A DELEGATION of workers from a doomed cement factory is preparing to travel to France in a last-ditch bid to save their jobs.

Weardale councillor John Shuttleworth is to lead a group of 20 workers to the Paris headquarters of Lafarge, parent company of the Blue Circle plant at Eastgate.

The delegation is to picket the company's offices in a bid to save the 147 jobs expected to go when the 40-year-old plant closes in July.

The protestors also intend to dump a bag of Weardale cement on the doorstep of Lafarge to reinforce their point.

Since the announcement of the closure, Coun Shuttleworth has tried to arrange a meeting between the company and potential buyers, but Lafarge management insists that cement making will cease at Eastgate.

Coun Shuttleworth has also sent an email to Lafarge chairman and chief executive Bertrand Collomb requesting a meeting, but has not received a reply.

He said: "We have just got to keep nibbling away at them. We are going to go all the way too, and ultimately all the way to Paris. Hopefully, we will be going in the next fortnight.

"I am going to raise a petition up and take it with me, together with a bag of Blue Circle cement for them."

Coun Shuttleworth has also called on the Competition Commission to investigate the Blue Circle management team's assertion that the works will not be sold as a cement business.

He has written a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, asking for his personal intervention and inviting him to visit the plant.

Coun Shuttleworth said: "If he came here I think he would see the strength of feeling of the workers.

"They were very disappointed at the beginning, but that has now turned to anger.

"We have got to get everybody on board," he said.