A POTENTIAL buyer has started confidential talks with the receivers of Allied Steel & Wire Holdings, the owners of Sheerness steel mill.

Roger Oldfield, joint administrative receiver with KPMG Corporate Recovery which is handling the sale, said: "The interested party has been granted exclusivity in order to take the negotiations forward.

"The details of the negotiations are confidential. There will be several weeks of complex negotiations ahead, and as we are in the very early stages of this process, we can offer no certainty as to the outcome."

Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt cautiously welcomed the news, but warned: "It's early days. I don't know if it will mean redundancies."

Richard Hill and Roger Oldfield of KPMG became joint administrative receivers to ASW Holdings and its trading subsidiaries in July.