Ollerton - thanks but who cares?

Ollerton was the scene of the first conflict in the bitter miners' strike, in the mid 80's when a Yorkshire picket lost his life. The Ollerton miners worked throughout the strike but to show the government's gratitude were dumped less than 10 years later. On the afternoon of Tuesday 20 September 1994 Kay Cutts hero, Margaret Thatcher's dream of shutting the Pit came to reality and 1000 miners were chucked on the dole. Fortunately for them we had a more caring County Council at the time and a major regeneration program created the "Sherwood Energy Village", which brought in 1,500 new jobs on to the derelict site. However, it soon became clear that the road infrastructure would become inadequate and needed improvement if the energy village were to expand or even survive; read here how the County Council were to do this. Unfortunately the Vogons then landed and once the new administration realised that Ollerton was up north, full of ex-miners and not part of leafy Rushcliffe or Broxtowe a U turn was done. The road improvements were cancelled. Now of course the pay off has happened and the Energy Village has gone bankrupt, see here for details.

Of course this will simply be water off a ducks back to the administration at County Hell, just as 1000 miners on the dole was to the Conservative Government in 1994. Neither have the faintest idea, or interest in where Ollerton is.