Daw Mill

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Daw Mill was a coal mine near the village of Arley in Warwickshire, England. It was Britain's biggest coal producer and the last remaining mine in the West Midlands. The mine opened in the 1950s and was owned and run by UK Coal. In 2008 it employed about 680 people and mined a thick section of coal known as the Warwickshire Thick.

The two shafts at Daw Mill were sunk in the late 1950s and early 1970s, and in 1983 an inclined tunnel was added to bring coal to the surface more quickly. The mine was connected to former local collieries Kingsbury and Dexter. In 2008 Daw Mill set a British coal-mine output record by producing about 3.25 million tonnes of coal.

Tragically, three workers were killed in mining accidents at Daw Mill in 2006 and 2007. In 2011 UK Coal was fined £1.2 million for safety breaches.

On 22 February 2013 a major underground fire broke out, described as the worst blaze in Britain for 30 years. Ninety-two workers were safely rescued, but by early March the fire was not yet out and the future of the mine was in doubt. In March 2013 UK Coal announced the mine would close, and in July 2013 the site was sold after UK Coal went into insolvency.

The Daw Mill site was taken over by Harworth Estates, which proposed turning the land into a business park with a rail hub. The plans faced local opposition and were revised several times. In 2018 the Court of Appeal ruled that there could be no further appeals and that the land must be restored to green field use within the green belt.