A PORTABLE building tucked behind GlaxoSmithKline's sprawling, 63-acre site in Barnard Castle was once home to a team of people working to smooth the merger between Glaxo Wellcome and Smith-Kline Beecham.

Splicing the two pharmaceutical heavyweights was a complex business, the net result of which cost the factory 400 of its 1,500-strong staff as overlapping divisions were pared back.

Now the building has a new use.

The Employee Support Centre (ESC), as it is now known, was set up in anticipation of a large number of compulsory redundancies.

GSK set aside a fund to retrain and assist the CRs, as they are called - presumably because the dreaded 'R' word becomes unspeakable when more than a quarter of the workforce must be lost.

Management was surprised to find relatively few - less than 20 per cent - of job losses had to be compulsory as staff volunteered to retire or branch out and be their own bosses.

The ESC has since offered both compulsory and voluntary redundant workers computer facilities, seminars, advice and information to help them in the wake of losing their jobs.

The range of options and ideas has seen people enter mainstream employment as gas engineers and driving instructors while others have diversified into crime scene sciences and holistic health studies.

GSK's downsizing in June 2001 also led to the creation of the Teesdale Enterprise Fund, a £750,000 pot provided by the company and managed by the County Durham Development Company.

The aim was to provide support for new business start-ups and to encourage existing companies to open up employment opportunities.

The initial target was to create at least 150 sustainable new jobs over a five-year period.

To date, potentially 185 positions will be created by a range of proposals put forward by firms in Teesdale applying for grants within the first nine months of the fund's existence.

If all grants are taken up - a total of £366,000 has been earmarked - more than half the fund value will still be available to support further job-creating propositions.

Ian Holdstock, acting site director, said: "The fund was a commitment from the company to help create jobs within the Teesdale area.

"That fund is working extremely well. It is probably fair to say it is exceeding what we had hoped for when we set it up."

There was a fear that the plant in Harmire Road might suffer a loss of morale - so-called Survivor Syndrome, where existing staff feel guilty to still have a job - but in fact, productivity at the site hit an all-time high last year.

Mr Holdstock said: "We did not want to forget the people still working here and also gave them support.

"We did not see a dip in performance. Last year was one of the best years on site."

Part of the plant's success was its involvement in GSK's anti-sickness drug Zofran, used to treat post-operative sickness or help people suffering side effects from undergoing chemotherapy.

The Barnard Castle plant produces the intravenous form of the drug which, taking into account all methods of application, achieved blockbuster status in America, the equivalent of $1bn (£0.62bn) sales in a year.

With treatments including Zovirax cold sore product, Eumovate skin allergy cream and Flixonase nasal spray also being produced on site, the plant is going from strength to strength.

The job losses of 2001 are seen as a sorry chapter in Glaxo's history at Barnard Castle, but the site's progression, expertise and skill continues to provide careers and investment on a major scale in Teesdale.

What started as a penicillin plant shortly after Second World War is now a global producer which exports 30 per cent of its products to the States.

Mr Holdstock said: "I think the site has a positive future and that is based around a number of new products that we are making a play for."

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