The Demise of a Town

Some of you will have heard in the news that the Corus steel works just outside Redcar up on Teesside are to close soon, with 1700 staff being laid off. There's not much anyone can do about that but I thought I'd air my thoughts and see what others though, because I know this sort of thing has happened all over the country over the years.

As a kid, I grew up in Redcar. We lived in a street where every dad worked either at British Steel or ICI (both just outside Redcar). ICI went back in the late 80s or early 90s, selling off the plant to other companies, many of which brought their own staff with them when they took over.

Some say the Steelworks are an eyesore. If you standing on the beach in central Redcar, facing the town, and slowly turn to the right, your eyes will scan Victorian houses, then a significant expense of beach backed by dunes, then one of the wold's biggest blast furnaces. To me though, it is a landmark I associate with home. I also liked going past on the lesser known gare road to the south side of the Tees estuary. The menacing sight of great plumes of steam oozing from the various pieces of kit, the fierce and ominous bright orange glow that you could sometimes see in the furnace entrance, and the strange 'torpedo' trains slowly hauling molten steel were a sight that can't fail to capture the imagination of a young kid.

Now it is all going. Sure the kit will still be there, but no longer will the loud crash from the furnace being charged be heard, or the frequent siren that told everyone in earshot that one of the trains pulling vessels of molten steel had ruptured its skin and was spewing steel all over the floor. No more will people be running to get their washing in when they see the orange cloud of iron dust blowing over when the furnace has just been unblocked. Some would say that's a good thing, but for me it is comfort in the familiar, or characteristic of home.

The demise of the steel works doesn't just mean 1700 steel workers will be out of work. Many of the local B&Bs get much of their trade from contractors working at the steel works. Those B&Bs will struggle now. The local pubs will struggle, as there will be less contractors coming in to spend their money, and the permanent staff will all be redundant and skint. The Redcar night life also gets a lot of business from people coming in for the races. Where will the race goers go for a pint when half the pubs have closed? I reckon they'll either just go home, or won't bother with Redcar races anymore, and go somewhere else for their day out instead.

Some people will move away for better job prospects. So with more leavers than arrivals, and local businesses struggling for customers and closing, I reckon a year from now Redcar might be quite a miserable place to be.

Oh well, that's progress they say.

 

It's a tragedy when that happens when a town is dependent on one industry.

But many such closures go unnoticed in heavy undustries, we're become a nation of shops and services providers.

Metrovick/GEC was a huge industrial manufacturing complex at Trafford Park. At one time employing over 28,000. Our eldest son was one of their last engineering apprentice intake in the eighties and worked on turbines. By then the company was already a fraction of what it once was. Now there's nothing left.

 

Clueless, your imagery is superb. Maybe you should try writing poetry. I've been made reduntant from 2 places that were the "heart and soul" of the area. Those of us that wanted to work found work (albeit at a lower rate of pay). It's the world we live in since "Maggie". The £/$ rules, in the words of the song, we're just "Bricks in the wall":(

 

my Grandparents lived in Darlington and I spent many happy holidays in redcar as a kid.

I remember travelling on the train from Darlington to Redcar and seeing the 'big bad fires'. Wierdly on one level I knew they were industry as I wasn't really frightened BUT on the other hand - when I had done something naughty - it was the big bad fires that were going to get me!!! that frightened me more than anything else I was threatened with.

 

in scotland, we had the same situation with steelworks. RAVENSCRAIG steelworks closed in 1993.
that was the end of large scale steel making in scotland. there was a loss of 770 jobs and another 10000 job losses directly and indirectly linked.
it is now one of the largest derelict sites in europe. i just hope THE CORUS STEELWORKS do not have the same fate!!!!!! what industry do we have remaining in this country ?. i was employed in the plastics/chemical industry, for many years. the company i was employed with started with american owners,then went to another overseas consortium. the latest owner took over 2 years ago,they were saudi owners.the bulldozers were on site last week ,the whole plant was raised to the ground! gone after 50 years.i had family working there in some cases all the family ,s where employed in some way with the plant. this will be another polluted area which they will level with
tons and tons of top soil and grass over, JOB DONE . but just a couple of foot under ground is 50years of running chemical excess into the ground. the people of REDCAR /TEESSIDE have my sympathy and hopes for a future for their plant. music.

 

It's happened progressively across many areas of the North. Atterciliffe was a suburb of Sheffield which had a huge steel industry. Nothing left of it apart from about one steel works, for decades.

 

That's true. It happened before I came to Sheffield but some of the local lads and lasses tell stories of Attercliffe once being a rather cool part of town with lots of shops and pubs and people living in the area. Now as you drive through it it is depressing. There are shops there, the kind nobody dare put in the main centre ('adult entertainment' and a few motor factors shops, that's about it). One of the steel plants was put to good use though. It is now the Magna science centre, where kids (and big kids ) can go and play with JCBs, watch artificially created lightning and see robots and things.