CLEVELAND Bridge workers facing the axe at Wembley Stadium were celebrating last night after being told their jobs were saved.

The stadium's main contractor Multiplex confirmed that a deal had been struck between the North-East engineering firm and the sub-contractor taking over on-site work to secure almost 250 jobs.

Cleveland Bridge, of Darlington, which announced earlier this month that it was laying off its entire workforce at Wembley, will pay a redundancy package to all its staff there.

A workforce agency called Fast Track, believed to be based in Birmingham, will then employ them on the same terms and conditions to complete on-site work.

The package was agreed after negotiations between union officials and Fast Track, Multiplex, Cleveland Bridge and Hollandia, the Dutch-based company which has taken over on-site steel erection at Wembley.

Harry Cowap, from engineering union Amicus, said: "I'm extremely pleased. There couldn't have been a better outcome than this.

"We addressed the men and there wasn't a single voice of dissent. There were rapturous rounds of applause for the three shop stewards."

Amicus has about 150 workers at Wembley and the GMB union has about 80.

GMB regional organiser Tom Kelly said: "We are very happy about it. We are glad to see that Multiplex and the incoming contractors have listened to what we have had to say.

"They realised that we have got the interests of the workers at heart and want to see the stadium built on time and in budget."

He said there was a chance that the workers might be kept on longer than was originally planned when Cleveland Bridge won the Wembley contract.

Cleveland Bridge would not comment on the deal last night and is still remaining tight-lipped about why the decision for it to leave Wembley was taken.