FEATURE
community, government and other regions promoting the Tees Valley on the national and global stage.
“ It’ s about getting on the front foot and selling the Tees Valley across the globe,” said Tom.“ Craig’ s got several billion pounds of potential investment in the pipeline but we need to land that because it’ s a competitive market and that’ s why we’ re putting a lot of effort and resource into inward investment.”
Business support TVCA has developed an overarching approach to supporting businesses to grow. There are different tiers of help, including a universal offer for every business, however small, to enable them to attract and retain talent. There will also be support packages aimed at businesses that have genuine potential to grow.
Tom said:“ The highest level of support will be for those businesses that might currently employ, for example, 50 staff, that we think have the potential, with the right support and investment, to start employing 200, 300 or 400 staff. And that’ s what’ s going to really shift the dial in terms of the economy. So, there’ s a huge amount of effort going into supporting businesses to grow.”
Transport and infrastructure“ Huge things are happening in transport, which will make a massive difference to how we connect people to opportunity,” Tom enthused.
“ We’ ve got £ 1bn of transport investment that we are delivering, which is a massive opportunity for us. Spending that amount of money is not without its challenges but
we’ ve already invested heavily in projects like Darlington Station.
“ There’ s a big programme of investment in rail because we’ ve created the network that has the capacity for more trains and we now need to work with the government and others to get better train connectivity.”
Another major project is the Darlington Northern Link road, which will provide the“ missing link” in the vital transport connection between the A1 and Teesside.
Skills Bridging the skills gap will be critical to maximising the potential of the Tees Valley.
TVCA is supporting young people who are not in education, employment or training and, as one of the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers, it gets funding from government to finance that ongoing commitment.
“ It’ s about working with a multitude of partners who understand and have contact with these young people,” said Tom.“ Many have had a lot of challenges in their lives but one of the things that has come out is they haven’ t had good quality work experience, which then makes it much harder for them to find jobs.
“ What this programme is doing is working with young people and giving them high-quality work experience. We are funding employers to take young people on. They are having extended periods of work experience, which is then developing their skills and their confidence and making them much more employable.”
Huge things are happening in transport, which will make a massive difference to how we connect people to opportunity.”
The Local Growth Plan targets the Tees Valley and has the potential to be a genuine game changer that will see the region celebrated for combining industrial strength, digital creativity and quality of life.
“ Ultimately, our key aims are to grow our economy, create more businesses, get more people into employment, address all those challenges around deprived communities and make sure that everybody can see themselves being able to realistically access the opportunities we’ re creating,” concluded Tom.
TVCA is very keen to work with any individual, community group or business who thinks they can help make it a reality. For more information, visit teesvalley-ca. gov. uk / localgrowth-plan
The voice of business in the Tees region | 53