Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 6, 1994 TAG: 9405060101
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: EBBW VALE, WALES LENGTH: Medium
``They'd tip more slag onto the heap, and it used to light up like an atomic bomb,'' the 61-year-old plasterer said.
Now, however, the scars - and the jobs - of the defunct Ebbw Vale Steelworks and nearby Marine coal mine are gone. In their place is the new village of Victoria.
When Victoria is finished at the turn of the century, its planners envision a bustling community of 2,500 people, 500 homes, a village center and 1,100 jobs set in a landscape featuring a manmade lake and 63 acres of hillside park.
The reclamation of Victoria, 20 miles north of the Welsh capital of Cardiff, epitomizes South Wales' rebirth after the decline of King Coal and Big Steel.
The revival of ailing industrial towns is taking place not only in the rural valleys of South Wales, but elsewhere in Britain. It is not unlike the efforts some steel towns in the United States have made to rebuild after that industry's troubles in the late 1970s and early '80s.
The Victoria plan has brought varied reactions.
``It's sad to lose the mine and the mill ... but it was a mess, and now they've smarted it up,'' Thomas said.
``It's lovely to look at, but we'd rather have the jobs,'' said Dave Reynish, who worked at the steel mill until it closed in 1978.
At its peak, the steelworks employed 13,000. When the Marine Colliery closed in 1989, another 1,900 jobs disappeared.
The reclamation of the two-mile swath of land in the Gwent Valley that will become Victoria - at a cost of about $30 million - is part of 12,000 acres now being reclaimed in South Wales. The Welsh Development Agency plans to fix up another 7,500 acres in the next five years.
The drive to reclaim formerly industrial land in South Wales began after a disaster in 1966, when a slag heap slipped onto a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.
Initially, the aim was to remove hazards and tackle blight. But when it became clear that reclamation could open the door to new prosperity by providing sites for industry, the pace quickened.
The development agency was set up in 1975 to regenerate the economy and improve the environment of Wales.
The agency so far has developed more than 160 business parks and industrial sites. More than 350 foreign manufacturing companies have located in Wales in the past decade, including European, North American and Japanese firms. Among them are big names such as British Airways, Ford and Sony.
Overseas investors have created, or spared, 110,000 jobs from 1981 to 1991, according to the agency. During the period, 126,101 people were laid off.
But all is not promising.
The last 200 of Wales' deep-pit miners, who numbered a quarter-million in the 1920s, lost their jobs when state-owned British Coal this month closed the Tower coal mine, one valley west of Ebbw Vale.
Worried about their futures, the miners complain that Welsh workers are being exploited by the new, light industries that dot the valleys.
``There's no doubt that we're classed as Third World workers - we have a low economy, and outsiders are coming here and they are abusing the people of these communities,'' said Tyrone O'Sullivan, secretary of Tower Colliery's chapter of the National Union of Mineworkers.
While an experienced miner earns about $30,000 a year, the average wage in Wales is about $21,900.
The jobs in the valleys usually pay much less. Those advertised at the local job center - for a caretaker, clerical worker or cleaner - would pay only about $10,050 a year.
by CNB