Workers at Plaxtons, the stricken bus and coach factory at Scarborough, today said they still do not know if their jobs are safe - despite a new plan to save some jobs at the plant being thrashed out.

It is now almost three weeks since Plaxtons bosses announced plans to close the plant entirely.

Last Thursday, automotive union troubleshooter Tony Woodley helped make a deal that would save the plant and turn it into "a centre of excellence for coach building".

Under that deal though, up to two-thirds of the jobs could still be lost.

Now, talks at Transport House, London, have resulted in the finer points of that deal being written into a 14-point plan, which, it is believed, concentrate on issues such as workers' pay and conditions.

But union officials say that, despite the success of the talks, most of the 500 jobs at the plant will still be lost.

This, said York resident and Plaxtons worker Stephen Gaines, is the only information he and his colleagues have.

He said: "I wish I knew what was going on, but I don't. None of us do. It seems like you find things out before we do.

"All we do know is that jobs will still be lost even though they have supposedly come up with this plan. We don't know any of its details.

"In my opinion it is a total shambles. People want to know whether they are staying or going, but nobody is being told anything."

Mr Gaines said he wasn't sure how redundancy would affect him and his family.

But he said he is preparing for it, just in case.

He said: "You've got to be ready for it, so I've been speaking to people and I've made some job applications. We all just want to know what is going to happen.

"Three weeks is just too long to keep people waiting."

Andrew Dodgson, a spokesman for the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G), said he expects workers will be given the details soon.

He said: "I don't think there is any need for conspiracy theories here, it is more than likely down to the timing of the talks, seeing as they didn't wind up until the early hours of yesterday.

"We expect the workers at Plaxtons to be told the details over the next few days. We don't know how it will be done, whether it will be mass meetings or briefings of shop stewards, but we don't anticipate a long delay."

After the marathon talks, T&G secretary John Rowse said: "The T&G, the other trades unions involved and the Plaxtons management will now put the detail of the 14-point plan to local discussion.

"It is expected the TransBus board will also be briefed on the current situation.

"We will be looking at a very different Plaxtons operation in the short-term as undoubtedly jobs will go."

Updated: 11:07 Thursday, May 24, 2001