Mystery backers bring new hope of Blue Circle rescue

A day-long round of frantic phone calls by Weardale county councillor John Shuttleworth finally succeeded last night in arranging a meeting between the two sides.

French parent firm Lafarge, which stunned the Eastgate plant's 147 workers last week by announcing it would close in July, had all but ruled out a sale, saying it would be "very unlikely".

But Coun Shuttleworth said a meeting between the two parties over a possible reprieve for the plant will take place sometime next week.

He is keeping the identity of the plant's potential saviours a closely-guarded secret but says they are currently "working on some figures".

"I was contacted by somebody based in the North-East who is already involved in the aggregates business," he said.

He said he called Blue Circle at 8.15am yesterday with news of the interest in the works, but no one returned his calls until 6.30pm. He was then given a 9pm deadline to arrange a meeting.

"The Weardale works made £11m last year and yet Blue Circle are shutting it down," he said. "The plant is clearly capable of making money. The people involved in the consortium have done their homework and they think they can make a go of it.

"They would prefer to remain anonymous at the moment rather than get people's hopes up.

"Anything that is not negative offers hope and I certainly hope something comes out of this."

Lafarge's UK operations director, Rob Davies, said yesterday: "We were approached this morning about the possibility of a local businessman buying Weardale Works.

"We have not yet had the opportunity to follow this up in detail.

"We should be very clear, though, that we only reached our decision to close Weardale after very long and careful consideration.

"It would be extremely surprising if any prospective buyers' analysis of Weardale's situation in the market was any different from ours.

"While we would not rule anything out, a sale of the factory is very unlikely,"