‘Land we paid for is being sold for millions – but we don’t see the benefit’

Former mining communities say they are missing out on millions of pounds of investment from the sale of social welfare sites that miners helped pay for.

A BBC Investigation found most of the £12.2m raised by selling 27 sites over the past 14 years had gone to the only national mining charity, but ex-miners and their families say the money has not been reinvested locally.

The aim of the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation (CISWO) is to improve the lives of former miners and their families in England, Scotland and Wales – but many of their services have been cut in recent years and local campaign groups say they don’t see enough investment.

CISWO says many of the buildings sold had been closed for years beforehand, and that it “cannot ring-fence funds for specific use in only one area”.

Among the sites to have been sold is Maltby Miners Welfare Institute, which sits in the midst of a housing estate in South Yorkshire.

Once home to a popular bar, known fondly as the Stute, it is now a plot of wasteland.

Terry Gormley remembers his first job collecting glasses in the bar in the 1980s, when it was the heart of the then-thriving mining town.

“It was a community asset which people have loved for decades,” he said.

Miners welfares date back more than 100 years to when social welfare pots – funded by payments out of miners’ earnings – paved the way for the creation of facilities including pit head showers, recreational grounds and clubs.

The money was “raised by men on their hands and knees with a pick and shovel”, as one former miner put it.

Mr Gormley worked at Maltby Main Colliery throughout the 1980s, with thousands of others. The Stute remained an important place for them to spend time, even as the industry slid into decline in the following decades.

It began to struggle financially and closed down in November 2018.

Mr Gormley set up a Facebook campaign group to save the building, which more than 2,000 people joined.

The campaigners came up with a pitch to turn the Stute into a new social and skills hub, but CISWO “just didn’t believe in it”, Mr Gormley said.

CISWO said it decided to sell the building after it fell into a “dangerous” state of disrepair that would have needed “major rebuilding and investment”.

It said no acceptable bids were put forward to keep the Stute.

It was sold to the highest bidder, a local developer, for £246,000 in 2020 – a move that Mr Gormley feels was “against the will of the people” – with money from the sale going to CISWO.

Six months after the building was sold, it was gutted by a fire and demolished.

“This place was financially viable and it was needed,” Mr Gormley says.

“Now it’s gone forever.”

Eight homes will be built on the site, according to a notice tied to the fence in front of the empty patch of land.

Mr Gormley is among those unhappy that funds from former welfare sites are not reinvested locally.

He believes CISWO has a moral duty to help.

“Not just here but all over the country, it’s the same… the money doesn’t come to the local people as it should.”

Then-Rother Valley MP Alexander Stafford tried to get a response from CISWO by raising the issue in the Commons.

Mr Stafford said he believed money raised must “benefit the people who live in the area that made the coalfields and the pits possible”.

A group of Labour MPs is backing the calls that residual funds from welfare schemes should be retained locally. In a letter sent to CISWO in January and seen by the BBC it said “we do not accept that this would not be feasible”.

CISWO said it invests the money it gets from sales to generate income to be spent in former mining communities across the UK, and has spent £58.8m over the past 14 years.

But CISWO says it cannot limit investments to one geographical area. It adds that it does not keep all of the money from a sale, as it has to pay costs such as debts owed by sites’ trustees.

It also said it had invested “considerably” to support a recreational ground in Maltby, leasing the ground to the town council for 25 years.

Every week about 250 young players at Maltby Main Juniors use the pitches there. Some parents struggle to afford the £3 subs, but chairman Mick Mills says they raise “just enough” to get by.

Mr Mills, who had been part of the ‘Save the Stute’ campaign, said: “There’s nowt [else] for kids. I want them to be able to go somewhere and enjoy it.”

The club hopes CISWO will use funds from selling the Stute towards the cost of a new clubhouse and pavilion. CISWO confirmed discussions about possible future investments were taking place.

“There could be a bit of light at the end of the tunnel,” said Mr Mills.

Based in Rotherham, CISWO was created under the Miners’ Welfare Act 1952 to support miners, their families and coalfield areas.

Following the privatisation of the coal industry in 1995, CISWO became a charitable trust, presiding over a network of 400 miners welfares, grounds, centres and convalescent homes.

Some MPs at the time voiced concerns about the future of sites that had, as former miner and Labour MP Dennis Skinner said, “come out of the ribs of the miners and off the shovel”.

He sought assurances that “none of the land would be sold off for development”, however no guarantee was given.

In 2023, a group of cross-party MPs published a report on levelling up former coalfield communities, which criticised CISWO and recommended it should outline its strategic direction to clarify its aims and objective, to allow for better scrutiny.

CISWO’s chief executive, Nicola Didlock, said at the time she was “profoundly disappointed” by the findings and in January 2025 told the BBC the report was “riddled with” inaccuracies.

A survey commissioned by the BBC last year, 40 years on from the 1984 miners’ strike, suggested 73% of people living in former mining towns and villages felt they had seen little or no progress on levelling up.

Former miner David Smith, from Dinnington, who was part of a local group which tried to stop the sale of a playing field, says he sees a “pattern” of CISWO “taking money out” of mining areas.

CISWO sold Dinnington’s “hallowed” old miners’ clubhouse and land to housing developers, for £875,000, in 2020. It said the recreation ground had been empty since 2008.

It said it had spent a “considerable”, confidential, amount of funds on ongoing support for people in the area, and had also invested almost £100,000 towards a nearby 3G football pitch.

However, it costs money to use the pitch and players must have bespoke astroturf trainers, making it “financially inaccessible for Dinnington people”, Mr Smith says.

The BBC found more than 70% of the mining land sold in the past 14 years has been bought by major developers, with evidence of only one site – in Nottingham – being bought by a council for social housing.

Across the country more than one million families and individuals are on social housing waiting lists, with many living in unsuitable accommodation.

The government has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes in England over five years to ease the shortage.

A recent report suggested that more than half of mining neighbourhoods in South Yorkshire are in the top 30% most deprived areas in England.

Chris Kitchen, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, said old miners’ welfare sites are being built on by major developers instead of being used for affordable housing.

He said the new houses were “out of reach and unaffordable” to locals.

Miners’ social welfare payments also funded convalescent homes for injured miners. These have evolved over the years and now offer affordable holidays to former miners and their families.

CISWO funded thousands of places across the country – now only a handful of those sites remain.

Lynwood House in Scarborough is run by the Yorkshire Miners Welfare Convalescent Trust.

The trust is one of a number of mining charities to tell the BBC that when it approached CISWO for financial and administrative help, it received no support. Some have since closed, saying they feel “let down”.

Lynwood, which marks its 40th year in 2025, is facing £200,000 yearly running costs, and funds are depleting despite still having hundreds of clients.

Joan Pickering lost her husband, who was a former miner, 10 years ago and says her trips to Lynwood still feel “like coming home”.

“We would be lost if we hadn’t got this place to come to, there was quite a few different places you could go to with miners and they’ve all gone,” she added.

Ian Gaskell, who works for the trust, is “disappointed” by what he says was a lack of willingness from CISWO to help.

“We’ve appealed to CISWO financially… in every case they’ve said no,” the chairman said.

CISWO said financial support for Lynwood “would not be sustainable, given the deficits”, adding that any potential benefits for Lynwood guests would be “clearly outweighed by other competing funding opportunities”.

CISWO used to be funded by payments from the coal industry and grants from other organisations.

But privatisation of the coal industry meant it had to become self-sufficient, and has been entirely reliant on income from its own investments since 2013.

For the past six years, its average annual income from its £30m long-term investment funds was around £1.1m.

CISWO has also received millions of pounds from the transfer of assets, such as property and land, following the dissolution of other mining charities.

CISWO’s personal welfare payments supported 2,439 people in 2023, compared to almost 10,000 in 2016 – a 75% decline, according to its annual public accounts.

In the past eight years, it has also cut the number of its services and spend through its grants scheme, with around 70% fewer miners and families receiving charity grants. Education grants scheme provided by CISWO have also reduced by 30%.

The charity said it had seen costs rise and fewer people seeking support. It said it had “broadened” support for mining communities, which “changes and evolves as individuals age and needs grow”.

It said it “carries out enormous good works” and had supported more than 130,000 miners or family members over the past 14 years, with more than £8m in grants.

Back in Maltby, Terry Gormley still hopes the miners’ legacy can live on through better support in the future.

“If you ask anyone in this community or any other community, they’ll say they don’t see any of the investment… and where it is really needed is in communities like this.”

Additional data reporting by Antonio Jarne and Jonathan Fagg.