Former pitman adds optician’s to his multi-disciplinary healthcare clinic

Most of Britain’s pits have closed, but Mr Cox has used his experience of working underground to forge a new life as an entrepreneur.

Mr Cox has expanded his multi-disciplinary healthcare clinic by opening a Vision Eyecare optician’s practice, after securing funding from The Royal Bank of Scotland.

The optician’s practice has opened at the John Cox Health & Physiotherapy clinic in Upton. near Pontefract. He established the business in 2002 after working for several years as an independent sports therapist.

He worked as a miner for British Coal before re-training in 1994 following the closure of the pits.

Mr Cox, 51, worked at Frickley Colliery and on the Selby coalfield in the days when a job in the pit could last a working lifetime.

He was a long-serving member of the first aid team at Frickley.

As the industry went into decline, he retrained as a sports therapist, and later helped to set up a gym in Ackworth, West Yorkshire, in the mid 1990s. His latest business venture is made up of several practitioners who work on one site.

They include a chiropodist, a podiatrist, chartered physiotherapists and now an optician.

Its customer base includes clients referred from national insurance and personal injury firms.

A range of complementary healthcare treatments including acupuncture, aromatherapy and hypnotherapy are also available at the clinic.

Mr Cox, said: “It has been a long term goal to open an optician’s practice at the clinic.

“There are few other options available locally, and the feedback we received from clients and members of the public is that they would welcome an optician’s practice on site.

“We are committed to providing customers with a comprehensive range of healthcare services and this expansion is part of that aim.”

RBS provided a £40,000 loan to help fund the cost of extending the clinic’s premises to accommodate the new optician’s practice.

Relationship manager Juven Nalson, said: “John has created successful and niche healthcare clinic.”