A CAMPAIGN has been launched to save 50 jobs in a work-hungry town.

Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell has joined the fight to keep open a 100-year-old sausage-making plant in the town.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) meets tomorrow to consider a ban on the manufacture of sausage casings made from sheep products, which would sound the death knell for Weschenfelder and Sons.

The agency says sheep intestines, used in the casings, may not be safe for consumption, concerned that BSE in cows and scrapie in sheep may be linked.

Mr Bell has written to Margaret Beckett and Patricia Hewitt, respectively secretaries of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Trade and Industry, telling them there is no scientific evidence to justify a ban.

Tim Weschenfelder, who runs the business with his brother, John, said: "I think it is outrageous. It is purely a theoretical risk - they the Government are not advising against eating lamb. The reason they are doing this is to cover their own backs, to be seen to be doing something."

The Natural Sausage Casings Association is launching a legal challenge against the FSA, partly on the grounds of an alleged complete lack of consultation.

It says it was only given two weeks to prepare its case, a period which included the Queen's Jubilee bank holiday.

The association, which has received letters of encouragement from 12 MPs and two peers, says the FSA has not even acknowledged its notice of a challenge.

Mr Weschenfelder, the association's chairman, said: "I think people perceive it as another knock against a traditional product, for no other reason than a theoretical concern."

Mr Weschenfelder wants the agency to withdraw its recommendation and look at the issue with a new and more representative stakeholder committee.

Mr Bell says in a letter to FSA chairman Sir John Krebs: "Over and above the fact that 50 of my constituents might lose their jobs should a ban be imposed, I am mindful of the severe impact upon a specialist lamb casing sausage market estimated to be worth £2.8bn a year.