Iron resolve: steel town unites to fight for its furnaces

Holly Mumby-Croft, the Tory MP for Scunthorpe, outside the British Steel plant. The threat of redundancies at the plan puts her in a difficult position. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

Steve Barnes, co-owner of the Lucky Tuppence sweetshop on Scunthorpe’s high street, has experienced the decline of the UK’s steel industry first-hand: he was made redundant in 1981, when Margaret Thatcher’s government cut thousands of jobs. Barnes said the lack of investment in steel in the decades that followed has felt like “a way of punching the north”.

In between weighing lollipops and chocolate buttons from the array of jars that line his shelves, he is now contemplating the latest blow to the town: British Steel’s plans to axe more than 2,000 jobs in Scunthorpe, out of a workforce of about 3,800, in a shift to greener technology.