WE continue to fight tooth and nail to save the 1,000 jobs Corus plans to shed on Teesside.

We maintain that the workforce has delivered everything asked of it in terms of efficiency and productivity on behalf of Corus. It is unjust that the company is seeking to sacrifice these jobs, rather than see out the latest challenge presented by notoriously cyclical world markets.

While we must endeavour to demonstrate to Corus the error of its ways, we must also begin to come to terms with economic reality.

The reality is, whether or not Corus grants a reprieve this time round, that there is a question mark over the company's willingness to remain a mainstay of the Tees Valley economy in the long term.

And we welcome indications from the very top levels of the Government that a strategy is in place to prepare for such an event.

Too often in the past, North-East communities have been brought to their knees by the sudden death of core industries.

Both shipbuilding and coal mining were brought to a sudden and premature end. Aid packages were put in place, but there was a substantial time lag between the closure of old industries and the birth of new.

In Europe, such closures have been handled very differently and local communities treated with compassion.

When reserves were running low in the coalfields of northern France and Germany, pit closures were delayed five years while regeneration programmes were put in place.

Miners were placed on training courses and were ready to move into new industries by the time the mines closed.

It is high time such sensible European practices were adopted in this country.

Thankfully, it seems the message is at long last getting across.

The regeneration of Teesside will, hopefully, carry on some of the good work of Teesside Development Corporation in cleaning up derelict industrial sites.

But we hope it will go much further in attracting jobs to the area to replace those lost in the once mighty steel and chemical industries.

And we still do not abandon hope that Corus can be persuaded that steel-making can still have an integral role in helping to create a new diversified economy on Teesside