FACTORY bosses who turned down a £20m Government grant last night said it would not have been enough to save 760 North-East jobs.

LG Philips is closing its TV tube plant in Durham this summer, blaming the rise in popularity of flat-screen televisions.

But the company came under fire earlier this week, after it emerged the Department for Trade and Industry had offered up to £20m in 1999 to help it update technologies.

Hillary Armstrong, Labour candidate for North-West Durham, said the cash would have helped Philips move from manufacturing old-fashioned cathode ray tubes (CRT) to LCD flat screens.

It emerged later that Ms Armstrong was mistaken, and the money had in fact been offered to help Philips invest in wide screen technology - now also outdated.

David Coppock, plant director, said: "Suggestions that the Durham plant turned down the offer of a £20m grant to invest in flat-screen technology in the late 1990s are incorrect.

"Philips was considering investment in wide-screen cathode ray technology and there were discussions about possible support to assist with this."

At the time, Durham was profitably producing three million smaller tubes and Philips settled on producing wide-screen TVs from plants in Aachen, Germany, and Dreux, in France.

"Even if Durham had been chosen and the grant taken up, the plant would have faced the same dramatic collapse in the market for its product," said Mr Coppock.

"Aachen is now closed and Dreux no longer manufactures wide-screen tubes."

The Belmont plant became LG Philips Displays in 2001 after Philips signed a joint venture with Korean firm LG Electronics. Since then, it has invested £14m in the site.

The two companies set up a separate operation for flat-screens, LG Philips LCD, in 1999, with a production base in the Far East.