An employee is overseeing the progressive dismantling of the abattoir, with some of the parts going to T&R Pastoral’s other plants, while the rest will be auctioned or scrapped.

In a report in The Recorder in July, company director Darren Thomas said the abattoir at Port Pirie would remain closed while the company has “excess capacity” at its Murray Bridge and Lobethal sites.

A T&R Pastoral spokesman said yesterday that the abattoir would not be opening again “as far as he can see”.

“We have capacity available but we have not got the labor,” he said.

“We have not got the labor and this is a problem throughout the meat industry in Australia and other industries.”

He said the company was “desperately” short of people with the appropriate skills to work in the industry.

The abattoir was closed after Conroy’s sold to T&R Pastoral in July last year, resulting in 100 redundancies.

Seventy percent of these were reported to have gained employment.

Southern Flinders Ranges Development Board executive manager Mark Malcolm has resided himself to the fact the site will never reopen as an abattoir but has said he will work with the company to attempt to get some new business on the site.

“The strength of the local economy in the past five years been able to absorb the loss, but in saying that, we continue to communicate with T&R to try and find other uses for the site,” Mr Malcolm said.

He said it would be subject to council approval but the site was useful because of its infrastructure such as gas and power.