WORKERS at a recycling plant were locked out this morning after their employer lost the contract to work on site.

Dozens of staff who work for contractor Interserve are understood to have been shut out of the Polmadie waste recycling plant when they turned up for their shifts around 6.30am today.

The Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre (GRRC) will eventually handle 200,000 tonnes of the city's rubbish, and has been under construction since 2013 by Interserve.

But last month site management firm Viridor announced they would be terminating Interserve's contract due to the firm's alleged repeated failure "to meet contracted delivery milestones”.

It has now emerged the contract ended at midnight last night, however dozens of workers appeared to be unaware of plans and still arrived for work this morning.

Trade unions representing staff at the plant are now meeting with Interserve bosses in a bid to resolve the situation for workers.

Viridor are also understood to be working to retain as many of the subcontractors as possible.

Interserve were given a termination notice last month for their contract at the £154m Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre after technical problems caused delays.

In May the firm said the project was behind, and £70m was being put aside to help with the technical issues.

An Interserve spokesman said: “Last month we were served notice of termination on the Glasgow Recycling & Renewable Energy project, which came into effect today. As a result, we will no longer be working on the project, meaning some 150 roles are at risk. We will, where possible, look to redeploy affected employees in other parts of the business.”

A spokesman for Viridor said: "Viridor has terminated its contract with Interserve as a last resort, in the best interests of the project.

"We are moving quickly to ensure continuity of delivery and are working hard to retain the majority of the existing supply chain.”