Scotland's steel industry reborn following Liberty rescue

The Scottish steel industry is beginning its revival with the reopening of the Dalzell steelworks near Glasgow, after the plant was rescued by industrial group Liberty House in April.

Former owner Tata ceased production at the site in Motherwell in 2015, amid a crisis in the steel industry.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described the revival of the country's last major steelworks as "a very positive signal that the steel and engineering industries still have a future in Scotland".

The executive chairman of Liberty House group, Sanjeev Gupta, paid tribute to the support from the Scottish government in helping the company to rescue the plant.

"There is an impressive spirit of partnership here and a determination to give the Scottish steel industry a real future.

"From our side we promised we would get this important plant open again by the autumn and today we are proud to be fulfilling that promise."

Liberty House has spent the last five months rebuilding the workforce and said many of the 120 staff at the plant are former Tata employees.

It hopes to increase this figure to 200 employees within 18 months.

Dalzell houses the UK's largest and most versatile plate mill and has traditionally provided steel plate to the shipbuilding, construction, mining and oil production industries.

The owners expect the revamped plant to be worth £15m a year to the local economy and said it had "already secured a significant number of orders for plate."

Mr Gupta said that he aims to expand his company's investment in Scotland and deliver on its Greensteel strategy for a competitive, low-carbon and sustainable steel industry.

"Restarting this mill only nine months after production was halted has been a tremendous achievement," said Jon Bolton, chief executive of Liberty Steel UK Plates and UK Steel Development.

"Seeing the plant producing steel plate once again is just reward for all the determination and hard work of the team here at Dalzell.

"We now intend to ramp production up as quickly as the market will allow."

Britain's plate steel market is estimated to be growing at a rate of 3% a year.