Steelmaker Corus is to develop a new £31.5m offshore wind farm business, creating up to 220 jobs on the site of its mothballed plant in Teesside. The new facility will be located on the vast 3,000-acre site in Redcar, bringing much-needed cheer to the town, which was battered by the loss of more than 1,000 jobs when the Teesside Cast Products business was shut down earlier this year after more than 170 years of steelmaking in the area. It will produce the steel structures used to fix wind turbines to the seabed known as monopiles.
Teesside Cast Products plant, Redcar
Geoff Waterfield, chairman of the Corus multi-union committee, said: "It is absolutely fantastic. We are so due a bit of good news. People have been through very hard times and we deserve this good news today. Companies like ours should certainly be looking at renewable energy, as projects will require a huge amount of steel and the north-east has been earmarked for that. But it is a new area for Corus and it is a little bit of a gamble. This is a good opportunity for the government to give some support to Corus that was not forthcoming earlier in the year."
Talks over the sale of the Redcar plant to Thai industrial group SSI have been under way since May and unions hope a deal will be sealed imminently. The proposed development will not affect negotiations. "We are still in a strange sort of limbo state as we are waiting for the news on the main event," Waterfield said. The government has approved plans to build thousands of offshore wind turbines and Corus believes that around 6m tonnes of steel will be needed for the foundations and towers.
Kirby Adams, Corus's outgoing chief executive, said: "This is one of a wide range of new employment and business opportunities which Corus is working on in Teesside. It also follows recent recruitment at our Hartlepool and Skinningrove plants, as well as at our South Yorkshire and Scottish plants."
Kirby Adams, Corus's outgoing chief executive, said: "This is one of a wide range of new employment and business opportunities which Corus is working on in Teesside. It also follows recent recruitment at our Hartlepool and Skinningrove plants, as well as at our South Yorkshire and Scottish plants."
The Teesside plant was mothballed after a consortium of international investors pulled out of a 10-year contract. Adams, who is leaving after 18 months for "personal reasons", has been heavily criticised for his handling of the affair. He was attacked by unions earlier this month when Corus's owner, Tata Steel Europe, revealed that company's the highest paid director – almost certainly Adams – received more than £2m last year. According to the GMB union, Corus has cut 6,000 jobs across Europe since he joined the company, which has now returned to profit after pre-tax losses of £662m in the first nine months of last year.
