Paul Routledge, a journalist and biographer of Arthur Scargill, suggested that the National Coal Board (NCB) had used the Orgreave dispute as a diversionary tactic to concentrate pickets in one location and relieve the pressure of policing working pits in Nottinghamshire. He writes that Kevin Hunt, the NCB director of industrial relations, had asked Scargill in advance if he would allow more tonnage to be allowed out of Orgreave, which led Scargill to believe that Orgreave was a pressure point that he should target. The picketing of working pits in Nottinghamshire lost momentum after Orgreave, partly because many pickets were given bail conditions after being arrested, and the number of strikers in Nottinghamshire decreased.