EX-MINERS and widows in Yorkshire are facing eviction from their homes as a profit-hungry property developer seeks to demolish them to make way for a posh new housing estate.

Seventy houses at Oulton, near Leeds, are threatened with demolition after being taken over by Worcester-based property dealer Pemberstone Group.

It is just the latest of many former coalmining communities across Britain which have had homes, owned by the former National Coal Board and its successor British Coal, sold off to the private sector after pits have been shut down.