Backroads to the Beehive: Ōhai and Nightcaps after the coal

RNZ's South Island correspondent Tim Brown and camera operator Louis Dunham have visited Ōhai and Nightcaps in Southland for the final stop in RNZ's Backroads to the Beehive series. The report was published on 5 November, with Election Day tomorrow, 6 November.

Both towns were once at the heart of Southland's coal industry. Each was once home to more than 1000 people, and hundreds of coal miners worked in underground mines and open-cast mines, which dig coal from the surface. The mines at Nightcaps had been the main source of coal in Southland until mines at nearby Ōhai replaced them in the 1920s, according to Te Ara.

Ōhai now has about 300 residents. Carter Allan first went underground as a teenager and spent 40 years mining coal, RNZ reported.

Ōhai's last coal mine closed in 2021. It had been run by Solid Energy until that company collapsed in 2015. The wider Ōhai and Nightcaps area now has one mine, Takitimu, in Nightcaps.

RNZ reported that people in Southland's former coal country are fighting against the loss of industry, families and opportunities. Many are also struggling with the rising cost of living.

Ōhai and Nightcaps sit in the Southland general electorate, the area the Representation Commission, which draws electorate boundaries, has defined for the electorate.