Coalfield Areas: Sports Facilities

Bill Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) on securing this important debate and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on his passion and enthusiasm for the changes that we are seeking in coalfield communities.

Coalmining was a major industry in Ayrshire from the mid-1700s until the mid-1980s, which saw the last of the deep mines in Ayrshire—or the National Coal Board west area, as it was known. Today, the surface scars of the collieries are all but gone, leaving a unique landscape of pine forests, moors, lakes and recovered open-cast sites. There are also many sites of special scientific interest, and I am pleased to report that the area hosts an abundance of wildlife.

When the coalfields were thriving, sport and culture also thrived. Over the past 150 years some remarkably talented individuals, including musicians and sports personalities, in sports ranging from boxing to bowling—not least Bill Shankly, of football fame—have hailed from Ayrshire mining communities. Bill Shankly was born not quite in my constituency but in a neighbouring constituency, in a small village called Glenbuck. It produced a number of world-class footballers.

Sadly, many such villages have disappeared, but since the mines closed the communities have remained proud and resilient. In recent years, for example, members of the Dalmellington curling club have worked to reinstate the outside curling pond at Craigengillan—currently the only self-levelling curling pond in Scotland—and almost certainly using granite curling stones quarried on the island of Ailsa Craig, off the coast of my constituency. Moreover, the Dalmellington band—it is well worth going to hear it play; it does very well in competitions throughout the UK—is playing on after 150 years in the Doon Valley.

There is much evidence to suggest an unhappy correlation between lower indices of health and fitness, life expectancy and deprivation in former coalfield communities, and a great deal of evidence to suggest that sports facilities are an excellent means by which to improve that particularly bad situation. At the moment, a number of organisations are doing sterling work for the welfare of former coalfield communities. Locally, we have East Ayrshire Council, the East Ayrshire Coalfield Environment Initiative, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, to name but a few. Indeed, another local organisation, the Coalfield Communities Landscape Partnership—it aims to reconnect communities with the landscape by creating opportunities for leisure, tourism and, we hope, jobs—has recently secured £2.5 million of national lottery funding, which will do much to support its work.

There is, however, a danger of overlap, and although I am very much aware that elements of sport are a devolved matter, community health and wellbeing is a matter of UK-wide importance. In many communities, the loss of sports facilities such as games halls, golf courses and bowling greens has left a significant health gap. Will the Minister therefore consider whether, despite the devolved elements, a UK-wide approach, with some form of joint working between Governments and the various support organisations, might see increased efficiency in the improvement of existing sports facilities, and in some cases the construction of new ones in former coalfield communities UK-wide? I will just mention that the proposed UK prosperity fund might be a till that one could dip into to improve some of these facilities, which are much needed.

There is the potential to make a significant contribution to the health and wellbeing of these communities, which in the past have played an immense part in the success of industry throughout the UK. We have taken the deep-mine coal, we have taken the open-cast coal and, as if that were not enough, we are now stealing the wind—for renewable energy—from these communities, particularly around the Doon Valley. I say to the Minister that it may be time to pay them back for what they have given to the United Kingdom.