NORTH-EAST coal could help the UK solve its energy crisis, according to the North East Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber today publishes the findings of an investigation into the future of coalmining in this region, which outlines the role the industry has to play in the region's economy.

The report calls for an urgent review of attitudes towards coal extraction.

The chamber is concerned that outdated perceptions of the impact of mining is jeopardising applications to start mining sites.

At the time of publication of the report, no planning consents have been given for coalmining in the North-East after the last licence expires in 2007.

The chamber warns this could mean the demise of an industry worth an annual £53m to the local economy and which employs 1,170 people and supports about 500 other jobs.

The chamber's policy development manager, Rob McMullen, said: "Unless there is a shift in attitude and a change in decision-making, this region will lose hundreds of jobs and millions of pounds worth of revenue.

"The current energy crisis highlights graphically the worrying situation we find ourselves in. We are becoming increasingly reliant on overseas suppliers for our future fuels. That will have a detrimental effect on major coal users in this region.

"There are also environmental concerns to consider. Shipping coal halfway round the world is hardly the greenest solution when we have vast reserves beneath the ground in the North-East."

The report says there are a number of high-profile companies in the North-East that would benefit from local coal.

Businesses such as Wilton power station, in east Cleveland, and the Tees Valley steel industry would all be potential markets.

Mr McMullen said: "The North East Chamber of Commerce understands local arguments against specific sites, but opencast mining is no longer the grimy, noisy, unsightly neighbour it once was.

"Stringent environmental regulations are now the norm to ensure this form of mining is a temporary, responsible neighbour."

The region's last deep mine, Ellington Colliery, in Northumberland, closed in January, when sea water began flooding the pit's remaining production face.

When the coal industry was nationalised in 1947, there were nearly 1,000 pits in the UK, employing up to a million miners. There were hundreds in the North-East and North Yorkshire, but by the 1990s there were few left.

A total of 24 pits closed in 1985, 16 the following year, and 35 during the next three years. Closures continued in the early 1990s until the industry was privatised at the end of 1994.

Less than a third of the UK's energy is still produced by the coal industry.

At its height in the 1970s, it was 80 per cent.

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