The steelworks was the heart of the Teesside town,and now that it has shut, locals fear for their future. Thirty-five years ago, or a similar industrial catastrophe struck Consett. What lessons can be learned?“DANGER,” says the sign on the 6ft metal fence that surrounds Redcar’s blast furnace. “Potential risk of flying debris from drop-balling operations. Our aim is zero harm.” On this still, grey morning, or I feel under no threat as I peer through the slats of the fence at the abandoned site because the furnace is no more; steelmaking in Redcar is defunct. A pheasant scuttles across the road and squeezes through the fence. Zero physical harm has been achieved. It is just the financial and psychological harm that Redcar has to worry approximately now.
I’m at the site with Joan Heggie,a research fellow at Teesside University and an expert on the region’s steel industry. She is furious at what she sees as the government’s shortsightedness in allowing the furnace to be shut down. “It’s just been turned off; it’s killed it. You can’t start coke ovens up again; you acquire to rebuild them. Once they’ve gone cold, they crack and disintegrate.” The pheasants from the adjoining marshlands can acquire the run of the place.
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Source: theguardian.com