SEVEN new cattle grids in the Esk Valley and Glaisdale will be made from steel imported from abroad.

Danby Group parish councillors were angry when they heard that the steel would come from abroad, particularly in light of the situation at Corus on Teesside, where more than 2,000 workers' jobs were hanging in the balance.

Coun Rita Rudsdale said: "And they're closing our steel industry down, it doesn't make sense."

Coun David Hodgson added: "Can't we specifically ask that it has to be British steel? It's just giving jobs away."

However, Michael Graham, estate and moorland officer at the North York Moors National Park Authority, explained that the type of steel needed was no longer made in Britain and had to be imported from Sweden.

"They don't make the grade of steel we need in Britain any more. It is a type of steel strong enough to withstand weight and heavy wagons running over it.

"It's a complicated, expensive process to make it, and because it is not needed in great quantities here, it has to come from a specialist manufacturer.

"I believe it used to be made in this country, but not any more, presumably for economic reasons."

The cattle grids will be installed across the area, with working starting shortly, and expected to be completed in August.

The total project will cost in the region of £95,000, with the cattle grids alone costing £89,000.

Mr Graham explained that the funding for the grids had come from English Nature, the Countryside Agency, Yorkshire Forward and the national park.

"The installation of these cattle grids is designed to try to keep sheep farming going on the Moors," he explained.

"It is for the benefit of the local communities and for the landscape and nature conservation.

"The grids will go down at all new sites and in some places they will be there to replace the temporary cattle grids put down during foot-and-mouth. They will help to stop the hefted flocks wandering for miles and miles, because some of them are new flocks after foot-and-mouth.

"Farmers found the cattle grids between Danby High Moor and Danby Low Moor, for example, incredibly useful, as it was getting harder to shepherd the flocks.

"This way, it gives the sheep a limit as to how far they can roam."