Writing in this week's ‘Sunday Times', Ian Coulter, the paper 's industrial correspondent, forecasts that massive manpower losses in the coalfieids will present the country with an energy gap of at least 13 per cent by 1970, and will involve the paynent of an extra 2200 million a year for increased oil imports. The loss of men, he says, “is running at the rate of 3, 190 a wonth, and a symptom of the decline is the fact that in coalfields as far apart as Llanelli in Wales, Welbeck in Nottinghamshire and Moston, near Manchester, some 250 new Coal Board houses are empty beside profitable pits.”
Tan Coulter discusses the implications of the accelerated run-down of the mining force for the success of George Brown's National Plan, due for completion in 1970. “No such crisis in the energy field was foreseen when the Plan was published last September. To be sure, manpower had been running down for years, and between 1960 and 1%5 averaged 27,000 men net each year. But the Plan confidently asserted that in the next few years the fall would slacken off. Instead the decline has accelerated, Since the Plan was published the net loss each month has been running at over 38,000 a year, or 11,000 a year more than the planners bargained for’ "In terms of coal production this will mean a short fall of 25 per cent by 1970. Inspite of the promised increase in mechanical coal-cutting from 80 per cent to 100 per cent, the industry will be 45 million tons short of the 175 million ton target set by Mr. Brown. Manpower will be about 264,000 instead of the hoped-for 333,000. This grim prospect will be put before the Government together with a warning that by 1970 the country's balance of paywents will have to carry an extra £200 million for oil .... North Sea Gas will be on stream in considerable volume by 1970, and many new nuclear electric power stations will be operating; but these are likely to produce only about 18 million tons of coal equivalent energy."
The article concludes that this embarrassment to the National Plan is, in part, a result of the Plan itself: “The National Plan's estimate that the ... 1970 requirements would be only 175 million tons undoubtedly affected morale in the pits. Most of the men leaving the indwtry are in the 25 to 40 age group, and their outlook is bound to be affected by how they see the industry's long term prospects."