Energy Minister scraps order which regulated pit ponies as they are no longer used in mines
Energy Minister Charles Hendry, who is responsible for ushering in a new era of nuclear power, has finally brought the curtain down on a rather more historic age – that of the pit pony.
Just a few months after Tony, believed to be the last pit pony alive, died aged 40, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has decided to scrap the Coal and Other Mines (Horses) Order 1956, which regulated the health and welfare of horses and ponies underground.
A department spokesman said pit ponies had not been used in mines for more than a decade and they would be covered by the Animal Welfare Act anyway.
Outdated: Rules still governed long-gone mine animals
The scrapping of the order was part of the launch on Friday of the Government’s Energy Red Tape Challenge, with Hendry promising to scrap burdensome energy regulations that affect businesses.
‘Whether it is complex regulations deterring new entrants to the energy market, overbearing regulation on microgeneration or outdated regulation of pit ponies, we need to sharpen up,’ he said.
According to UK Coal, the last four working pit ponies – Alan, Carl, Tom and Flax – came blinking to the surface at Ellington Colliery, Northumberland, on February 24, 1994.
The ponies were sent to the National Coal Museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and animal shelters in the local area. Their journey to the surface in 1994 marked the end of a partnership between man and beast that stretched back three centuries.
More than 70,000 ponies were used in Britain’s coal mines at the turn of the 20th Century. Miners developed close relations with their ponies, often sharing their lunch with the animals, who only came to the surface for a few weeks in the summer holidays.
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