Scots in steel squeeze
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• Scottish hauliers face heavy losses as the Government plans further pruning of the Scottish steel industry.
On 1 April, the hot strip works at the massive Ravenscraig steel mill in Lanarkshire will close; the rest of the plant will be wound down over the next four years. Also on 1 April the axe falls on the Clydesdale tube works, with potentially devastating results for Imperial Tubes, which finishes the seamless tubes.
If both Clydesdale and Imperial close, Billy Walker Transport is set to lose turnover of up to £40,000 a month. Adrian Walker of the company's Glasgow depot says that BWT will be forced to lay off five of its 120 drivers if Imperial Tubes collapses, and two driving jobs would have to go if the Ravenscraig and Clydesdale business was lost. "We are looking at a loss of £500,000 in revenue annually if all three go down," says Walker. "Luckily, we can diversify into other areas."
Peter I) Stirling quarries and supplies rock sand to the blast furnace at Ravenscraig. The company's supply quota has fallen from 200-300 tonnes to 120140 tonnes over the past few months; two of its 20 drivers were laid off before Christmas.
WH Mateolms also does business with Ravenscraig. General manager Andrew Malcolm says: "We are naturally disappointed over the proposed closures, but we shall keep going on a day-by-day-approach and see what develops."
Yui11 & Dodds hauls coal from Hunterson docks on the west coast of Scotland to Ravenscraig. Jimmy Yuill is pessimistic about the future. "There's another few years before the whole plant closes and I've heard that after 1 April they'll be making slabs instead of coils, so there will still be work. But don't forget that road haulage only brings in about 3,000 tonnes of coal a day — a lot comes in by rail. The haulage industry in Scotland is making nothing. If all the closures go through, it will be like a ghost town up here."