THE COMMON ROOM

8th October 1965, Page 98
8th October 1965
Page 98
Page 98, 8th October 1965 — THE COMMON ROOM
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

By George Wilmot Lecturer in Transport Studies, University of London

REGIONAL STUDIES—The North Wales Coalfield

IS there any future for the North Wales coalfields as an industrial area? Its traditional industries are in decline inland in Flintshire and Denbighshire; only five collieries are producing coal; the demand for fireclay products is reduced and lead mining long since abandoned. A crescentshaped area stretches from Point of Air through Mold, Llangollen .to Oswestry on the west and Queensferry, Hawarden to Bangor-on-Dee on the east, with Wrexham as its main town, and the industrial area has always experienced difficulties.

There are three basic impediments to refurbishing the area industrially inland away from the Dee estuary. They were impediments to the area in the early days of the industrial revolution and have remained unchanged today. First, the coalfield area is on a plateau averaging 600 ft., but deeply cut by innumerable rivers and forming a " step " from the low-lying Cheshire Plain to the Clwydian Hills which rise to over 1,000 ft. Secondly, there has always been a social stress between the Welsh pastoral economy and the English industrialist, a conflict which has never been satisfactorily resolved.

Arising from these two, transport facilities have never been geared to the needs of the industrial area and currently lag behind minimum requirements. In successive stages the canals and railways failed, to provide satisfactory outlets for products, roads were poorly developed and the silting of the Dee estuary was a severe blow for coastwise trade in Flintshire products.

c46 Apart from the three market towns—Wrexham, Mold and Oswestry—settlements have remained rooted to an original haphazard growth usually around coal pits. Thus there are few large centres of populations, only innumerable hamlets poorly accessible to road links. In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the main bus operator—Crosville—finds the maintaining of stage services increasingly difficult. All too many do not pay their way and it can only be a matter of time, in present circumstances, before many routes are abandoned.

The only stable industries inland of the Dee estuary are the &mho steelworks, the Monsanto chemical plant at Ruabon and the divergent light industry at the trading estate south of Wrexham. The move in the past two decades has been towards the Dee estuary, where the Shotton strip mill and,Courtaulds at Flint and Holywell act as the main magnets. It is here that the industrial future of the area lies with links with Merseyside itself, where the spread of industry is moving out to meet the Dee estuary expansion. • It could well be that the future of the inland area lies as a residential zone for the industries of Merseyside and the Dee estuary. If this does take place the first priority must be to reshape transport. Better roads are of crucial importance, railway closures need to be re-examined and help is needed for Crosville and the small independent operators. Transport must be co-ordinated at an early stage if past mistakes are not to be repeated.

Tags

Locations: Crosville

comments powered by Disqus