Middlesbrough Train Station

I think It’s hatchet Thatcher et al decided on the “new international division of labour” and ended British Steel & the coal board etc. For political & financial reasons, good job Dorman Long did such a good job, that bridge in Sydney is built to last.
 
Archiestephens_elbow said:
They did absolutely **** all. Wharton as well.

Its a disgrace
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Again, what did you want them to do?

Pay for the raw materials that were far too highly in price at the time?

Allow them to continue breaking the law regarding emissions with no penalty?

Battle with the unions and change the shift patterns and pay rate reductions so workforce costs could be reduced?

Buy and stock pile all the steel at inflated rate?
 
B_G said:
Again, what did you want them to do?

Pay for the raw materials that were far too highly in price at the time?

Allow them to continue breaking the law regarding emissions with no penalty?

Battle with the unions and change the shift patterns and pay rate reductions so workforce costs could be reduced?

Buy and stock pile all the steel at inflated rate?
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Where there's a will there's a way.................just saying.
 
As Harry Hill says, there’s only one way to decide this, fight!
My money’s on several thousand steelworkers beating a few southern Tory investment bankers (rhyming slang).
 
Ian MacGregor
“His tenure at British Steel was controversial. On his appointment, British Steel employed 166,000 staff and produced 14 million tons of steel annually at a loss of £1.8 billion. MacGregor was remorseless in his programme of plant closures and redundancies. A few of the redundancies were voluntary but were made against a background of mounting unemployment in the UK and damaged many traditional steel-working communities. By 1983, there were only 71,000 staff with losses stemmed to £256 million. The company was now moving towards profitability and would be in the vanguard of the Thatcher government's programme of privatisation.[2]“
 
B_G said:
Again, what did you want them to do?

Pay for the raw materials that were far too highly in price at the time?

Allow them to continue breaking the law regarding emissions with no penalty?

Battle with the unions and change the shift patterns and pay rate reductions so workforce costs could be reduced?

Buy and stock pile all the steel at inflated rate?
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Head and brick wall fella.
 
UK Governments both Conservative and Labour made the UK an expensive country to produce steel.

I was told on here the highest individual cost of producing modern steel is energy (electricity).

In 2015 the UK had the highest energy costs in Europe when Redcar closed.

In 2015 the price of steel was the cheapest it had ever been in real terms - the word market had been flooded with stste subsidised steel, the chief culprit was China, but the UK Governement did nothing. In fact as Redcar was closing the Chinese President was in a pub in Oxfordshire having a pint with Cameron. Dave was trying to get him to loan half the money of a new planned Nuclear Power Station in Somerset.
 
Cress said:
Ian MacGregor
“His tenure at British Steel was controversial. On his appointment, British Steel employed 166,000 staff and produced 14 million tons of steel annually at a loss of £1.8 billion. MacGregor was remorseless in his programme of plant closures and redundancies. A few of the redundancies were voluntary but were made against a background of mounting unemployment in the UK and damaged many traditional steel-working communities. By 1983, there were only 71,000 staff with losses stemmed to £256 million. The company was now moving towards profitability and would be in the vanguard of the Thatcher government's programme of privatisation.[2]“
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Meanwhile communities like Grangetown and South Bank fell apart with no work and no future. I'm sure losses would have been less than benefits that had to be paid.
When I started at BS 27.000 people were directly employed on site with thousands more in service industries (similar at ICI I believe). Grossly overmanned and made a loss but society actually worked with generation after generation following their fathers into working in the steelworks, everyone had a wage and spent money in shops, pubs working men’s clubs and society actually worked. Crime was nowhere near levels of today’s sad society but hell the rich got richer so all is well that ends well.
 
chickenrunner said:
Where there's a will there's a way.................just saying.
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One of the biggest costs to SSI at the time of closure was energy (as redwurzel has pointed out also) and one of the things being campaigned for by Anna Turley and representatives of SSI was to receive energy at cost price. Remove all taxes etc. This would have made the plant more viable (in the short term anyway)

So, what they wanted was tax relief on energy for a hugely inefficient plant that was breaking the law daily exceeding emission allowances. Out of curiosity, what is your stance on climate change and Target Net Zero?
 
davidmills said:
Meanwhile communities like Grangetown and South Bank fell apart with no work and no future. I'm sure losses would have been less than benefits that had to be paid.
When I started at BS 27.000 people were directly employed on site with thousands more in service industries (similar at ICI I believe). Grossly overmanned and made a loss but society actually worked with generation after generation following their fathers into working in the steelworks, everyone had a wage and spent money in shops, pubs working men’s clubs and society actually worked. Crime was nowhere near levels of today’s sad society but hell the rich got richer so all is well that ends well.
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I worked there at the time of closure. It was the best job I have ever had. 3 miles from home. Great hours. Decent pay. I was gutted when the place shut. I was also in a position where I was involved in high level meetings and knew excatly what we were up against.

The place was not sustainable no matter how much help the government had given. The plant was way past it's lifespan. It was getting plaster after plaster. It couldn't operate within the law. It was doing huge damage to the environment. The cost of raw materials vs cost of steel was massively against us.
 
Redwurzel said:
UK Governments both Conservative and Labour made the UK an expensive country to produce steel.

I was told on here the highest individual cost of producing modern steel is energy (electricity).

In 2015 the UK had the highest energy costs in Europe when Redcar closed.

In 2015 the price of steel was the cheapest it had ever been in real terms - the word market had been flooded with stste subsidised steel, the chief culprit was China, but the UK Governement did nothing. In fact as Redcar was closing the Chinese President was in a pub in Oxfordshire having a pint with Cameron. Dave was trying to get him to loan half the money of a new planned Nuclear Power Station in Somerset.
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Part of Cameron's brown nosing the Chinese was to veto EU tariffs on Chinese steel imports. That was the final large nail in the coffin for Redcar blast furnace 👎
 
B_G said:
Again, what did you want them to do?

Pay for the raw materials that were far too highly in price at the time?

Allow them to continue breaking the law regarding emissions with no penalty?

Battle with the unions and change the shift patterns and pay rate reductions so workforce costs could be reduced?

Buy and stock pile all the steel at inflated rate?
Click to expand...
It was dirt cheap, low grade, subsidised Chinese steel flooding the market which was a huge reason at the time. The rush to close Teesside works must have broke the world record...there were ships off the Redcar Coast waiting to buy coking coke which would have helped keep the coke ovens going at least, but the.Tories said they weren't allowed to subsidise due to EU laws,...strange then that Italy, Spain and others did just that, citing their steel industry as something like "national strategic importance" and pumped in many millions.
Not long after, the Tories found hundreds of millions for the steelworks in South Wales.
Go figure..
 
morrissey said:
It was dirt cheap, low grade, subsidised Chinese steel flooding the market which was a huge reason at the time. The rush to close Teesside works must have broke the world record...there were ships off the Redcar Coast waiting to buy coking coke which would have helped keep the coke ovens going at least, but the.Tories said they weren't allowed to subsidise due to EU laws,...strange then that Italy, Spain and others did just that, citing their steel industry as something like "national strategic importance" and pumped in many millions.
Not long after, the Tories found hundreds of millions for the steelworks in South Wales.
Go figure..
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The plant was finished. It needed huge investment. Hundreds of millions wouldn't have done it. Even then you were buying it years, not decades.
Port Talbot and Scunthorpe were both in better condition than much of the Teesside Plant.

We've lost a dirty industry and it's being replaced with cleaner more sustainable opportunities.
 
B_G said:
The plant was finished. It needed huge investment. Hundreds of millions wouldn't have done it. Even then you were buying it years, not decades.
Port Talbot and Scunthorpe were both in better condition than much of the Teesside Plant.

We've lost a dirty industry and it's being replaced with cleaner more sustainable opportunities.
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Investment which had been cut in the preceding years. If you worked there you must know that.
 
Johnny Vincents Motorbike said:
the final closure had absolutely nothing do with any of the claims you have made, phek knows what you were doing or saying at the 'high level' meetings you went to.
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The final closure was because it was not sustainable to continue to produce steel at the cost it was costing. It's that simple.
 
"The plant was finished. It needed huge investment. Hundreds of millions wouldn't have done it"

Probably works out about same as one years benefits payments to the thousands and thousands with no work or even hope of work.
 
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