THE former managing director of a Teesside chemical plant has launched a scathing attack on its owners, describing the decision to close it as “industrial vandalism”.

Bruce Norman, who was managing director at Elementis Chromium, in Urlay Nook, Eaglescliffe, near Stockton, from 1992 to 1999, accused its owners of taking a short-term view over the decision, announced last month, to shut the 175-year-old site, with the loss of 135 jobs.

In an open letter to the company, he said the board and senior management lacked strategic experience of the chrome industry and had taken a knee-jerk approach.

In his letter, Mr Norman said: “At the end of 2008, sales at Eaglescliffe fell dramatically, as they have at most other manufacturing facilities around the world.

“Rather than work to develop a plan to ensure the plant survived the credit crunch, the board simply announced its closure.

“Had previous generations of management taken the same knee-jerk short-sighted approach, the plant would not have survived ten years, let alone 175.”

Mr Norman said that until ten years ago, decisions about the plant were made locally and with a long-term view.

He said although major decisions required approval from the board, in London, it had trusted local management.

But he said that in the late Nineties, decision making was moved to London and taken “to meet the short-term demands of the City”.

Mr Norman said: “Over ten years they have allowed a situation to develop where neither at board or senior management level does the company have anyone with any strategic experience of the chrome business.”

He added: “The board has inappropriate experience to question senior management.

Senior management has insufficient experience to make strategic decisions. Dissenting voices are dismissed rather than listened to. And a viable business is destroyed.”

Speaking to The Northern Echo last night, Mr Norman said: “I am just very disappointed that it has come to this point because it is certainly unnecessary.

“Had the board made different decisions and taken a longer-term view, there is no reason why Eaglescliffe could not have survived the current difficulties.

“We have so little manufacturing industry left, it is a shame to throw high quality manufacturing industry away.”

A spokesman for Elementis said the company would not be commenting on the individual comments made by Mr Norman in his letter.

He said: “This is an expression of personal views from a former employee who left Elementis over ten years ago.

“The company’s reasons for the closure were well documented at the time of the announcement and are very clear.”

The Teesside factory, which makes products used to coat metals and tan leather, had been hit by competition from China.

Last month, Elementis said it would shut the plant as it could no longer be certain of the long-term cash flow and profitability of the site.

It will close in a phased shut-down beginning at the end of next month.