AN organisation set up to support enterprise and regeneration in blighted steel areas has pledged more than £8m of support to Teesside following the mothballing of Corus Teesside Cast Products.

UK Steel Enterprise Ltd (UKSE), a subsidiary of Corus, has pledged the £8.3m to help with the recovery of the area should no buyer for the works be found.

About 300 workers have already left the plant and another 1,300 are due to be made redundant as the various stages of mothballing are completed. The package will include doubling the level of UKSE investment into new and growing businesses in the Northern region from £1.5m to £3m and a £4.7m expansion of The Innovation Centre on Hartlepool’s Queens Meadow Business Park, supported by One North East.

About 80 young businesses are housed and supported in UKSE’s two centres in Hartlepool and on the Kirkleatham Business Park, in Redcar.

There will also be a new Regeneration Fund, offering a combination of grants and loans designed specifically for start-up and fledgling businesses requiring a smaller amount than the usual UKSE minimum loan and struggling to find funding elsewhere.

Finally there will be an extra £600,000 for UKSE’s community support fund, which will back local projects and fund business support initiatives.

UK Steel Enterprise regional manager Simon Hamilton said: “The principal focus of this major new support package is to help the recovery from the mothballing of Teesside Cast Products.

He added: “This package of measures is specifically designed to support and encourage former steelworkers and other entrepreneurs who have sound projects and want to set up their own businesses, as well as existing companies who have expansion projects and could create jobs for the area.”