HALF a century has passed since the last shift clocked off at Elemore Colliery and emerged from the darkness into an uncertain future. Today, the landscape is very different.
The grey spoil heaps have been replaced by vibrant, green countryside, with woods alive with birdsong – and the future is about to get even brighter.
That’s because the 50th anniversary of the colliery closure coincides with the launch this month of a £2.1m initiative to help nature thrive on the site, along with 12 other green areas within the Coalfield Area of Sunderland.
It was February 1, 1974, when Elemore pit – a few miles from the County Durham border – closed for good, and it wasn’t until the 1990s that the 61-hectare site was reclaimed to make way for a golf course.
The course lasted until 2019, before being replaced in 2022 with a flagship eco-park –Elemore Country Park – which saw Sunderland City Council planting more trees and improving the infrastructure with new paths, play areas, and a ‘trim[1]trail’.
Now, an ambitious initiative, called Links with Nature, is ready to take the site to the next stage of its natural development.
Links with Nature is a partnership between Durham Wildlife Trust, Sunderland City Council, and the Wear Rivers Trust, working alongside people from local communities to boost wildlife habitats and improve access to countryside close to their homes.
Alongside Elemore, the initiative includes a network of sites that provide equally important greenspace for residents: Elemore Vale, Copt Hill, Herrington Burn at Shiney Row, Herrington Country Park, Flint Mill, Hazard Railway and Woodland, Hetton Bogs, Hetton Lyons Country Park, Hetton Park, Keir Hardie Park, Red Burn at Rainton Meadows, and Success Railway all have fascinating stories to tell.
It has been made possible by funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Sunderland City Council, North East Community Forest, and Northumbrian Water’s Bluespaces programme.
And, as she looks out of the café window across to the entrance to Elemore Country Park – with its acres of woods, grasslands, and lakes – Links with Nature Project Manager, Anne Gladwin, clearly can’t wait to get started.