Redcar steel coke ovens shut down by Official Receiver

“I can not continue to draw on taxpayers funds to keep the ovens operational when there is no realistic prospect that a buyer will be found. I am continuing my liquidation of the company, including talking with interested parties about purchasing the company’s other assets”.

Following this, the plant was left in a state of limbo with 650 staff being kept on the books to operate the coke ovens and manage the site in a safe manner in the hope that another buyer could be found by the weekend.

“The closure of one of Europe’s largest and most modern steel plants will have a devastating impact on our wider industrial base, the supply chain, on our communities and to our industrial heritage”.

Redcar MP Anna Turley (Labour) said: “I am totally shocked and devastated by today’s news from the official receiver”.

But with what the official receiver Ken Beasley called no “realistic prospect” of a sale on the horizon, the 98-year-old works were closed down costing the area 2,200 jobs.

It’s been announced the coke ovens and blast furnace will close for good after no offers were received from buyers. But the closure of the ovens suggests the remaining staff will lose their jobs.

And Tom Blenkinsop, Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland and chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Steel, said: “This is a dark day for Teesside and East Cleveland, the repercussions will be felt through the supply chain and the local economy”.

17-hundred jobs are going, with critics blaming the government for not stepping in.

The Official Receiver said that no viable offers have yet been submitted and the coke ovens would therefore begin shutting down with staff let go as was needed.

Ms Soubry told MPs: “This is not a decision the government has taken”.

Ms Turley said the government had overseen a tragedy for the people of her constituency and for the wider region, calling the move an “act of industrial vandalism”.

“Whilst these are all valid points, United Kingdom manufacturing organisations must also continue to look internally and review their own procedures, processes and business planning capabilities to ensure they are as efficient and lean as possible”.

The government is not “closing the door” on the £80m support package for laid-off workers at Sahaviriya Steel Industries UK’s Redcar plant, the business minister has said.

With unemployment on Teesside already nine per cent higher than the national average, getting a further 1,700 people back into employment promises to be a hard task.