Member Article

Business Secretary visits Teesside to witness steel production

The Business Secretary has visited SSI Teesside to announce the award of £1.4 million from the Regional Growth Fund to the plant, which will create and protect 1,800 jobs.

Last month the blast furnace was re-lit, a little over a year after SSI purchased Teesside Cast Products from Tata Steel. The funding given to the plant is one of the biggest RGF projects to date with a total cost of £7.325 million, part funded with a Regional Growth Fund grant of £1.425 million.

This funding will help the company to update skills of longer term employees whilst also training new staff. The plant is capable of producing 3.6 million tonnes annually, with the potential to increase production to 4.2 million per year.

Vince Cable now believes that this manufacturing boost will help boost the Government’s ambition to create long term growth, by balancing growth between sectors and regions of the UK.

Speaking at a visit to the Redcar steel plant, Vince Cable said: “For too long the British economy has relied exclusively on the City of London, ignoring places like Teesside. I want to see regions of the UK like the North East, which were once the workshops of Britain get back to their glory days.

“I have great pleasure in visiting SSI today and to witness first hand the return of steel production to the North East. The restart of the plant is fantastic news for the region as it will have a major impact on local growth and prosperity, creating around 8,000 jobs.

SSI have spent around 1,000 million pounds of bringing the plant back into operation.

Phil Dryden Chief Executive of SSI UK said: “We have been pleased to welcome the Secretary of State to SSI UK, especially as it follows on from the successful resumption of iron and steel making at Teesside.

“Part of that investment relates to the major training requirement which was necessary to start up the plant, and we were very pleased to receive the £1.4m award from the RGF.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .