CHASE FOR PRODUCTION

Series

Series Name
Mining Review 8th Year

Issue

Issue No.
8
Date Released
Apr 1955
Stories in this Issue:
  1. 1WIGAN SKIPS
  2. 2WHUPPITY SCOORIE
  3. 3CHASE FOR PRODUCTION
  4. 4JO HAre

Story

Story No. within this Issue
3 / 4
Summary
BFI synopsis: reconstruction of Cannock Chase.
NCB Commentary - Under the bleak landscape of Staffordshire’s Cannock Chase a big reconstruction project is moving towards completion.
Not so long ago it was brown and sweet that kept going on the Chase - like it still is at the old pit at East Cannock. The coal’s still coming out here, but there’s not much left in the seams and old fashioned methods are too costly. Soon East Cannock will be closing down and its men will be transferred to other pits in the area now being reorganised.
As soon as new equipment is installed it is set to work. Here at West Cannock No.5, the pit top installation has yet to be completed and roofed over, but big new 2 1/2 ton minecars keep the coal moving out under makeshift conditions.
Soon West Cannock’s new lamphouse will be completed. Already the pithead baths and medical centre are in service.
At Littleton, automatic handling of heavy mine cars has been in full swing for some time. Along concreted floors, past permanent control towers, under cover from start to finish, over half a million tons a year is sent rolling on towards its destination.
But the real forward looking side of the Cannock plan depends upon new sinkings like the one at Lea Hall, newa Rugeley. Here the ground’s being frozen so that sinking can go on through the wet and a new colliery rise out of the Chase, linked to a Power Station next door.
Already they’ve hit the first coal seam. To carry out these plans men and women from all over the country and abroad as well, have been brought together on a new housing estate in the area they’ve chosen to make their home.
Wherever they come from, they’re Cannock folk now and they’re working in an area that has big plans for the future.
Researcher Comments
Commentary recorded 7 March 1955.
Keywords
Buildings and structures; Mining
Locations
England; Staffordshire
Written sources
British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956
Credits:
Production Co.
Documentary Technicians Alliance
Sponsor
National Coal Board

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