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Telegraph web site - Grimey

This was on the Telegraph web site today....

Monkey

Grimethorpe is given the brass to take away the grimness
By Paul Stokes

 Grimethorpe Colliery Band
  Grimethorpe Electronic Village Hall

   A DEPRESSED former mining village is undergoing a 2.7 million
facelift designed to lift the spirits of its 4,250 residents.
Although it will take some of the grime out of Grimethorpe, near
Barnsley, south Yorkshire, locals stood firm against a proposal to
change its name. Derelict houses are to be bulldozed and a tree-fringed
village green created, with footpaths and a cycle track, to host summer
ftes and carol concerts.

The community was portrayed as the ficticious Grimley in the film,
Brassed Off, which told of a community fighting to save its pit from
closure while supporting its brass band. It echoed the reality of the
area where 6,000 jobs were lost when Grimethorpe colliery closed seven
years ago along with a local smokeless fuel plant, power station and
British Coal workshops. With one in three currently out of work and the
average household income just 8,000 a year, it is one of the poorest
places in Britain.

Tara Fitzgerald, who played the leading female role in the film,
described it as "the arsehole of nowhere" in a magazine interview. Work
on the project started this month and is expected to be completed in a
year. It is being funded by the Government and the EU as part of a 25
million plan to attract inward investment and create new jobs in the old
South Yorkshire coalfield.

Nigel Tipple, executive officer of the Grimethorpe Regeneration Board,
said: "We're not trying to wipe Grimethorpe off the face off the earth.
We hope people will still recognise the village. It will retain its own
culture and community spirit although physically it will look much
different.

"Brassed Off summed up every outsider's perception of Grimethorpe and
even the people living here never thought its rundown image would
change. Our remit is to change that image and bring new prosperity. It's
a matter of building up local people's esteem and equipping them with
new skills. They have an abundance of work ethic and the ability to
graft."

Villagers, tenants, youth groups and the local parish council were all
consulted over the village centre scheme. Houses on the High Street,
venue for the film's "In Cod We Trust" fish and chip shop, will be
refurbished.

Grimethorpe's infamous Seaside estate, so-called because its streets are
named after mainly South Coast resorts, where a three-bedroom terraced
house was for sale for 2,750 a few years ago, is to be demolished
within two years. Some 250 new private sector houses, the first there
since the end of the War, will be built around the new village green and
on the site of the Seaside estate.

Mick Hanley, 48, a former National Coal Board electrician, has lived in
the village for 46 years and is an adviser to the Grimethorpe
Partnership which has been set up to revive the village. He sees the new
scheme as the bigest transformation of the village since the pit shaft
was sunk there in 1894.

He said: "These are exciting times. We are just turning the clock back
from semi-urban to rural. This was one of the biggest industrial
villages in Europe but the old industry has gone. The project will
radically improve the village and I can see the day, in 10 or 20 years'
time, when people will be moving into the village to live and work. If
truth be known, we've always been a Middle England village at heart."

An industrial estate, link road, medical centre and transport
interchange are all being built to attract employment and a large
manufacturer is due to move in later this year.


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