The community at the heart of Scunthorpe’s British Steel saga
While views on the steelwork’s future are divisive, the town’s community spirit is indisputable.
A sombre mood hung over Scunthorpe last week as workers were told the plant could be days from closure, leaving the future of the British steelworks industry in limbo. Now, the latest developments in the steelworks – known as “the beating heart of Scunthorpe” – mean that the UK’s last operational blast furnaces could be saved after all.
The furnaces are set to continue running, with a delivery of raw materials to keep them lit for the “coming weeks” arriving on Tuesday [April 15].
The reaction has been one of relief – but Scunthorpe locals aren’t willing to rest assured just yet.
Steelworkers have told The Lead they feel more optimistic about the plant's future, with many “over the moon and impressed” by how quickly the bill was passed, but there is a weariness with future plans still up in the air – the steelworks has been let down before.
At 30 years old, Thomas Smith has worked at the plant for 12 years and followed in his steelworker father’s footsteps. As a mobile plant operator and branch secretary at the blast furnaces for Community Union, Thomas has been helping to mobilise community support by placing pickets around the town and putting posters up in shop windows, making TV appearances, and organising a peaceful campaign march with steel unions Community, Unite and GMB at Scunthorpe United FC.
Thomas tells us the recent developments have left him feeling “relieved, but not totally, as we have a lot of work to do.” Despite reservations, he says he feels “confident we now have the ability to move forward” and anticipates a full nationalisation of the plant.
“There are still unsettled feelings as to what this means,” Thomas Drakes, who lives in the local area, tells The Lead. “What are the Government's plans for us regarding compliance with net zero? It is a problem that whilst blast furnaces function in this country, it will not be net zero. So my big question is what are the Government's plans for longevity?”
Speaking to the News Agents, Labour MP for Scunthorpe, Sir Nic Dakin welcomed the Government taking back control of the plant and said it was customers driving the demand for greener energy, adding that to deliver to customers in the future “we have got to have a greener steel industry”.
A local identity crisis
While it comes as great news to many that the furnaces have been saved from imminent closure, others have debated whether the Government cares about saving local jobs, or is acting solely to protect national security, after other steelworks sites –such as Port Talbot – were closed under Labour just last year.
Beyond the national economic and political implications, the threat looming over Scunthorpe’s steelworks also presents a local identity crisis for Scunthorpe.
The town’s existence is closely bound to the exploitation of local ironstone, initially becoming an urban district not long after the first steel smelting commenced in the late 1800s. The 2,000 acre steelworks site dominates the small town; the plant’s cooling tower can be seen from the high street, and noises from the plant’s 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operation can be heard in the near distance at night as the town sleeps.
It’s not only the steelworkers who face uncertainty, but their families, and local residents and businesses, who would all feel shockwaves ripple throughout the community if the steelworks industry was to die out. Many have already noticed an impact.
“Scunthorpe town's really not what it used to be because there's a lot of violence nowadays. You just want to live somewhere quiet.”
During a visit to Scunthorpe last week when the future of the town’s steelworks production was hanging in the balance, The Lead spoke with steelworkers past and present, local residents, business owners, and the town’s younger generation, on how they felt about either potential closure or nationalisation.
Once a town with a prosperous history, Scunthorpe is now “overshadowed by significant social issues,” according to one resident. One of the most socially deprived areas in England, a significant portion within the Town Ward is among the 20 per cent of most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.
Unoccupied shop fronts and boarded up businesses are dotted around the town centre, and many locals that we spoke to described Scunthorpe as a “ghost town”. At times, the high street is so quiet, it’s a wonder the local shops still open are managing to survive.
“It does scare me… What’s next?”
Mum-of-three Anna da Silva Tavares moved from Poland to Scunthorpe 19 years ago, and owns a local florist on the high street. “It's a very, very difficult town for business, because we have a lot of people who don't want to spend a lot of money,” she says. “Flowers are a bit of a luxury for people at the moment.”
Worried that a lot of people would leave the town if the steelworks were to go, Anna believes nationalising would be in the community’s best interests. “I really do believe and I really hope that British Steel will come back to the British government – how it's supposed to be.”
Another local business owner, Claire Kilty, who runs Kilty Cut’s hairdressers, told The Lead that she is able to predict the monthly jump in business based on the steelwork’s payday, and that a closure of the steelworks would be “very hard” on the business.
“It does scare me,” she admits. “I’ve just signed for another three years and we’re doing a revamp putting money back into the business. I don’t know how long we’re going to just coast. It made me think, what’s next? I’m in a position now where do I sell up and leave?”
The salon also doubles up as a safe space where locals can come by for support if they are struggling with domestic violence or mental health issues, including self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Claire says she has been bracing herself for an increase of locals needing support if steelwork job losses were to increase.
For young people, the decline of the steelworks has also had a knock-on effect. Without apprenticeships and job opportunities to enter the steelworks industry, factory work and customer-service roles are the main alternatives – but the latter is on the decline due to a suffering local economy.
Laken Westmoreland, 20, who is expecting a baby, recently moved to Scunthorpe from Doncaster to live with her partner Liam Marsh, 21. Asked their thoughts on the town, they seem despondent.
“There's nothing that I really like”, says Liam. “Scunthorpe town's really not what it used to be because there's a lot of violence nowadays. You just want to live somewhere quiet.”
Elsewhere on the high street, Indie Cafe is a not-for-profit community youth program where 16-25-year-olds can gain work experience, training, and the opportunity to socialise while helping to run the cafe and live music venue. Staffed by young volunteers, it is one of the few youth initiatives in the town.
Sam Hewson, a student at The University of Lincoln and previously an intern for Sir Nic Dakin MP, also works as a cleaner at Indie Cafe and believes the steelworks is a “vital industry that shouldn’t be in private hands anyway.”
“A lot of young people definitely feel that they're limited in scope, what they can do, what activities are out there to do,” he says. But Sam is also optimistic that other areas, such as the local education services, could provide more jobs for young people beyond the steelworks if needed.
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An industry in decline
While rumours of the steelworks' potential imminent closure over the last few weeks left much of the local community shell-shocked, some had already decided to accept what they described as “the inevitable”.
“150 years of steelmaking. It’s all getting old. It is emotional, but it is what it is.”
British steel production has been on a gradual decline for decades, and at its highest in 1970, the UK produced 28.3 million tonnes of steel, compared to 17.8 million in 1990, and 9.7 million in 2010. In 2024, just 4 million tonnes of crude steel was manufactured on British soil – a fall in output of 29 per cent in comparison to just the previous year.
One ex-employee of Scunthorpe’s plant left the company in 2019 when it went into liquidation before moving into the water industry – a career change where he has gained more qualifications and gets to work on “multi-million pound projects”.
“The writing was on the wall in 2020. The steelworks has lost a lot of experience, as people have left for job security and better wages and working conditions”, he tells The Lead. “I’m glad I left when I did. It was the best move I could have made for myself and my family. There is a sense of relief with job security and knowing you’ll be paid each month. During my last three years in steelworks, you used to worry month to month whether you’d be paid.”
Geoffrey Neal, now retired at 74, was a maintenance fitter on the plant for 20 years. “150 years of steelmaking. It’s all getting old. It is emotional, but it is what it is.”
Another worker in a senior management role described how he was warned about job insecurity on his very first day – almost 30 years ago.
Not everyone believes that the end of the steelworks would have been a nail in the coffin for the town; instead change could bring with it the opportunity to adapt.
Sophie Mayberry, a senior recruitment consultant at Scunthorpe-based agency, AM2PM, holds a more optimistic outlook: “I completely understand, from a patriotic point of view, that's something that we want to keep. It's something that we've done for 200 years. However, I do think it's not commercially viable to run UK steel anymore.”
Sophie wonders if it would be more beneficial to the local area to decommission the site.
“From a short-term point of view, there might be people who are unemployed, but decommissioning would take decades,” she says. “They would have many more opportunities for employment to get the site back down to where it needs to be.
“I think in the long-term it would actually create more skilled workforce in the local area, which then go on to be used for other companies which are not overly local, but not far away.”
While views on the steelwork’s future are divisive, what is indisputable is the town’s strong sense of community spirit.
The local push for a better outcome for the people has unified its residents, and the socioeconomic issues it currently faces overshadows many of its positive attributes – such as its two theatres, a nationally recognised art gallery and a thriving art scene, a museum, parks, and restaurants.
Whether the government will provide the resources the steelworks and the town desperately need to thrive on a long-term scale remains to be seen, but there is still a fight left among the community to change the narrative around Scunthorpe’s future.
As British steelworker Thomas Smith says: “We have all the potential in the world, right here, in Scunthorpe.”
About the author: Hannah is a journalist, writer and documentary producer focusing on social issues, world affairs, culture, and investigations. She has written for the i Paper, Dazed, The Face, Screenshot and the Islington Gazette, and has developed current affairs stories for broadcast, including an investigation into one of Britain’s biggest child abuse scandals.
We’re keeping you up to date with what’s going on in Scunthorpe with Hannah’s on-the-ground reporting from the steelworks. Last week she spoke to Nigel Farage as he used the industry’s turmoil to push Reform’s agenda. Elsewhere, our Westminster Editor Zoe unpacked the argument for nationalisation and whether Labour has been tepid on the issue.
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I was born in Scunthorpe. We are a tough lot. We never give up.