As the fate of hundreds of Scunthorpe steelworkers hung in the balance, the Scunthorpe Telegraph published an open letter to the chairman of steel company Corus.

The paper appealed to Sir Brian Moffat to minimise job cuts at the Scunthorpe site, which employs 4,500 staff and around 1,000 contractors.

Yesterday’s announcement sounded the death-knell for 500 workers at the plant, which will stay open. It is recognised the life-blood of the town after 100 years of steel making, now carried out by Corus, formed by the merger of British Steel and Hoogovens.

Employees were bracing themselves for another round of job cuts following the company’s announcement to trim down the local labour force by 670 last July.

In the letter the paper highlighted what Scunthorpe had to offer, and said: “We know there are more job losses to be announced this week, and we want to remind you that here in Scunthorpe we have been making steel for more than 110 years, and iron since 1864.

“We know we are good at it – in fact the best in the world. The facts speak for themselves, Sir Brian.

“In 1999 the Scunthorpe site produced almost a quarter of Britain’s total output of crude steel amounting to 15.4 million tonnes.

“That meant each Corus employee in our town was producing more than 730 tonnes per person per year – almost 30 per cent above the national average,” it added.

North Lincolnshire MPs Elliot Morley and Ian Cawsey have been urging the Corus chairman to accept a multi-million-pound rescue package designed to save jobs in Scunthorpe and across the rest of the UK.

However, a Corus spokesman has denied any knowledge of the package.

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