FORMER Scottish steelworkers who claim to have suffered health problems through exposure to toxic gases at the Ravenscraig steel works are launching a multi-million pound legal action, 21 years after it shut down.

 

As many as 400 people, including the families of workers who have since died, are consulting a legal firm seeking compensation from the North Lanarkshire works' owners.

Evidence is being compiled by former workers at the Motherwell plant who are suffering from skin cancer, lung cancer and breathing complaints such as emphysema and the legal firm has appealed for more cases to be brought forward.

The site shut 1992, with its famous gasometer being demolished in 1996. However, lawyers Collins Solicitors, of Watford, said it will still be able to bring a successful case on behalf of clients.

The firm is confident because it represented successfully families in a landmark case against Corby District Council in which children of parents who lived near the Northamptonshire town's steelworks were born with deformities.

It also represents families in the Motherwell toxic-land case, where it is claimed residents of an estate were being made ill due to their houses being built near a former munitions plant. The firm expects the case to go to court next year.

Des Collins, a senior partner, said: "When we were working on Corby, we got a number of inquiries from people who worked at Ravenscraig.

"At the time we didn't feel the law was in the right place for us to take on Ravenscraig, but we did keep those inquiries on file.

"Then when we were working on Motherwell, more local people approached us to ask us to look into Ravenscraig and to represent people who worked in the steel industry, particularly in the coking ovens."

Mr Collins said that in the light of the Corby situation, the law had been adjusted to make it easier for claims such those involving former employees at Ravenscraig to be successful.

He added: "The law recognises now that the state of knowledge in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was such to make it incumbent on the people running these operations to take better care of their workers and put in place safety provisions.

"We have revisited all the cases on which we had inquiries regarding Ravenscraig. The cost-effectiveness of this will be more easily established once we have more people on board."

Coking ovens were used in the manufacture of steel and it is the byproducts of these ovens which Mr Collins believes is linked to the illnesses being described by former Ravenscraig workers.

The lawyers are investigating the chain of ownership at Ravenscraig over the years. The plant was commissioned by the Colville Group before the industry came under ownership of the state, handing the reins to British Steel.

Mr Collins added: "The number of cases we go forward with is always going to be determined by the number of people who come forward.

"I would have thought that the extent of the Ravenscraig problem would mean a lot more people will come forward."

He said the case was an an early stage, but he expected it would have to move quickly from this point as there is a three-year limit on personal injury claims from the date it is established the complaint is linked to the workplace.

He added: "The courts can overrule that time bar, but we need to move fast.

"It's time something was done about what happened at Ravenscraig. This is the right time to take this on. The law moves very slowly, but now it's in the right place."