TEESSIDE suffered another devastating blow yesterday with the suspension of 700 workers from a construction site, writes Peter Lazenby.

Company Air Products is building two energy-from-waste plants in Teesside.

But it has halted building on one site and simply told workers, without consultation, that they are not needed.

GMB regional officer Michael Blench said: “GMB are in talks with Air Products to try to resolve this appalling situation where, due to no fault of their own, members have been dismissed with no prior consultation regarding the disastrous situation with the technological problems on the site.”

Teesside was recently hit by the closure of the SSI steelworks at Redcar with the loss of 3,000 jobs in steel and ancillary industries.