BARROW’S MP has secured a meeting with a government minister in the fight to save 40 civil service jobs at a specialist site.
Phoenix House in Barrow hosts a team of industrial injury and disablement benefit specialists within the Department for Work and Pensions.
The team supports people with industrial injuries such as asbestosis and mesothelioma, a form of cancer that lines the lungs, heart, stomach and other causing painful coughing, respiratory difficulties, and abdominal pain and weight loss.
The office in Stephen Street is among several DWP sites earmarked for closure.
Mr Fell raised the issue in Parliament to minister Guy Opperman, saying: “The plan to close Phoenix House in Barrow will result in more than 40 specialist jobs leaving the area.
“And this matters because the people there are the only team in the country able to deal with the really complicated industrial disablement benefits which they process.
“Only recently, in large part due to our industrial heritage in Barrow we were confirmed as having the highest rate of mesothelioma in the UK.”
Mr Opperman said the relevant government minister would meet the Furness MP to have a ‘proper discussion’ about the site’s future.
Mr Fell is hoping other buildings in Barrow could house the ‘essential’ service.
The MP is also launching a search to call on the Government the options.
He hopes to present his petition to the House of Commons in September after the summer recess.
“Working together, we’re hoping to get hundreds of signatures on my Parliamentary Petition to save the team at Phoenix House from closure,” he said.
“The more signatures we get, the louder the message.
To make the petition as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, I will be making a paper copy available at my office on Cavendish Street in Barrow, on my website, and to all of the partner organizations that I’m working together with on this campaign.
“I’ll also be taking my petition out with me on my summer surgery tour in August.
“If you see my petition, please sign it, so that together we can send a message to the government that we want this service to stay.”