Tower's vote on drift mine plan

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Miners at Wales' last deep mine are to vote on setting up a joint venture with a nearby drift mine.

Tower Colliery, in the Cynon Valley, is due to close within a year but the plans before a meeting on Wednesday could save around 100 jobs.

Last week it emerged negotiations with a German firm which wants to set up a gasification plant had stalled.

Tower Colliery closed in 1994 but was bought and re-opened by its own miners the following year. It has 375 miners.

Last autumn it was announced coal seams being worked by Tower's workforce will be exhausted in two to three years.

At the time, Tower chairman Tyrone O'Sullivan said it was possible that mining in south Wales could continue elsewhere.

Changing market

Aberpergwm drift mine in the Neath Valley still has workable reserves and with no shortage in demand for coal, more workers will be needed in the coming years.

The workforce at Tower are to vote on whether to throw in their lot with Aberpergwm in a joint venture.

If they decide to, it could mean up to 100 miners will have jobs to go to when Tower closes.

Many of the others will either retire or look for new jobs in a Welsh coal industry which some believe could revive due to a changing energy market.

Last week, representatives of German firm KBI visited the area to investigate potential sites for a gasification plant it claimed could bring 162 jobs.

But a possible land deal with Tower at Hirwaun has fallen through.

KBI said it was looking at nearby Hirwaun Industrial Estate as a possible location for the gas plant to turn all kinds of waste into gas, which could be converted to provide power for 20,000 homes.