Staff are working to prevent a permanent shutdown of the Scunthorpe steel plant

British Steel announced Allan Bell as the interim chief of the Scunthorpe steel plant and union officials are “hopeful” that within the next 48 hours materials will be delivered to keep the blast furnaces alight.

Staff at Scunthorpe and other officials are attempting to prevent a permanent shutdown of the blast furnaces.

Andy Prendergast, national secretary at the GMB union told the PA news agency, “Where we are at the moment is that we’re confident that the deal being done with the raw materials, and the steps being taken will get there on time, and ultimately that has the potential to preserve the future for the plant.

“There still needs to be… a deal to be done for the future, whether that’s our preference – which is nationalisation of what is a key national asset – or whether that’s a genuine private investor who’s willing to come in and put the money.

“I think for us the key thing is that we keep this plant going and keep virgin steel-making capacity in the UK.”

Asked about an expected timeline for getting the material in, Mr Prendergast said: “We’re being told it’s going to come in good time, so we’re… hopeful that it’s the next 48 hours but we haven’t had confirmation of that.

“However, we believe the steps taken would be meaningless if there weren’t the logistics in place to get it to the plant on time”.

Roy Rickhuss, the general secretary of the Community trade union, which represents steelworkers, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, “The Chinese owners Jingye unfortunately were seen to be working against the business, if that’s fair to say, that they weren’t ordering raw materials.”