Massive job losses at steelworks in South Wales brought a lightning responsefrom the South Wales Argus news team.

Towns in the Argus’ heartlands – Newport and Ebbw Vale – bore the brunt of the 6,000 job cuts made by steel firm Corus.

The Ebbw Vale tinplate works are to close completely and steelmaking is to end at the giant Llanwern plant in Newport. A total of 2,150 jobs are to go at the two plants.

The job loss figure will double when contractors are taken into account.News of Corus’ decision broke shortly before 9am on Thursday – and the Argus was on the streets 90 minutes later with a special edition for Ebbw Vale.

An updated Newport edition followed and by the Argus’ final edition at 1pm the paper was carrying six pages of news, reaction and analysis.

An extra 10,000 copies were printed to meet demand from readers to the story.

Each edition carried a poster-style front page with either a picture of the Ebbw Vale or Lllanwern plants with the banner headline ‘Axed’.Friday’s Argus contained a further eight pages of news and background material.

The paper has also set up a special helpdesk for steelworkers who are to lose their jobs.

A special telphone number is being printed prominently in the paper each day.

Callers will be given helpful telephone numbers and questions will be answered as quickly as possible in print.

Argus deputy editor Kevin Ward said: “We are trying to help families – the vast majority of whom are our readers – affected by the cuts.

“We know we can’t stop the job losses but we will do everything we can to help people who will be losing their jobs.”

Ward continued: “It was a superb response from our journalists.

“The news broke fairly late for our first edition, but we had staff at the two plants and they were filing reaction within minutes of the announcement being made.

“We changed a lot of pages through our three editions and knocked spots off our rivals. In fact, the paper was featured on all the major local and national news bulletins on TV.

“Our background material had been planned weeks in advance and that forwardplanning was rewarded when the news broke.”

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