THE jobs of 48 workers have been secured at the Hydro Polymers PVC plant in Newton Aycliffe following a £240,000 grant from One NorthEast.

The money will allow the Norwegian firm to buy machinery to improve efficiency in the manufacture of PVC granules used widely in the production of household fittings, such as guttering and window frames.

In total, 400 employees are based at the Hydro Polymers site, which boasts the largest single site PVC compounding operation in Europe.

The Regional Selective Assistance package agreed with One NorthEast will help towards a package of investments in the plant's compounding operation totalling close to £2m.

The plant, near Darlington, is one of only two companies producing PVC in the UK and has operated from its present base for more than 50 years, since the establishment of Newton Aycliffe Industrial Park in the 1940s.

Over five decades, the plant's output has steadily grown to 370,000 tonnes of PVC resin and compounds a year.

The investment will also be the first stage in future developments at the plant to enable the company to process recycled PVC at Newton Aycliffe, an important step for the UK PVC industry.

Bill Wood, Hydro Polymers site director, said: "This investment will not only secure jobs by helping us to be more competitive today, but will also be the first step towards future developments involving recycling PVC at Aycliffe.

"This is vital for the long term sustainability of the PVC industry."

Hydro Polymers - the petrochemicals division of Norsk Hydro ASA, Norway's largest publicly quoted company - employs about 1,200 people in its production plants and compounding facilities in Norway, Sweden and the UK, and has a turnover in excess of £500m a year.