Steel industry facing a test of its mettle in Rotherham

With the future of British steel hanging in the balance, Chris Bond visits the Parkgate area of Rotherham, home to one of Tata's plants, to gauge the mood.
Youngsters look through the railings at Tata Steel's Thrybergh Mill, in Rotherham.   Picture Tony JohnsonYoungsters look through the railings at Tata Steel's Thrybergh Mill, in Rotherham.   Picture Tony Johnson
Youngsters look through the railings at Tata Steel's Thrybergh Mill, in Rotherham. Picture Tony Johnson

From the conservatory at the back of the Station Hotel you can see the tips of the thin chimneys at Tata Steel’s sprawling Thrybergh Mill site less than half a mile away.

It’s lunchtime and a few years ago there would have been a steady stream of punters in this Parkgate pub, well placed next to a busy main road on the outskirts of Rotherham. But not any more.

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John Wilding has been running the pub for the past 31 years, during which time he’s seen the gradual decline of this powerhouse of Northern industry. “In the past you’d have 25 people in for a sandwich and a beer during the week but that all stopped a few years back,” he says.

The pub used to be open from noon seven days a week but now doesn’t open until a quarter to four. “We’re open all day on Fridays and at the weekend, but the rest of the time there’s no point,” he says. “I’d just be paying for heating and a chef with no one to serve.”

Many of the regulars at the Station Hotel work at the nearby plant where last week’s news that Tata Steel was looking to sell its UK business, putting thousands of jobs at risk, came as yet another hammer blow.

It followed last summer’s announcement that the company was shedding 720 jobs in the UK because of rising costs and a strong pound, with most of the job losses coming from its steel bar-making plant here in Rotherham.

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John Healey, Labour’s MP for Wentworth and Dearne, visited the plant yesterday with Business Minister Anna Soubry in an effort to highlight the world class specialist steel – crucial to the defence industry and car manufacturing – that is being produced by its workforce. Healey says that families of workers who have lost their jobs are reeling from what has happened and admits that South Yorkshire’s steel industry faces a “hugely uncertain” future, although he refuses to be downbeat.

But if you speak to shop owners and businesses in Parkgate you’ll find optimism in precious short supply.

John Wilding says that if the plant closed it would have a devastating impact on the town. “Tata Steel is the biggest employer around here. We get quite a lot of them coming in here after work and the other night there were a few in who’d been made redundant. You see the drawn looks on their faces and you feel for them.

“I was talking to one guy, he’s 40 years old and he’s got a mortgage and two young children. But what do you say to someone in his position when there’s no other employment around?”

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John has noticed a steady drop-off in trade over the past five years. “We used to get people coming from India and Italy and places like that, but that’s all gone, and if you speak to people around here they’re worried about the future and what’s going to happen.”

Government Ministers have repeatedly said they are doing everything they can to help find a new buyer, but they have been accused of taking their eye off the ball and of contributing to the crisis by failing to act sooner.

“I think the Government could have stepped in earlier and stopped all this imported steel from China coming in,” says John. “At the end of the day you’ve got to protect your own.

“I don’t think it’s too late, but we need to stop all the imports and give our lads a chance.”

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It’s not only the steelworkers and their families who will be affected if an agreement can’t be reached. It is estimated that the knock-on effect would hit around 400 companies in the wider Sheffield city region.

Much of the news coverage in recent days has focused on Port Talbot in South Wales, Tata’s biggest site, but for Rotherham it’s the latest blow following a spate of negative headlines.

As well as finding itself at the centre of a child sex scandal that has tarnished its image, the South Yorkshire town has seen its traditional heavy industries whittled away and with them the jobs that once held its communities together.

When deep coal production came to an end at Maltby Main Colliery in 2013 after the pit was closed, it not only signalled the demise of coal mining in the borough but marked the end of an era with the collieries, once a potent symbol, wiped off the map.

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It also left steel as the last big industrial employer in the town and now this, too, is under threat. The pits have been replaced with small business estates and retail parks home to budget supermarket chains.

But while the retail parks bring in much-needed trade they don’t compensate for all the jobs that have been lost over the years. People drive in, park, do their shopping and then leave. They don’t live and work in these communities in the way they did just a few decades ago.

Parkgate is part of Rotherham’s traditional industrial heartland but speaking to people here and up the hill in Rawmarsh there’s a feeling that they, like similar working class communities elsewhere in the country, have been abandoned by successive governments.

Clive Weekes is a former steelworker who spent 14 years employed at a factory in Scunthorpe before being made redundant in 1990.

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He now runs Hog Roast, a popular shop on Broad Street that provides hot and cold sandwiches to many of the steelworkers at nearby Thrybergh Mill. He says business is already taking a hit. “We normally make two deliveries each day to the gates but this has gone down to just one and if it closes we’d lose about £200 a week.”

He says it wouldn’t just be his business that would suffer. “It would have a serious knock-on effect for local shops, clubs and pubs, without question.”

Carol Parkin, who comes from Rotherham and works in the 
sandwich shop, is equally concerned. Her father and brother both worked in local collieries before being made redundant and she is sceptical about government pledges when it comes to supporting Britain’s steel industry. “They didn’t help the miners and I don’t think they are going to help the steelworkers,” she says. “This area has never really recovered from the pits being closed.”

In his Budget speech in the House of Commons last month, Chancellor George Osborne talked about creating long-term economic stability and putting “the next generation first”.

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But Carol views the future with worry rather than optimism. “I honestly can’t see a future for young people because apart from the supermarkets there aren’t any jobs, so if Tata goes that’ll be the end of it,” she says.

“I dread my grandkids growing up because there’s going to be nothing for young people here. They can’t go to university because it’s too expensive and their parents can’t pay for it and there won’t be any jobs because they’ve closed all the pits and factories.”

Industry facing test of its mettle

Britain’s steel industry has been thrown into crisis by a combination of cheap imports from China, falling global demand, high UK energy prices, the extra cost of climate change policies and a tougher tax regime than many rival producing countries.

Demand for steel worldwide has not returned to the levels seen before the financial crisis in 2008, and with many countries, including China, experiencing weak growth experts predict that global demand will remain sluggish.

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Around the world steel prices have fallen sharply and China’s own economic slowdown has led its producers to look for export markets, leading to accusations that Chinese steel is being sold in the UK at unrealistically low prices.