From Coal to Internet Shopping

Monday, 10th December 2012.
Kings Bromley Marina.

Love it or hate it,  Internet shopping is here to stay and one of the largest Internet shops, Amazon opened a new centre in Rugeley in August 2011.

The Flair building, as it's called, is part of a business park which has been built on the site of the old Lea Hall Colliery which closed in 1990 after operating for 30 years and producing 37 million tons of coal.

The huge building, which at 700.000 square feet is one of the biggest in the UK was empty for 2 years before Amazon took a 15 year lease at a cost of £42million.

Its very big.

 

44 loading bays and almost as many on the other side.

 

Around 700 people are employed which swells to 1300 over the Christmas period. In the seventies and eighties the main employers were the pit and the power station but after the pit closed and the power station became more automated things were bleak, the new business park must be a welcome sight for local people.

Not many signs like this around.

 

The business park has grown quickly and with it all the usual add on's, McDonald's, Premier Inn and a pub called "The Collier".

Lea Hall Colliery was started at the same time as Rugeley "A" power station with the coal going from pit head to the power station on conveyor belts, Rugeley "A" power station was replaced in the seventies by Rugeley "B", the original eventually being demolished, the cooling towers and new gas desulfurization plant dominate the skyline for miles around.

Rugeley power Station 2012, now owned by a multinational

 and fired by coal brought in by train.