Pike director John Dow began giving evidence at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River mine disaster yesterday.

Dow told the commission he had no knowledge of safety being compromised at the mine.

Dow, who had 43 years experience in the mining industry, joined the Pike River board in 2007.

Under questioning from Pike River Coal lawyer Stacey Shortall, Dow told the inquiry senior management on site always had a “safety first approach”, despite admitting PRC had been under a degree of financial pressure.

Explaining the company’s financial position in the lead up to the Pike River explosion, Dow said on November 18, 2010, the company had been in the final stages of approving a $70 million capital raise.

“The company was five days away from raising $70 million all fully underwritten, which would've carried Pike … into the third quarter of 2011, when by that stage we expected to be in full steady state hydromining,” Dow said.

Shortall went on to ask Dow: “What do you say in response to any criticism that development costs had increased from an estimated $29.5 million in May 1995 to $350 million by mid-2010?”

Dow said there had been a rapid escalation in the capital and labour costs of the mine between that period, so “you’re really not comparing the same operation at all.”

“But in a 12-year period there’d been enormous escalations in the cost of almost all construction materials and the cost of building itself and the costs of goods and services and labour,” he said.

“We did have issues with overpromising and under-delivering and that meant that from time to time the company had to go to the market for additional development capital.”

Despite the mine’s financial blowout, Dow assured Shortall safety was never compromised.

“I’m not aware of any circumstance in which production was prioritised over safety, and I would be surprised if it was,” he said.

Dow said during his time at the mine he could never recall PRC’s board ever denying management funding for health and safety, because minimising risks for staff was important for the company.

Earlier in the day, Albert Houlden, a former lead hand with contractor McConnell Dowell at Pike River, told the inquiry that he never felt safe at the mine.

The British miner, who was employed at the mine from October 2009 until April 2010, said problems with ventilation and high methane levels were ongoing issues for him.

“Many times I’d come out and I’d have a splitting headache and feel real sick because of the CO from the machines, because yet again there had been a problem with ventilation,” Houlden said.

Houlden told the inquiry of another incident when he was underground where he couldn’t breathe in the heading.

He said the continuous miner wasn’t working and “there was a young man just sat there at that heading and the fan was off”

Houlden said he was never aware of incident reports, but reported his concern to an official.

Despite raising the issue, Houlden said he never recalled a response to this issue, or any other issues he raised.

Houlden said he could no longer stand working at the mine, so decided to leave the mine following a job offer.

“There was one day when I went home and I said to my wife, ‘I'm taking that job I've been offered, because that mine is going to go’,” Houlden said.

“I put my notice in not long after and I left and went to Papua New Guinea.”