In 1956 the pit was "temporarily closed" due to flooding and faults, after which the pit was kept in maintained order. A small number of miners were made redundant on a voluntary basis and other workers were redeployed elsewhere. Initial forecasts were optimistic regarding the reopening of the pit but a series of setbacks quelled such optimism. On 31 July 1958 the Doncaster Examiner reported that "excess flood waters have again battered through tons of concrete, causing the worst setback since the pit was closed two years ago". The National Coal Board predicted that "coal would be turned at Thorne within three or four months of next year". By 1962 the predicted re-opening date had been put back to 1964 at the earliest; in November of that year it was reported that waterproofing would be completed by the following June. In August 1966 a paper of the Mining Engineers opened with the words "Thorne Colliery was probably the most courageous coal mining enterprise undertaken in the early years of the twentieth century", going on to note the pit had a fundamental problem in the "unconformable strata" (strata geologically out of sequence), which led to excessive water flow. Shaft linings had simply failed in the pit conditions and had led in August 1958 to the failure of the No. 2 shaft. The paper proposed the installation of composite shaft linings, having an inner cylinder of steel bonded to high grade concrete able to withstand the hydrostatic pressures. In September 1966 the Thorne Gazette noted that "the pit has been closed for ten years", Thorne Colliery remained in a state of limbo, with millions of pounds of money being invested to repair the damage. Attempted re-openings In the 1980s the NCB began planning a £180 million restarting of production at the site. New headgear and new winding systems were erected, but the sharp decline in coal prices brought an end to the plan. In the 1990s RJB Mining proposed to restart production, but in 2002 it was decided that the establishment of the pit was uneconomical. Legacy In 2004 the pumps at the site were turned off and on 18 August of that year the headgear was demolished. The news of this saddened many members of the community and many watched at the site on the day of the demolition. One of a few reminders of the Colliery today is Thorne Colliery