IN six weeks' time, history will be made in Redcar when the town’s famous blast furnace is re-ignited by the steel plant's new owners - giant Thai firm SSI.
It’s a day that will be greeted with scenes of joyous celebration in a town that is synonymous with that industry. And it might just provide a glimmer of hope for the residents of a village 66 miles up the North East coastline.
It’s been a bleak week for Lynemouth. Tuesday’s announcement from Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate, that it is considering closing the village’s aluminium smelter and power station hardly came out of the blue. But it was a huge blow, nonetheless.
Some 750 jobs depend on the site. In Northumberland, this isn’t just a big number, it’s the single biggest private sector employer in the county. If those jobs go, it’s very hard to see what will replace them.
A toxic combination of high energy prices (the smelter is an enormous consumer of power) and new EU and UK emissions regulations which threaten to add an extra £40m to its annual costs in 2013, have undermined the financial viability of the plant. Planning permission has been granted to turn the power station into a biomass facility, but the costs involved are enormous.
And, while Energy Secretary Chris Huhne recently promised help for high energy consuming firms such as Alcan, it’s clear the company’s patience with the Government is (understandably) wearing thin.
The comparison with the threat to the former Corus Teesside Cast Products plant in Redcar is obvious. In both cases, a multinational firm found itself owning a long-established and successful business, but one which looks increasingly uncompetitive on an international stage.
In both cases, the local workforce and management have been totally committed to finding a viable long-term future for the plants, but the ultimate decision lies outside of their control.
Against all the odds, however, after the sale of the Redcar site to SSI, the story of steelmaking on Teesside looks set to continue. Those close to the painstaking negotiations that secured the deal with the Thai company say that was in large part down to the absolute determination of those on Teesside to make it happen.
Those now charged with salvaging a sustainable future for Lynemouth should take heart from the SSI story. Let’s hope another foreign investor is waiting in the wings to provide another happy ending.
