The close-knit community of terraced houses was built on the edge of Sherwood Forest in the 1920s for one purpose - to serve the mine.

In fact in the early days of private ownership you could only live in the village if you worked at the pit.

A constable hired by the mine owners toured the village threatening troublemakers with eviction and checking that the grass was cut and homes were kept tidy.

Coal was literally the lifeblood of the community

The wide streets with their large, modern houses for miners were regarded as a marvel of the time.

There was even a central heating system which pumped the warm water from deep underground along pipes that connected all the houses.

Coal was literally the lifeblood of the community.

It has taken seven years to clear the site

So like many other villages it was devastated when the Conservative government announced its pit closure programme.

The colliery shut in 1994. But what makes Ollerton unique is that local people refused to give in.

They decided no-one was going to come to their aid, so they would have to do it themselves.

The miners of Ollerton had come from all over the country to work in the Nottinghamshire pits.

Lured by the promise of work for generations, they had left already declining coalfields in the North East, in Lancashire and in Scotland.

But when Ollerton closed there was nowhere else to run.

Audacious step

Rumours of the impending closure of the pit led to calls for an emergency community meeting, but by the time the meeting took place, closure had been announced.

The plans will transform the village

At that meeting they decided on the audacious step of trying to buy the colliery land themselves.

Negotiations with British Coal led to it being handed over for the nominal fee of a pound.

People who had just got used to the idea of buying their own homes suddenly found they were the owners of 91 acres of rubble-strewn coal-encrusted real estate.

They wanted to make sure that whatever replaced the pit would be clean.

In the past washing hung out to dry would often come in covered in coal dust.

Sustainable project

The massive task of decontaminating the land and eradicating seven decades of mining has taken seven years, but it is almost complete.

Now the plan is for an environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable project - the Sherwood Energy Village - to literally rise from the ashes of the old colliery.

Industrial units will provide employment - the hope is that the revitalised village will prove attractive to businesses.

The scheme has attracted �4m in grants from the government and from Europe, but the community is still very much in charge of the operation.

The money has been used to clear the way for homes, offices, woodlands, parks and cycle tracks.

Horror stories

In a neat echo of the old days, a bio-mass power station will also be built to supply power and heat to the homes of Ollerton.

The people behind the project find themselves hosting visits from all over Europe as the need for regeneration grows.

They hear horror stories of how similar communities in the UK have had to wait up to 20 years for anything to be done in the way of redevelopment.

At nearby Shirebrook colliery there's a similar scheme to use the pit site, this time by the government agency, English Partnerships.

Shirebrook closed in 1994. But eight years later, work has only just begun on reclaiming the land. It will be another seven years before it's finished.

At Ollerton, the first factories will be ready by next year.