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Newcastle creative hub opens for business

A new creative industries hub in Newcastle has welcomed its first resident.

Ambit Creatives will relocate to the Toffee Factory; an impressive regeneration of the old Maynard’s Toffee factory building in the Ouseburn Valley.

The makeover has been lead by NewcastleGateshead city development company 1NG, on behalf of Newcastle City Council and One North East with funding from the European Union’s EDRF Competitiveness Programme.

Toffee Factory aims to create a unique creative community, and Ambit Creatives fitted the bill perfectly with their services in video, photography, web and digital design for businesses.

Neil Armstrong runs the company which has evolved in Ouseburn since 1987 when he first set up Picture This Computer Graphics, Newcastle’s first digital company.

This went on to merge into Ambit New Media before forming Ambit Creatives in 2009.

Neil remarked that Newcastle had been looking for a creative hub for some time and he immediately reserved a space for his business in the building after seeing the website.

He said: “Toffee Factory is completely in line with my business as it provides the ideal workspace for us primarily due to the community that I will be around within the building as well as the facilities that will be provided - it is definitely going to have a buzz!”

“I would not consider being anywhere else in Newcastle and as a designer, media producer, artist and musician, the Toffee Factory allows me to encompass all these things within a community that will support them.”

The building is set to be opened in December of this year and will be operated by Creative Space Management.

Managing Director of Creative Space Management, Toby Hyam stated that the Toffee Factory will compliment the cluster of creative businesses already situated on the Ouseburn Valley.

He said: “The building will provide a fantastic working environment with the IT and infrastructural facilities to support it.

“It is great to have Neil on board as our first client as he is a fantastic ambassador of the Ouseburn and we hope that by working out of Toffee Factory he will have the resources within the building and its community to grow his business.”

1NG Project Director for Ouseburn and East Quayside, Peter McIntyre, said he was pleased to see creative companies acknowledging the vision for Toffee Factory.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .