WHILE our heart-felt sympathy goes out to all those who have lost, or are due to lose, their jobs just before Christmas, we must fight for the new jobs that we are told are in the pipeline. It is too easy to produce a sound bite for the media like “meltdown”.

However for an area like Teesside and North Yorkshire, which has so much potential, we need a more positive message.

I prefer to hear North-East business people emphasising what is imminent on the jobs front in and around our area.

Lobbying the Government for quick meaningful resources and highlighting the advantages of investing in this northern subregion should be top priority for the powers to be.

George Dunning, Middlesbrough.

WE are barely over the shock of major lob losses at SSI before even more losses are announced (Echo, Nov 13).

Positions are going at Tata Steel, quickly followed by more than 700 layoffs at Air Products, with little prospect of work restarting before the New Year, if at all.

We now hear that Cleveland Potash is going to shed around 350 workers, which will devastate the people of East Cleveland. If that was not bad enough it was followed by an announcement that the local HMRC offices on Teesside are to close with the loss of around 700 posts, although these jobs will not go immediately. Those lucky enough to keep their jobs will have to relocate to Newcastle. That’s almost adding almost insult to injury.

What has Teesside done to deserve this treatment and what are our elected representatives doing about it? It seems to be just a couple of sound-bites and then back into the chamber.

What have they done over the many years they have been elected? The answer is very little.

They all make great play about how they will fight for the area but what do they have to show for their labours – absolutely nothing, just more employment depression.

I wonder if we would have been treated in this demeaning fashion had we been a Conservative-voting area? I will let you draw your own conclusions on that question.

Our voting predictability has I believe played a great part in the way we are treated by both sides of the Westminster bubble.

Chris Gallacher, Chairman Ukip Redcar