Member Article

Interview: Tim Ward, Bid and Research Development

Tim Ward from Bid and Research Development, the Tees-based bidding and research consultancy, shares his thoughts with Bdaily about the potential impact Brexit would have on the North East.

Tim established the firm in 2013 and has since achieved a 94% bidding success rate, having won over £2.5bn worth of contracts for his customer base.

A big supporter of remaining in the EU, Tim discusses the benefits a stay would have whilst outlining the possible dangers and risks of leaving:

“The North as a region receives significantly more European funding than we contribute. This funds infrastructure projects, support for unemployed people, specialist support and facilities for vulnerable people.

It pays to redevelop public buildings, town centres and support cultural projects such as The Baltic, The Sage, Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Newcastle City Library, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Hartlepool Growth Enterprise Hub, Hartlepool College of Further Education, the Northern Powerhouse initiative and many many more.

Almost any development of significance in the region has received an element of European funding. Without Europe holding this pot the North must rely on our own government to invest more in the North than we contribute. We would need to rely heavily on strong campaigning from North East MPs to secure funding which does not fill me with confidence.

Stability and growth of the local economy is vital. If the larger companies at the top of the food chain are impacted, the knock on effect to the supply chain that sits below can be huge. Teesside has suffered hugely from the closure of SSI steel plants but it isn’t just the 1,700 direct jobs lost- around 4,000 jobs were put at risk and lost from the supply chain impacting upon a huge proportion of the local population.

Stability in the market place is vital to SMEs, to put at risk losing companies such as Nissan, Sage, Akzo Nobel, Hitachi, Conoco Phillips and many more from the region seems like madness.

I believe that two key factors will support the growth of prosperity within the North East longer term, this is both large scale investment which European membership facilitates and growth of SMEs.

It is very difficult for one to thrive and operate without the other. Al businesses are risk averse and if a large company sees any risk in setting up in the UK they will look elsewhere perhaps another European country which is subject to stricter regulation to guarantee easy flow of trade, stability in currency and of course commitment to fund infrastructure and capital investment which the EU does very well.

Thousands of local businesses have been set up and grown with support of European Funded provision including my own. One of our customers Enterprise Made Simple have delivered ESF funded training to set up new companies and has set up 1593 new businesses in the last 2 years alone. This has created a further 3,112 jobs in the region. This generates over £80m worth of wages into the local economy.

Take a look at who is supporting staying in the EU - All Unions, Obama, Cameron, Corbyn, Senior NHS leaders, opinion polls in organisations such as IOD and the Chamber of commerce show that businesses believe we should stay in Europe.“