Another one from the BBC...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7490494.stm  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7490494.stm 

A miners' club, which has been a landmark since it opened in 1923, is closing its doors for the last time.

The administrators of Wrexham Miners' Institute say membership is now so low that they can no longer afford to pay the £3,000-a-month heating bills.

Employees and the few remaining regulars have reacted with dismay.

Stewardess Shirley Martin said: "When I took this job up I honestly thought I'd be coming up off here in a coffin - not see it being closed."

"I remember when I worked here years ago, when the miners were on strike, this place used to be packed", she added.

But director Denzil Pemberton said despite its long and colourful history, the institute would close after Saturday because it has run out of money.

"We're just in the position where it would be irresponsible to carry on," he said.

"It's come to the stage now when the heating bills are £3,000 a month - you can't support that on 10 people a night."

The future of the institute is still to be decided. Although nor a listed building it lies in a conservation area.

"The building is owned by a charitable trust, it'll probably be sold off," added Mr Pemberton.

This could lead to a loss of a local sporting venue.

Former chairman, Tony Baines, said: "At the moment we host snooker teams, bowling teams, domino teams and dart teams."

"There's a bigger side to this than just the licensed premises issue.

"No-one's told us what the plans are, but if we lose the building we lose all that."

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£100 a day heating bills!! What size is the place? Solar panels?

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£3k per month!!!! and that's just the heating? Gee whizz!

Miners institutes have been closing throughout the country for years, many have been turned into flats or just left boarded up. They are a great loss to local communities, but when finding reasons not to provide money for grants to improve insulation or install more efficient heating, local and central government seem unable to factor in the social cost to the community, or the monetary cost to themselves of replacing the facillities once provided.

Plans to repair and refurbish the 1893 Miners & Mechanics Institute in St Agnes have taken a decade to put together and work has only been able to start now because the trustees have taken on a large loan to get things underway. The alternative was losing what lottery money and grants they have managed to get (which are time limited) and starting the whole application process for funding again - which would probably not be forthcoming given the projected London Olympics overspend. Industrial heritage is still a poor relation when it comes to applying for grants.

On the plus side when the works are finished next year there are plans to put the iInstitute's collection of mining photographs on public display and run a local mining heritage centre alongside community facillities.

In the meantime if anyone knows a potential generous benefactor....

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