Thursday's Letters: Dynamic Forgemasters looks to the future despite setback

For the four years up to the management buy out (MBO) in 2005, myself, together with a close-knit team, maintained a future for the company in the face of adversity, staving off liquidation to save jobs, pensions and more than 1,000 suppliers from possible economic collapse.

We all worked tirelessly to protect Forgemasters' future and to secure the MBO deal, winning full backing from the Government, the workforce and trade unions.

I stepped in, when no external bids for the company were on the table, and borrowed all my share money to make the MBO happen, which is why I am the major shareholder at Sheffield Forgemasters.

In those five years, and beyond, I have helped create a secure future for this company, having risked my own personal situation to make it happen.

My priority has always been with this special company, its workforce and its future.

Soon after the MBO, we purchased the remaining shares from the Government which we then made available for purchase by all other employees, via a discounted company scheme. Now, 100 per cent of shares are owned by management and employees of the company; this was a crucial milestone in the company's history and the future vision for the organisation.

The Government's announcement to overturn the loan offered to Sheffield Forgemasters to install a 15,000-tonne press is a huge disappointment to all.

Over the past two years, we have worked with government advisers, including the Shareholder Executive's own corporate finance experts, on the details of a financing package. The package included not only the Government's loan, but also a substantial equity injection from the private equity market which would have significantly diluted the existing shareholding. That private equity portion was at the insistence of the Government to safeguard the finance package which filled the funding gap without creating unserviceable levels of debt for Sheffield Forgemasters.

Everything that we have done since the MBO, including reinvesting every penny of profit, has been done with long-term aims in mind. Investment in both our people and plant and equipment has helped raise the company's profile in the world and attract contracts to underpin and create jobs, and provide stability for future generations.

No dividends have been paid because this company does not hinge around making money for shareholders or individual gain. It has been at considerable personal risk that I have been involved.

While the press would have placed the company at the forefront of civil nuclear manufacture, it is important for us now to focus on other elements of the company's development.

Sheffield Forgemasters will continue to develop its significant involvement in the power generation, defence, offshore, steel processing and nuclear markets and seek other ways to develop. Backed by the swathe of public support, we will continue to steer Sheffield Forgemasters on a dynamic course.

One law for US, one law for the rest

From: KM Herbert, Bluebell Avenue, Penistone, Sheffield.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama's vilification of British Petroleum stands in stark contrast to the approach taken to Union Carbide, the US firm responsible for the Bhopal disaster which killed around 3,000 people instantly in India in 1984. Some estimates put the final death toll at around 25,000.

For the past 26 years, Warren Anderson, chief executive of Union Carbide at the time, has been in breach of bail conditions set by the Indian courts.

The Indian courts wanted to put him on trial on charges of culpable homicide over safety failure, which allowed 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas to leak from the firm's pesticide factory, enveloping the town. However, Anderson left India, after being given bail and has never returned, even though he signed a legal agreement to face charges there.

In 2004, America rejected an attempt to extradite him.

It would appear America has one law for America and its citizens and one law for other countries in the world and their citizens.

That disaster, the world's worst industrial accident, left an estimated 500,000 people with damage to their breathing, sight and mental health.

An investigation found that six safety measures designed to prevent a gas leak from the factory had either malfunctioned, were turned off, or were inadequate, a siren intended to alert the community should an incident occur at the plant, was also turned off.

Anderson was responsible for a disaster that cost thousands more lives than the one the BP boss, Tony Haywood, faces in the Gulf of Mexico.

President Obama rants that BP will pay every cent in compensation to US citizens that have lost their living. The victims in India received around 350 each, and Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide in 2001, claims it has no remaining responsibility for Bhopal.

So the BP boss has had to face the senators in America, yet Anderson has had to face no one, and lives in luxury.

NHS Trust's salary shock

From: Dr Robert Heys (former chairman Calderdale Patients' Forum), Bar Lane, Sowerby Bridge, Halifax.

WHEN, in 2007, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust was granted Foundation status, one of the principal advantages cited by Trust management for this development was the greater discretion it afforded them in allocating the limited funds available.

Perhaps understandably, in view of the example set by bankers, comparison of the Trust's annual report and accounts for 2006-7 with that of 2008-9 shows this discretion has led to a large increase in the remuneration of senior managers.

Thus between those dates, the salary of the chief executive rose by 75,000 pa (71 per cent) from 105,000 to 180,000 (by comparison, the Prime Minister gets by on 142,500). She also benefited from the prospect of a 'lump sum' payment at 60 years of age, increased from 185,000 to 260,000 (75,000), ie 41 per cent, and a substantially increased pension on retirement.

The salaries of other senior executives also rose collectively from 330,000 in 2006-7 to 590,000 in 2008-9, ie 260,000 (79 per cent) and their "lump sums" increased by 47,000, form 460,000 to 507,000 (10.1 per cent); while non-executive directors received in total a rise from 60,000 to 97,000, ie 37,000 (61 per cent) in their salaries.

To summarise, between 2006 and 2008, the remuneration at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust rose by almost half-a-million pounds (494,000) excluding pension enhancements.

It seems most unlikely that Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust managers are alone in awarding themselves such unwarranted pay rises (which are particularly reprehensible in view of the parlous state of the nation's finances), thus supporting my call (Yorkshire Post, April 8) for a

substantial reduction in the remuneration of those concerned, with the savings arising going to the provision of frontline services.

Scarborough dirty old town

From Teri Brown, Elders Street, Scarborough.

SCARBOROUGH is the most filthy town on the East Coast, next to Bridlington. The town centre is full of dog dirt, seagull dirt, and pigeon dirt; then there's the human dirt.

You wouldn't be able to walk through the town centre without being accosted by drunks, druggies, tramps, out of control kids, litter, needles, human waste, etc.

"That's nothing new", you will probably say, and you are right. But I have lost count of the number of times I have told Scarborough Council about problems I have been witness to. Also, Scarborough is the anti-social behaviour capital of the East Coast.

I used to live in South Yorkshire and I found people to be a lot friendlier there. I would like to go back there, but I can't afford to move.

Looking through the window at a piece of history

From: Ron Farley, Croftway, Camblesforth, Near Selby.

SHEENA Hastings' article on Selby's temporary (one week only) museum of local artefacts (Yorkshire Post, June 16) has two errors – one minor and one major.

The minor one is that the stuffed Sheld Duck is, of course, a Shelduck.

The major one will doubtless go on being made for many years yet. Selby Abbey has a 14th-century window bearing the coat-of-arms of the Washington family which Sheena, and doubtless others, describe as "bearing three stars and stripes... said to have been the inspiration for the US national flag". They are not stars. They have holes in the centre and are, in fact, spur rowels.

When Glover the Herald visited Selby in 1584-5, he described the escutcheon as: "Argent, two bars and, in chief, three mullets pierced, gules."

The shield is white with two red bars across and three red mullets (spur rowels) in chief with a hole in the centre. This piercing is necessary to the true representation of the Washington mullets.

At Great Brington in Northamptonshire, where the first President's ancestors formerly dwelt the arms are also represented with pierced mullets, the colours being identical with Selby though the shield is much smaller.

In 1891, Harper's magazine showed two seals and a bookplate used by Washington which are virtually exact replicas of the Wessington family coat-of-arms.

The Washington Shield at Selby probably represents some kind of benefaction made to the Abbey to commemorate John Wessington, Prior of Durham (1416-1446), the most distinguished collateral ancestor of George Washington.

A blight on our potatoes

From: Trev Bromby, Sculcoates Lane, Hull, East Yorkshire.

HAVE other readers suffered the same annoyance as myself with regard to black, watery and/or mixed spuds? Not forgetting seeding variety.

I like to think of myself as a student in chipology, but for the last few years, fresh spuds seem to be as rare as hens' teeth. If the seemingly greedy suppliers would consign the front batch to pig swill, where they deservedly belong, it would allow fresh spuds to reach the fore, then spudologists nationwide could be happy once more.

Fruit and vegetable shops, supermarkets, suppliers, Defra take note. Put a stop to this blight.

Exit vote

From: Edwin Bateman, South Dyke, Great Salkeld, Penrith, Cumbria.

IF Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman really wants to save British farming, she should tell David Cameron to honour his promised vote on EU exit and stop listening to NFU President Peter Kendall – an ardent Europhile.

The only way to save UK farming is to exit the EU, scrap all EU Directives that the Lib-Lab-Con politicians have given them the power to clobber us with, and reinstate the former system of guaranteed prices, deficiency payments and annual price reviews to recoup increased costs of the Milk Marketing Boards to balance supermarket pricing power.

Take a bow

From: William Moore, Blyth, Notts.

I WAS incensed by the suggestion (Yorkshire Post, June 21) that Andy Murray had a dilemma about whether to bow before the Queen at Wimbledon today. There shouldn't be a dilemma – he has to bow.