Calls strengthen for Teesside industry aid.

THE Tories have added their weight to calls for Government to intervene at the Wilton chemical site to avert further job losses.

James Wharton, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Stockton South, has called on Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to visit the Tees Valley "as a matter of urgency" to discuss proposals sent to him by a war cabinet of process chiefs.

The joint letter from the North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) and Tees Valley Engineering Partnership (TVEP) is signed on behalf of more than 30 local engineering firms.

They are lobbying for, among other things, a pounds 48m "modernisation" fund that would allow companies to make capital investments and keep staff in jobs.

Mr Wharton said the Government needed to act "sooner rather than later" to ensure that the recession did not wreak "long-term damage". But he stopped short of saying that outright subsidies would be a panacea to the industry's problems.

He said: "I'm not saying that 'X, Y, Z' is the solution. But there has to be some open dialogue about it.

"This sector of the economy has specific needs and if we don't take action to ensure its continued success, more and more jobs will go abroad."

He said options should include loan guarantee schemes, as well as measures to retain apprenticeships and graduate trainees in the sector.

The process war cabinet was formed last month after the sector was hit by a series of plant closures. In recent months Invista Textiles, Dow, Croda and Elementis have all announced they are pulling out of Teesside while the Artenius plastics plant has been mothballed as administrators seek a new owner.