THE deadline for potential buyers of the Sheerness steel mill to register interest passed at the weekend - and several have come forward.

The final call was extended for a week to allow all interested parties to lodge their bids with the receivers, KPMG Corporate Recovery.

The workforce is expecting to find out who the mill's new owners will be during the second week of September.

Joint administrative receivers Richard Hill and Roger Oldfield announced the closing date of receipt of indicative offers for the businesses and assets of Allied Steel and Wire. Mr Oldfield said: "We have received a number of indicative offers, which will each require clarification to allow us to compare them on a like-for-like basis.

"We anticipate that this process will take us several days as it appears that there may be some potentially complex issues to be addressed before the offerers can commit to final and best offers on Friday, August 30. Any sale is unlikely to be completed before the middle of September."

Peter Holsten, of the local branch of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation union, said: "We have heard there's about four or five in the frame. Some want to buy us and parts of Cardiff, some want to buy just us. I am confident a buyer will be found, but it's what they do with us when they have bought us - how they will rationalise."

Meanwhile, top level meetings in Parliament are being arranged to discuss the pensions crisis at the mill. Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt has pencilled Tuesday, October 15, into his diary for talks with representatives from the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Treasury and the Prime MinisterÕs office.

He is delivering promises to the action group formed by workers at ASW Sheerness, who face losing out on pension cash as a result of the company going into receivership.

Mr Wyatt said: "We need to lobby ministers to show them our concern at what has happened and to ask them what they are going to do about it."