A CASH pot used to help ex-steelworkers back into employment should be extended to hundreds of redundancy-threatened miners, according to an MP.

Anna Turley has urged regeneration bosses to look at using the SSI Taskforce to help ICL UK staff.

More than 200 workers face the axe as the miner, based at Boulby, east Cleveland, reacts to dwindling traditional North Sea mineral reserves.

The Taskforce was founded in the aftermath of Redcar steelmaker SSI UK’s collapse, with an £80m Government pledge split between a £30m redundancy pot and a £50m fund aimed at delivering new jobs, training programmes and business start-up support for thousands of affected workers.

However, Redcar MP Ms Turley has now appealed directly to Amanda Skelton, Taskforce chairwoman and chief executive of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, to use any remaining funds to help ICL UK miners.

Ms Turley, who campaigned to save the Redcar steelworks alongside former Labour east Cleveland MP Tom Blenkinsop, said: “It is important that as a community we do everything in our power to support affected workers and their families.

“The workers made redundant will need support finding new work, and retraining if required.

“I ask that we explore the use of remaining funds provided to the SSI Taskforce to support people into new work.

“I understand this may require approval of central Government and would make representations in favour if this is the case.

“When the Government closed our steelworks, the Taskforce was set up to help the thousands of people made unemployed.

“The loss of hundreds more industrial jobs at Boulby has increased the pain “The support package needs to be urgently extended.”

ICL UK first revealed its restructure plan in 2015, announcing it would cut 700 jobs in separate redundancy waves after tests showed its traditional reserves, known as muriate of potash, were running extremely low.

Hundreds of workers have already left, with its latest changes expected to have come into force at the firm, which previously received nearly £5m of Government Regional Growth Fund cash to support its polyhalite venture, by June.

The firm, known locally as Cleveland Potash, is moving away from traditional potash to extract the multi-nutrient fertiliser polyhalite, which bosses say will secure the mine’s long-term future by generating bumper global trade deals.