Coke to Coke
The closure of Derwenthaugh Cokeworks and the nearby opening of The Metro Centre, the UK’s first out of town shopping mall; developed between 1986 and 1989.
The cokeworks was one of the early casualties in the aftermath of the Miners’ Strike of 1984. The Metro Centre was built in one of the Enterprise Zones, intended by the Conservative government to encourage entrepreneurial culture, where for an initial period new businesses were allowed to operate rate free and with fewer planning controls. The project was a collaboration between Fryer and the writer Graeme Rigby.
All images © Peter Fryer
