Many miners still rightly feel that the Battle of Orgreave was set up to teach them and the unions a lesson. And answers as to what transpired on that day have not been forthcoming.

The scars left behind by the confrontation are still felt in that particular corner of South Yorkshire. The wounds have not fully healed and they won’t unless the communities here are given answers about policing tactics deployed during the violent clashes. That is why an inquiry should be held into those events that took place 40 years ago.

It’s not just about the Battle of Orgreave but ensuring that lessons are learned so that policing protests in the future can avoid the sort of scenes that have become etched into the nation's consciousness that unfolded in 1984 and scarred communities in Rotherham.

Even the late Queen thought the sight of mounted police charging into miners was “awful”.

A twisted sign, felled concrete posts and a broken wall following violence outside a coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire, in 1984. PIC: PA/PA Wire

As Kate Flannery, secretary of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, points out, time is running out.

“We’d like this to be happening within the lifetime of the miners, a lot of whom are very ill and a lot of them are dying,” she said.

It was fortunate that no one died as a result of the violent clashes. But had lessons been learned from Orgreave, the Hillsborough disaster might have been avoided or at the very least the subsequent cover-up of policing failures would have not been permitted.

While the scars of the Battle of Orgreave have not healed and may never heal for some, the community can take some solace in a bright future with the AMRC now based at the site where those ugly scenes unfolded.

Where there was confrontation, there is now collaboration engineering world leading solutions for the modern world.

Why an inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave needs to be set up quickly by the next government

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