Overhauling Orgreave: Lessons learned for future just transitions

Once the site of a mining community and historic conflict during the 1984 miners’ strike, Orgreave has undergone a complex transition and regenerated into a modern advanced manufacturing district. This study examines how community stakeholders narrate and contest the ‘success’ of Orgreave’s post-coal regeneration, and what this reveals about justice in transition initiatives. Through applying a just transition conceptual lens to qualitative interviews with multiple community stakeholders, this study shows the role played by historical and political issues in making transitions socially just, rather than defining success in solely economic terms. Proactive planning, remembrance of the past, and challenging entrenched social inequalities emerge as lessons. Ultimately, these representational, distributive, and recognitional justice elements intertwine to suggest that future just transitions should be tailored to local communities through a meaningful awareness of politicised and contextualised social realities.