HOPES that a rival tobacco company would take over the abandoned Rothmans plant at Spennymoor have finally been dashed a year after the plant closed.

Developers Industrial Estates Scotland (IES) had originally aimed to move the first tenants into small units at the 21-year-old factory last spring and eventually create 300 jobs.

But they delayed breaking up the building because of interest from two larger concerns, including an unnamed American tobacco company, which could have taken over the entire 27-acre site.

Margo McKee, estates and marketing executive at IES, said yesterday: "We held back because we thought that one company was going to take over the whole estate.

"If it had been another tobacco company, it was ideal as it was. Now, it will be September or October before it is ready for occupation."

For many of Rothmans' workers, the plant's closure did not spell the disaster they feared.

Former Manufacturing, Science and Finance union branch secretary, Richard Austin, is one whose life changed for the better, despite a drop in wages.

He joined Sedgefield Borough's Community Task Force and appreciates the rewards of working in a community instead of on a machine.

Mr Austin said: "It was traumatic at the time but we have all moved on, and for most of us it has worked out well.

"People are either settled in new ventures or were quite happy to take redundancy or retirement.

"We still keep in touch, because when you have worked together for 20 years you are like a family."

More than 140 workers transferred to the company's Darlington plant, which itself faces an uncertain future because of a new European Union ban on the export of high tar cigarettes.

A Rothmans spokesman said: "The latest figures show that 98 per cent of the people affected by the Spennymoor closure have been resettled through finding jobs, retraining or retirement.

"The people who transferred to Darlington are now part of the team there.

"It has gone extremely well."