ON FRIDAY, November 29, 1991, the cage at Murton Colliery hauled miners back to the surface for the last time. Threatened by reduced redundancy payments and subjected to tough management tactics, the demoralised nearly 1,000-strong workforce had ditched its fight to secure a future down the 150-year-old pit.

Murton pit was left with just one inglorious claim to fame - it was to be the last inland coal mine to be shut down under the Tory Government's colliery closure programme.

The East Durham community, which boasted a population in excess of 10,000, had long relied on the protective economic cloak of King Coal

But while many believed the pit still had many more viable years, there were those who saw the writing on the wall during the 1984 national miners' strike. The stoppage, they say, was just the excuse Margaret Thatcher was looking for to eliminate the industry.

The timing of the shutdown could not have been worse for Murton, which was already reeling from the loss of the Northern Bus Depot, the large Co-operative Bakery, the neighbouring Hawthorn Coke Works and the Rediffusion Factory.

The pit closure was the final economic body blow. But buoyed with redundancy payments, the full impact of the mine's demise would take time to emerge.

At the local primary school, head teacher Allen Evans, describes how in the immediate post-pit days there was actually a mini boom in the village.

"For a little while there was real prosperity in Murton and it took almost five years before the real effect of the closure began to show,'' he says.

And the teacher, who came to the village school the year after the miners' strike, believes Murton will never fully recover; in 1991 Murton Primary School had 465 pupils, today the number has dwindled to 330 and is still falling.

Unquestionably, those hardest hit when the colliery closed were men in their late forties and early fifties. Too many were already chasing too few jobs, leaving the older redundant miners with the stark choice of going on to long term benefits or accepting lowly paid unskilled jobs.

Grim statistics in a newly published Government interim report into the Regeneration of Former Coalfield Areas confirms the appalling legacy left in communities such as Murton.

The report, which will be the subject of the closest scrutiny at this morning's conference, reveals that for an area which was almost wholly reliant on a single industry, the repercussions have been profound.

The in-depth study states: "Problems are significant and include low earnings, high levels of benefit dependency and child poverty, low levels of education attainment, a lack of entrepreneurial culture, crime and the fear of crime and poor housing.''

There is no doubt that many families are still struggling to come to terms with the dramatic watershed which hit their lives in 1991. But pride and resignation prevents them talking about their plight; they simply accept that from that final November shift nothing was be the same again.

Despite the bleak picture though, Murton is surviving, and thanks to more than £4million worth of regeneration projects the community is beginning to see real light at the end of the tunnel.

But while regeneration cash is improving the environment beyond recognition, most economic hopes are pinned on the hard-fought-for £36m Dalton Flatts retail development with its promise of 1,100 jobs. New housing schemes have already been earmarked for two locations in the village, including the former colliery site.

The shadow of the pit no longer falls over Murton's new generations and a policy of inviting residents from the south to take advantage of the lower-cost of living and cheaper housing has seen some success.

For the original resident, for those who have moved into the area and for those who are charged with bringing new economic growth to the community, there is a growing confidence Murton has turned the corner.

Murton's very existence has been put to the test and, like so many other mining communities in County Durham, it has shown true grit in overcoming what once looked to many like a sentence of death.

Today the experts will put the whole community under the microscope and hopes are high that more help will be granted to ensure the continuing renaissance of this gritty village which simply refused to lie down and die.