Serving the Teesside Business Community | 75
/ HARTLEPOOL NEWS
Thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of
investment could come Teesside’s way via an
audacious project revealed by Northern Gas
Networks. The scheme would see hydrogen
produced on Teesside and pumped through
the National Grid to power and heat thousands
of homes in Leeds. Teesside already produces
around half of the country’s hydrogen, which is
used for industrial processes.
#TalkingUpTeesside
£4m combined authority cash
to fund new Tees bypass
HEALTHY DEMAND
FOR GYM
T
ees Valley Combined Authority has
awarded £4.18m to help bring forward
a vital new road in Hartlepool.
At a meeting of the combined authority
cabinet, it was agreed to invest the cash
into the £18m scheme for Hartlepool’s
Western Growth Corridor, which will
provide an extra route into the town and
unlock land for housing development.
It would also assist in the building of
around 1,500 new homes to the West
of Hartlepool, as set out in the town’s
Local Plan, leveraging at least £200m in
private sector investment into homes,
infrastructure and facilities.
At present, Hartlepool only has two main
road routes in and out of the town for the
A19.
The new road proposals would create a
bypass for the village of Elwick and deliver
an upgrade to the current Elwick North
junction to the A19, to give a third route
into Hartlepool.
The scheme would relieve pressure on
existing access points to allow them to
support economic growth elsewhere, such
as the port and three enterprise zones.
Funding from the authority, to be
delivered from 2019 to 2021, joins
investment of £9.65m from Hartlepool
Council.
The combined authority will also work
alongside Homes England to secure a
further £4.18m funding to drive the scheme
forward.
TEES FIRM WORKS ON
£2m PUB PROJECT
Seymour Civil Engineering and Barnes
Construction have celebrated their
respective 40th anniversaries with the
completion of a ground-breaking £2m
public house development in Skelton.
The Longacre is the latest pub
development from Marston’s, located at the
newly-developed Skelton Park on Pheasant
Fields Lane.
As one of only three construction
companies on the Marston’s framework,
the Longacre is the 38th public house
that Ipswich-based construction company
Barnes Construction has worked on in
partnership with the national pub chain.
Brought in as the civil engineering
contractor for the project, Hartlepool-based
Seymour Civil Engineering completed the
earthworks for the development, as well
as laying the foundations, installing the
drainage system and paving.
Funky Laser expands with return to its first home
Designer Leah Moore had a touch of déjà
vu recently when she moved into UK Steel
Enterprise’s Innovation Centre at Hartlepool
to give her the additional space her growing
business desperately needed.
Funky Laser designs and creates a quirky
range of products made largely in Perspex
and wood but also in leather and other
materials.
They include cake toppers, badges,
necklaces and photographic props featuring
anything from moustaches, jokes, names
and quotes to flowers, lips and animals.
Blue Marble Asset Management has sold
the freehold of a Hartlepool gym for close
to the asking price of £1.4m, representing
a net initial yield of just over 3.75%.
Acting on behalf of Pemberstone, Tim
Matthews, chief executive of Birmingham-
based real estate asset management
company Blue Marble, sold the freehold
investment in The Gym Group building,
on Harbour Walk, to an unnamed private
overseas investor.
Constructed in 2000, the building is a
25,263-sq ft detached unit over two floors,
currently fitted out as a health and fitness
centre in a prominent location next to
Hartlepool Marina.
Offshore boost for JDR
JDR Cables, based at Hartlepool’s docks,
has won the deal for 62 miles of cables for
Ørsted’s record-breaking Hornsea Project
Two offshore wind farm.
When it’s complete and operational
in 2022, the wind farm will supply clean
electricity to more than 1.3 million homes.
And the cables being handled by JDR
are enough to stretch from Hartlepool to
Leeds. They will all be assembled in JDR’s
Hartlepool facility.
It’s nine years since JDR opened a new
£20m state-of-the-art Hartlepool factory,
with bosses saying they hoped to bring
200 jobs to town.
Since then the firm has grown and the
Hartlepool plant has won a string of high-
profile orders.