AN MP will meet the head of an Italian steel firm as planned tomorrow, after quashing rumours about the future of Corus Teesside Cast Products Corus, in Redcar, east Cleveland.

It was reported yesterday that a director of Corus owners Tata Steel had said the plant, where 3,000 jobs are at risk, would not be sold to Marcegaglia at any price.

But Tata last night denied the reports and Redcar MP Vera Baird said a meeting with the company’s chief executive Antonio Marcegaglia, in Italy, would go ahead on Friday. Corus cannot open discussions with potential purchasers until Marcegaglia and Dongkuk Steel, of Korea, decide whether they intend to continue with plans to take a majority stake in the plant. Earlier this month, a four-strong international consortium, including the two firms, tore up a ten-year contract signed in 2004 to take nearly 78 per cent of the plant’s output.

NEWS CALL: Hundreds of newsagents across Britain have signed a petition calling on the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to act to prevent more of them going bankrupt. The move comes after the National Federation of Retail Newsagents revealed last month that the UK’s independent newsagents were closing at a rate of more than one a day. The petition calls on the OFT to re-examine the newspaper and magazine distribution industry, amid what the federation claims are concerns about anticompetitive behaviour which are leaving newsagents facing rising costs.

DEADLINE DAY: Tomorrow is the last day for entries for the 2009 Barclays Trading Places Awards, a Government-backed award recognising people who have overcome adversity to start up a business. Entries for the awards must be in by tomorrow. For details, call 0800-085-3203 or visit barclays.co.uk/tradingplaces RAIL TROPHY: York-based train operator Northern Rail has been named winner of the Sir George Earle Trophy at this year’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents occupational health and safety awards.

Northern Rail is the first train operator to win the trophy in its 53-year history.