Staffordshire miners statues could go up within year
A memorial honouring former miners in a Staffordshire town could be installed within a year it has emerged.
Plans to build four sculptures on Rugeley's Globe Island were given the go-ahead by the district council last week.
The group behind the plans say they still need to raise hundreds of pounds to pay for the plinths that the sculptures will stand on but they say they are confident the cash can be found.
The memorial plans were lodged by the Lea Hall and Brereton Collieries' Memorial Society.
The society's acting chairman Brian Batey said today: "Now we've had planning permission for the memorial, we need to draw up a contract with a sculptor.
"Then we have to approach the county council and district council with that agreement.
"We'd hope to have the memorial installed by this time next year."
Members of the Lea Hall and Brereton Collieries' Memorial Society are going along to the Museum of Cannock Chase in Hednesford to a miners' reunion weekend on September 21 and 22.
There they will be selling mining memorabilia and DVDs to try and raise money.
Mr Batey said models of the statues would be on display for people to see how they will actually look when they are installed in Rugeley.
The society is also holding a Motown music night at the Lea Hall Social Club in Sandy Lane, Rugeley on September 13 to help boost the coffers.
Tickets are £5 on the door.
The plans for the memorial were approved last Wednesday by Cannock Chase Council despite fears being raised that the statues would distract drivers and cause crashes. Councillors at the meeting unanimously voted in favour of the plans saying the town would not exist but for its mining past and that the fears were unfounded.
Rugeley, which was home to the Lea Hall and Brereton collieries, is the only town in the Cannock Chase district not to have a statue commemorating its mining past. Last year the Lea Hall and Brereton Collieries' Memorial Society won a £70,000 grant to build a memorial. The sculptures will show four pitmen, each one facing one of the four converging roads from the Globe island. They will be made from concrete resin.
