Jobs for former colliery

The business park is one of many in former coalfields

Work has started on a major business park in the East Midlands that is expected to create 2,000 jobs at a disused colliery.

Shirebrook in Derbyshire is a former mine site that was blighted by pit closures a decade ago.

The £20m regeneration project will include homes, offices and business units at the site near the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border.

Regeneration Minister Tony McNulty said the plan was for long-term sustainable development at Shirebrook.

Fight back

"What is so exciting about today is that Shirebrook is fighting back," he said.

Manny Gatt, the managing director at Business Link, a firm located at another regeneration project near Nottingham said the revamping of colliery sites could work.

"The Phoenix Centre was formerly a colliery, but now employs more than 2,000 people which is more than the colliery did in its day."

Neil Burgin of the East Midlands Development Agency said: "The target is 2,000 jobs, which would replace most of the jobs lost in Shirebrook when the colliery closed more than 10 years ago."