Member Article

Partnership working drives economic progress in Tees Valley

Tees Valley Unlimited’s Leadership Board Chairman has credited its progress to the strong partnerships forged with local organisations.

Sandy Anderson’s comments come as TVU, the Local Enterprise Partnership for Tees Valley, unveiled a round-up of its achievements to date, which involve tens of millions of pounds of investment and the creation or safeguarding of over 3,400 local jobs.

Mr Anderson said: “The progress that has been made would not have been possible without the support of our partners, particularly the five local authorities.

“This collaborative working with the support of stakeholders across the private, public and voluntary sectors in Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton has been the bedrock of our success so far.

We are committed to further widening and improving the relationships we have with businesses, government and partner organisations to increase our ability to remove barriers and encourage economic growth.“

The economic progress made includes:

• Since April 2011 TVU has directly supported projects to secure a total of over £367m capital expenditure to the Tees Valley.

• A total of £16 million Regional Growth Fund (RGF) finance has so far been released into Tees Valley leveraging in an additional £153.9m capital expenditure and securing 2,411 jobs.

• Two RGF projects have been completed - the new Nifco factory taking the company into the electric vehicle battery market and a workforce development scheme at SSI Redcar. These involve more than 1,200 jobs.

• Five RGF projects are underway at– AV Dawson, Lotte Chemical UK, Cummins, Hunstman Tioxide and Darchem, which will create or safeguard more than 1,200 jobs.

• Two RGF programmes supporting small and medium sized companies have started, the first managed by NEPIC - the North East Process Industry Cluster and Let’s Grow led by ncjmedia.

• Five companies have located on to the Tees Valley Enterprise Zone - Omega Plastics, Propipe Limited, Air Products, Traceco and Durable Technologies. This represents a total investment of £200m creating 111 jobs.

• Since 2007, the TVU Partnership has secured more than £23m of European Regional Development Funding (ERDF), leveraging an additional £25m match funding, which will create 1,460 jobs, safeguard a further 915 jobs and create / attract 277 businesses to the area. A further nine projects have been selected onto the programme and are currently developing full applications with the potential to secure £17m ERDF and £22m match funding. The Tees Valley LEP has directly supported two-thirds of this investment.

Mr Anderson added: “Our strategies have moved to delivery phase and this overview demonstrates results are starting to be seen.

“With the support of our partners, we are committed to creating an environment that encourages sustainable economic growth and long-term prosperity allied with transforming Tees Valley into a high value, low carbon, more diversified economy. “

The full report and interactive TVU Partnership Business Plan are available on the TVU Website – www.teesvalleyunlimited.gov.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Recognition PR Business Team .