Website Title: Renaissance South Yorkshire

National Coalfields Programme

The Government's National Coalfields Programme assists former coalfield communities across England by creating new employment, homes, leisure facilities and public space.

The ten-year programme is operated for the Government by English Partnerships, the national regeneration agency. In Yorkshire the programme has a budget of £163 million and is entirely managed by Renaissance South Yorkshire on behalf of the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward. Some of the projects are outside of the South Yorkshire boundary but are managed by the company as part of the Yorkshire programme.

The bulk of that investment, some £93 million, is going into South Yorkshire where we are managing 31 separate coalfield projects. To date 165,000 sq metres of new industrial and commercial floor space and the capacity for 5,500 new jobs have been created. By the time all the projects are completed, capacity for a total of 15,000 new jobs will have been created.

Renaissance South Yorkshire has been leading the way on the transfer of large areas of public open space on former coalfield sites to the Land Restoration Trust (LRT). The LRT is a partnership between English Partnerships, the Forestry Commission and Groundwork, established by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster (ODPM) to manage large areas of public open space. To date, three sites have been transferred to the LRT at Bentley, Hickleton and Brodsworth with Bentley and Hickleton being the first transfers in the country.