Member Article

Tees Valley City Deal to secure £12 million investment and deliver 3,500 jobs

Tees Valley Unlimited and its local authority and private sector partners have announced the beginning of the Tees Valley City Deal.

It secures £12 million allocated directly as a result of the City Deal itself and a further £22 million announced previously through programmes during the City Deal process.

The Deal will build upon Tees Valley’s strength in the processing, energy and new materials sectors and enhance further competitiveness.

Partners in the Deal aim to achieve this by creating an attractive environment for investment in the chemical, process and green technology sectors while increasing the integration and efficiency of the existing company base.

Sandy Anderson, chairman of Tees Valley Unlimited, the Local Enterprise Partnership for Tees Valley, said: “This is really good news for Tees Valley, its businesses and its residents.

“City Deal will place Tees Valley at the forefront of developing green technologies. It builds on our industrial strengths and provides the potential for the area to become one of the world’s top locations for investment in these sectors.

“It also will allow Tees Valley to help shape Government policies that affect the local area. This includes everything from the promotion of Tees Valley overseas to the creation of greater planning certainty that will encourage business growth.”

Stephen Catchpole, TVU managing director, said: “Today’s City Deal announcement rounds off a year of achievement

“City Deal status will bring substantial investment to the area from various Government departments.

“It will lead to more pioneering and innovative schemes that will help drive the bold economic development ambitions of TVU, its partners and stakeholders.”

Tees Valley Unlimited predicts that the City Deal will deliver:

• 3,500 supply chain or indirect jobs;
• The safeguarding of 800 existing Tees Valley jobs; and
• Over £10 million of private sector investment in the industrial infrastructure and workforce of Tees Valley.

The Tees Valley City Deal has three areas of focus:

• providing the conditions to enable increased investment in the processing, chemicals and new green technology industries;
• taking industrial carbon capture and storage (CCS) forward for Tees Valley and the UK as a whole;
• creating new business and civic benefits from waste industrial heat.

To deliver the Tees Valley City Deal, Tees Valley Unlimited and partners will:

• work with Government to expand and enhance the planning certainty for investors at three key sites (Billingham, North Tees and South Tees)
• complete feasibility works and identify the best option to take forward an industrial carbon capture and storage network
• complete technical studies to enable the development of two waste industrial heat networks

These activities are complemented by:

• the completion of a Low Carbon Action Plan
• Tees Valley to be designated as an area recognised for green technologies and UKTI to support this status
• An enhanced Tees Valley Business Support programme
• A Tees Valley skills and apprenticeship programme
• Development of an innovation and commercialisation hub joint venture.

The Tees Valley City Deal commits Tees Valley and Government to work together to attract new investment to the area, train our workforce and create more jobs.

The Tees Valley City Deal is a positive and exciting opportunity not just for the local area but also the country as a whole as it enhances Tees Valley’s ability to compete on a global level.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .