Crisis-hit shipbuilder Cammell Laird's two shipyards are to be put into mothballs with only a skeleton staff kept on.
The shock move will throw hundreds of workers on to the scrapheap with up to 1,800 axed since the company hit the skids.
Receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers said the yards at Birkenhead, Merseyside, and Tyneside now faced the end.
Both sites are due to finish their last work next Tuesday.
About 360 staff work at Birkenhead and 160 on the Tyne with just 14 left at the group's Teesside yard.
Updated: 14.50 Wednesday, July 25
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