Legal News
Study to Investigate Human Cost of Coal Mining (19 October 2011)
Date: 19/10/2011
A new £1 million research project is to investigate the human cost of coal mining. According to academics, the five-year programme is set to challenge the understandings of disability. The researchers are to look into the history of disability in the coal mining industry between 1780 and 1948. The project will comprise a team of academics from the universities of Swansea, Strathclyde, Northumbria, and Aberystwyth. The project will be funded by the Wellcome Trust and will run from October 2012 until September 2016.
Health and Safety Executive statistics reveal that there have been seven mining-related deaths in the UK since 2007. These statistics were compiled before the recent mining incident at the Gleision Colliery in the Swansea Valley in which four men lost their lives. Dr. Steven Thompson of Aberystwyth University, who is involved in the project, claims that the team will undertake a detailed historical study to reveal the human cost of coal and the price paid in sickness, injury, and disability.
Dr. David Turner of Swansea University said that the project’s findings are likely to challenge understandings of disability. It will do this by “demonstrating that attitudes and policies are socially constructed, and therefore open to change”. Dr. Turner added that the project would contribute to the current debates relating to welfare relief and the ability to work.
Duncan Lewis’ expert team of personal injury solicitors are able to aid clients who have suffered from ill health due to the conditions in which they work and help them obtain the compensation they deserve. The department is able to put forth legal cases for both specialist and general damages.