Delivery is start of a new era

Around 1,500 tonnes arrived by train from the British Steel plant at Scunthorpe in preparation for the restart of steel plate production by new owners Liberty House Group next month.

Liberty acquired the works from Tata Steel in March and began the complex process of rebuilding the business, they have now re-established a supply chain broken when production ceased at the mill in December.

Plate steel from the plant is used by a wide variety of industries including ship building, heavy vehicle manufacture, construction and wind power generation.

Around 60 staff are already engaged in preparations to re-open Dalzell, with a further 40 expected to join the workforce before the site starts to produce plate again.

About 70 per cent of the initial wave of recruits are former employees returning to their old jobs, while the business has also hired apprentices to ensure it is developing skills for the future.

In addition, the works is supporting additional local jobs through the award of about 20 new supply contracts, for business and engineering services, to firms in the Motherwell area,

Liberty executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta said: “We said we would revive this historic steelworks and that is exactly what we are doing.”