A MAJOR steel company has begun to recruit staff for a new Chepstow base – hiring from a rival that will be moving out of the town.

Severfield, which is based in North Yorkshire and has built world famous buildings including The Shard, Wembley Stadium and Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, has hired 19 people who had been made redundant by Mabey Bridge.

And the company said it has ambitions on potentially recruiting five more.

The firm’s bridges team has already started work at Chepstow’s Basepoint Business Centre. The positions based there range from business development to project management. Recruitment to put it together started in January.

Severfield’s chief executive Ian Lawson said: “We are delighted to recruit a large number of employees from the Mabey Bridge business. It provides us with a fantastic opportunity to enhance and expand our current bridge capabilities which is excellent news for clients.”

All of Severfield’s manufacturing will continue from its manufacturing base in Bolton.

Thornwell councillor Armand Watts said: “This is fantastic for Chepstow and hopefully it will raise the profile of Thornwell ward as an area of enterprise and innovation.”

A Newport steel firm, which wanted to remain unnamed, has also hired 18 ex-Mabey Bridge employees. They include engineers, project managers, fabricators and accountants.

Mabey Bridge announced they were closing their Station Road site and looking to sell their Newhouse site in Mathern in December, with the potential loss of 330 jobs. They said all their operations would be transferred to their Lydney base.

Despite numerous attempts over the last two months to establish how many people have been made redundant, the company has declined to give the Free Press any answer.

A month after the news was announced the council's deputy leader Cllr Bob Greenland said the firm has been entwined with Chepstow “for many years” and that it had a good reputation locally.

But the council did not provide a statement about the new jobs at the time of going to press.