4.6.Changes+in+Industry+-+South+Wales

6. What affects changes in the location of manufacturing?
The location of secondary industry has always been effected by factors such as
 * materials
 * energy
 * labour markets
 * transport and land ( space and whether it is flat enough)

These factors are still influential but some less so and some new ones have become more important

 * TNCs, some of which have a bigger turnover than the total GDP of a medium-sized country, are the most influential in deciding where new industry should be located. Their prime motivation is to find the cheapest places to work from, so making the most profit from the factory that they can
 * Governments can also influence where factories are located. If they have a low tax regime and can supply cheap educated labour that are controlled by strict labour laws, then these are all + points. If they make sure that the road,port and airport system is good, this helps too.
 * So the availability of the right sort of labour is also very important. For mass production of goods that require simple process, large scale cheap labour is very important. But for higher-tech production, cost is not the main issue, but high skill and access to modern technology is far more important. This is why, despite loosing a lot of mass production industry in the UK, we are still 6th most important country for industrial output in the world.

But certain other factors have slipped down the pecking order:
Transport - is fast and efficient to anywhere in the world and so is not a bonus to any partiuclar place. And in consequence, being close to the market is rarely an issue with possibly the exception of a product like bread that needs to be freshly made and thus must be close to the market. Communications ( as in telecomms) are good nearly everywhere - even LICs have good mobile phone networks, this too is no longer important. Energy, mostly supplied by electricity, is also almost universally available. A nearby source of materials is now rarely an issue, unlike in the early days of the Industrial revolution - **//see South Wales//**

[[image:B4.1A_Cement.png align="right"]]
**//below//**. But again there is an exception or 2. Where the raw materials are easily damaged, like soft fruit for example, then jam and preserve makers do tend to be located near the where the fruit is produced e.g. Wilkins of Tiptree in Essex or Baxter'sa in Perthshire, Scotland. A few industries still tend to be near their source of raw materials where the raw materials are very bulky. One such is cement works

Here is how cement is made:
1.) Limestone is taken from a quarry. It is the major ingredient needed for making cement. Smaller quantities of sand and clay are also needed. Limestone, sand and clay contain the four essential elements required to make cement. The four essential elements are calcium, silicon, aluminum and iron. 2.) Boulder-size limestone rocks are transported from the quarry to the cement plant and fed into a crusher which crushes the boulders into marble-size pieces. 3.) The limestone pieces then go through a blender where they are added to the other raw materials in the right proportion. 4.) The raw materials are ground to a powder. This is sometimes done with rollers that crush the materials against a rotating platform. 5.) Everything then goes into a huge, extremely hot, rotating furnace to undergo a process called "sintering". Sintering means: to cause to become a coherent mass by heating without melting. In other words, the raw materials become sort of partially molten. The raw materials reach about 1480°C inside the furnace. This causes chemical and physical changes to the raw materials and they come out of the furnace as large, glassy, red-hot cinders called "clinker".

6.) The clinker is cooled and ground into a fine gray powder. A small amount of gypsum is also added during the final grinding. It is now the finished product - Portland cement.

The cement is then stored in silos (large holding tanks) where it awaits distribution. The cement is usually shipped in bulk in purpose-made trucks, by rail or even by barge or ship. Some is bagged for those who want small quantities.

The Early Iron industry – South Wales 1800 onwards[[image:B4.6A_Map_S_Wales1.png align="right"]]
Here is a map showing the location of the original iron works in South Wales. Notice the concentration in the NE portion of the map. Below are 3 maps that show 3 of the resources necessary for iron ore to be made into iron. Most of the iron works are within the coal field, and also close to the source of rocks that contain iron ore. There are a few exceptions, but most of them are within boating distance of ore – except for that little anomaly right in the centre – we can only guess what that one is! Limestone was available throughout the area as a rock but could only be easily quarried in particular locations. But do remember coal was used as a raw material as well as a fuel source. Good link to the process: []



Coal was already important to the ironworks but then it got a life of its own
Some coal seams reached the valley sides, and were consequently a very safe and easy source of coal. But by the mid-1800s these sources of coal had run out and iIt became necessary to dig down to reach new coal seams. The easiest way to reach them was to build a mine at the bottom of the deep river valleys. Mining was a dirty and dangerous job and in the early part of the 1800s women and children worked underground alongside the men. The work was done by hand with a pick and shovel. Pit ponies dragged the coal back to the shaft to be brought up to the surface. The ponies spent all their working lives underground, only being brought to the surface when they were too old to work. Accidents were common, either from roof collapses or gas explosions. On several occasions hundreds of miners were killed. Spending money on safety sometimes seemed less important for the coal companies than making good profits. Around 3,000 miners died in accidents between 1850 and 1914. Notice from the diagram below that the coal seams in south Wales are quite narrow and at different levels. The mine shafts had to follow the coal seams as they went up and down. At first coal was used mainly in the iron industry. But south Wales coal was of such high quality that it became popular all over the world. By the middle of the 1800s two major developments in transport provided a great boost to the industry. A rail network was built throughout Britain and Europe - the steam trains ran on coal and south Wales coal was in much demand. The rail network made it easier to transport coal to the rest of Britain. Railways in far away British colonies such as India and in Africa used coal from Wales. Ships switched from sail to steam power. As early as 1851 the British navy decided that Welsh coal was the best coal for its ships. Navies and merchant ships around the world used coal from south Wales. In the early 1800s canals were used to transport coal from the valleys down to the dock. But when rail replaced canals the industry really took off. Railways from the Rhondda valley and other coal-mining valleys ran fairly short distances down to the booming docks at Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. Notice how the river valleys naturally provided routes down to the coast. By 1870, 50% of the coal was being exported overseas. The basic physical geography of south Wales had given the region a great advantage over other coal-producing areas. The river valleys gave transport routes and the steep valleys made it easy to mine down to the coal. Coal mining depended on hard, physical labour. The industry was hungry for workers. The boom in the south Wales coal industry attracted people to move to the area from other parts of Wales and from the rest of Britain. The Rhondda valleys became the centre of the coal industry. In 1860 they had a population of around 3,000 people. This had jumped to 160,000 by 1910. People migrated from the rural parts of Wales, but also in great numbers from Ireland, Scotland and England. The English speakers far outnumbered the Welsh speakers. The south Wales coalfield became a "melting pot" of different cultures and people. The mining valleys developed their own unique culture. Strong communities grew up with people sharing the hardships that mine work brought. By and large the coal companies did little to help their workers. There were frequent disputes over pay and conditions. The miners formed unions to try and look after their interests and improve their pay and conditions. Faced by conditions of poor quality housing, outbreaks of disease and the grinding hard work and danger of mining, communities organised themselves to make things better. The mining communities of the south Wales valleys became famous for their strength, and for their choirs, chapels, clubs and rugby teams!

Summary of the factors that helped industry flourish in South Wales
Raw materials: coal, limestone, ore-bearing rocks Fuel: coal Market for the coal: railways, shipping, the navy, factories were cola powered as well, export to Africa and India Labour: many people who lacked work from all over Britain. Once there, they formed into strong and effective communities that supported each other and had generations of skilled. Transport links:
 * river/canals for barges to transport coal and iron
 * from 1841 trains arrived in the valleys
 * new deep water ports at Cardiff, Swansea and Newport

1914 – what next?
The period up to the First World War was the boom period for the south Wales coalfield. Coal production had reached its peak and the industry continued to make profits. At times there had been periods of depression when the price of coal had fallen and miners had lost their jobs or had their pay reduced. But the industry always seemed to be able to bounce back. But things were starting to change. Just as steam had replaced sail in ships, steam was now being replaced by oil. Other countries were producing more of their own coal and didn't need to import it from Wales. But its dependence on coal was very real. 70% of its production was exported. The whole area, mining settlements and the docks, depended on coal. But demand for coal was falling and there were few other industries in south Wales. Iron and steel making, and the manufacture of other metals, were also in decline because other countries had developed their own industries. The 1920s and 1930s were decades of economic depression and poverty in the coalfields. In 1934 unemployment rates of 60% were recorded in parts of the south Wales coalfield. People started to move away. Between 1931 and 1939, 160,000 people migrated from south Wales to look for work in the new industries being developed in other parts of Britain. The decline continued after the Second World War up until the present day. The coal industry was nationalised in 1947 - that means it was taken over by the government. To modernise the industry, machines were needed instead of manual workers. However, many of the coal seams in south Wales weren't suited to the use of modern mining machinery.

Impact of closures
At its peak nearly 300,000 miners had been employed in the coal industry. In 1945 there were 125,000 miners working in 135 pits in south Wales. By the early 1980s that had shrunk to 22,000, and by the early 1990s to below 1,000. Whole communities were devastated when their pit closed. Families lost their income and without the miners' wages, shops and businesses lost trade. People moved away to look for work, and those who stayed found it hard to find a decent job. Ever since the 1930s the government has been trying to attract new industry to the valleys. The Welsh Development Agency continues this work today. But the valleys offer few attractions as a location for modern factories. New companies setting up in Wales over the last 20 years or so have chosen locations near the M4, rather than in the narrow, built-up former mining settlements such as the Rhondda valley. Today, the visible signs of the coal industry have largely been removed. Collieries have been replaced by supermarkets and small industrial units; the old slag heaps of waste rocks have been landscaped and planted with grass and trees. But the scars on the community are slow to heal, and most former mining communities face a range of social and economic problems. Geographers at Cardiff and other universities have recently conducted a study of former mining communities in several coalfield areas in Wales and England. Besides those already mentioned, the researchers found social problems (poor school attendance, family breakdown, teenage pregnancy among others) and health was a bit issue that still hangs over the valleys today. Those who worked in the mines are plagued by emphysema (chronic chest complaint) and those who have had few life chances since have been brought up with a poor diet and obesity is a big issue here too. Petty crime and drug abuse is also a big problem.The housing, old and Victorian or new and built post war are of poor quality; cold and damp being a major problem and environment that exacerbate conditions like asthma and brochettes in children. The people live there have a poor image of themselves and their environment. It feels like a rundown, no hope sort of place. As the researches say ‘ There is a poor image of the area.’ .

The steel industry:
But not all the industries died at once, and the steel industry kept going longer. Now, steel works (as against iron works) need a lot of water for cooling and other processes. New steel works were integrated – a lot of different processes on one site – need a lot of space. They also involve bulk materials both as inputs and of products produced, so the sites of the old ironworks were not any good. Besides the raw materials that the old ironworks had been based had run out long ago. The raw materials by and large had to be imported, so near to the coast was a better place for the steel works to be for a number of reasons. Can you think of 3 of the main one?

Here is one sit of a steel works – Margam Works at Port Talbot Close to the motorway for internal transport A big dock for importing raw materials A large labour force nearby that was used to hard manual labour Plenty of water fro cooling Plenty of flat land for an integrated steel works

But since the 1980s, even steel works have moved to LICs and MICs, where the materials are closer and the costs much lower. Also there is a ready market in many of them in the form of the car industry.

But Wales has not given up
While the deep mines have now all closed, Ffos-y-Fran in Merthyr Tydfil, an open cast mine has recently open to the consternation of many of the local residents. Admittedly it has provided much needed jobs in an area of high unemployment but: It is within 100s of metres of housing It has permission to operate from 7am to 10pm and until 5pm Saturdays – this noise can be heard in the local houses and some people say they cannot sleep until it stops There is a lot of dust in the air Methyr Tydfil has among the worst health in Wales and the dust makes it worse It is ugly It will be there for the next 15 years Opening when it did in 2005, it rather contradicts the government policy of pulling out of fossil fuels for electricity The company say that they are removing coal from the area closest to the houses first and will then landscape that area quickly

The question has to be, should we be investing in large scale coalmining any more?

But the Welsh development Agency is trying to raise the image and the aspirations of Wales. They want to encourage new high tech footloose industry into the area. In the 1980s some ‘white goods’ (kitchen stuff like cookers, fridges, washing machines etc)manufactures did move in providing low paid assembly jobs, but many of these have now moved elsewhere, such as China and the Far East or Eastern Europe where bigger profits can be made. But the Welsh Assembly is trying to encourage green, low carbon activities and have several schemes that they hope will encourage new ideas to blossom and grow. .

Sustainable technology in the motor trade for example
Wales is now focusing on sustainable technologies and its academic capability is recognised as providing leading Research and Development in relation to low carbon vehicle technology. Wales' focus on sustainable transport goes beyond vehicle technologies to encompass all associated issues such as: Wales is recognised as a European Leader in Research & Development of low-emissions technology.
 * integrated transport
 * energy storage
 * future fuel/charging infrastructure technologies & related transport planning

Access Wales – another example of innovation
Access Wales is a new pilot project that offers hi tech and knowledge based companies the opportunity to test the market before making any long term decision about expanding into new markets. Access Wales is a new service from International Business Wales- the trade and investment arm of the Welsh Assembly Government and participating businesses will have access to the Assembly Government’s fully integrated business support service. Qualify for free desk space for up to 12 months in a choice of 15 high tech innovation centres but a unique package of benefits tailored to the needs of emerging technology companies.

This free service includes fast, straightforward access to information, advice and support on grants and finance, property, innovation support, technology, marketing assistance, sourcing suppliers and skills development. In addition companies are also eligible for specialist business support from professional consultancy partners worth in the region of £10,000. This covers areas such as business strategy, market and competitor intelligence, sales consultancy, Intellectual Property, recruitment, HR and training, health and safety as well as access to local business networks. The 15 innovation centres each specialising in particular aspects of hi-tech business such as digital media, performance engineering, sustainable technologies, opto-electronics, biosciences, IT and software, and bioscience. The desk spaces offered come equipped with telephones and high speed internet connection and are typically located within open-plan shared business units with access to shared facilities such as reception services, meeting rooms and conference facilities.

Link to Technium which runs the start-up and sites along with supporting and encouraging other sustaianble high tech enterprises in Wales

Tourism
The industrial heritage is becoming big business. Although tourism tends to be a low paid occupation, it does make use of the skills and local knowledge. For example the Big Pit at Blaenafon - underground trip Rhondda Heritage Park offers underground experience and period village street. Ironwork