ON a bitterly cold day last February, Teesside was hit by the news that steel company Corus planned to shed 1,100 jobs from its plants at Redcar, Lackenby, Stockton and Hartlepool.

However, one year on and the forecast is a lot better than first anticipated.

The move was part of a national shake-up involving a total of 6,000 jobs for the Anglo Dutch steel- makers, which had bought British Steel just two years earlier.

The company blamed overcapacity in the steel market and the strength of the pound against the euro.

The closure of the coil plate mill with the loss of 234 jobs signalled an end to Teesside's 160-year-old integrated steel industry.

A spirited campaign by unions failed to keep the mill open, but the feared job losses amounted to very few after a call for voluntary redundancy, early retirement and further minor shake-ups across the workplace meant that most of the plate mill workers were redeployed elsewhere in the company.

However, in a further hammer blow, 648 jobs were culled across the Redcar and Lackenby plant - most of them were administrative positions, in Steel House, with a further 142 jobs from the pipe mill at Stockton and Hartlepool also affected.

Corus still intends to go ahead with its closure of its administrative base, Steel House, by the end of the year. The unions have turned their attentions to saving those jobs.

Tony Poynter, chairman of the multi-union steel committee on Teesside, remains confident that most of the jobs will be kept, but it will mean some staff having to move to the Corus base in Scunthorpe, which is an unpopular proposition among workers.

The capacity in the industry has been reduced both by the cutbacks announced by Corus last year and with the merger of French firm Usinor, Arbed, of Luxembourg, and Aceralia of Spain.

However, despite the closures, Neil Etherington, chief executive of the Tees Valley Development Company, said unemployment figures in Teesside had shrunk by 2,000 - a drop from 7.2 per cent unemployment to 6.1 per cent, although the figure still remains at twice the national average.

Those within the steel industry remain cautiously optimistic about the future of the traditional industry which built Teesside.

Mr Poynter said: "A year on we are trying to convince people who are sceptical that there is a future for Teesside steel - the future is a lot brighter than it was a year ago and there is a belief that Teesside works will survive as a steel-making centre.

"With the improvements to the blast furnace we will continue to make steel into the next decade.