Reprieve for steel work in Wales
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• Hauliers working out of the Llanwern steel plant in South Wales have breathed a sigh of relief after its owners decided it will remain open.
Last week Corus, the Anglo-Dutch company that swallowed up British Steel, gave the plant near Newport a last-minute reprieve—just days earlier it looked set for closure with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.
Instead, Corus is to invest .235m to replace one of the two blast furnaces whose loss had threatened the viability of the site.
Before the surprise announcement, the future had looked bleak for the area. Corus has already reduced its workforce in the UK by more than 4,000 over recent months.
The strength of the pound currently makes steel production in the UK uneconomic.
Eurof Owen, director of Port Talbot-based Owens Road Services, says the closure would have been a disaster for the hauliers working out of the plant: Our company loads 25 trucks out of there a day and if it had closed I think it would have almost certainly been a case of driver lay-offs."