A TASKFORCE has been set up to look at how the coal industry can be sustained after major job losses.
Scottish Coal, which runs six open-cast mines in East Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire and Fife, announced it is in liquidation last week, with the loss of almost 600 jobs.
Energy Minister Fergus Ewing's new group will include cross-party MSPs and engage with councils, landowners, coal operators and communities.
Announcing the closures on Friday, administrators KPMG cited a combination of falling coal prices and rising operational costs. A group of 142 staff had been retained while administrators consider what to do with Scottish Coal's assets.
The largest job losses are at the Broken Cross site at Douglas Water in South Lanarkshire, where 191 posts will go; at the Dalfad mine in Muirkirk, East Ayr-shire, 101 jobs will go; and 89 will go at Dunstonhill in Patna, East Ayrshire.
Mr Ewing said the Government is also keen to address concerns about the restoration of open-cast coal sites. The Scottish Mines Restoration Trust aims to help facilitate the restoration of old open-cast mines across Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article