Serving the Teesside Business Community | 85
/ REDCAR AND CLEVELAND NEWS
SIRIUS BORING
MACHINE ARRIVES
T
he first 1,800-tonne tunnel boring
machine that will be used to
construct Sirius Minerals’ 23-mile
mineral transportation tunnel from
Teesside to Whitby arrived in February.
The tunnel will be capable of
transporting up to 20 million tonnes a year
of polyhalite, a naturally occurring multi-
nutrient fertiliser.
An underground conveyor belt will
connect the company’s new multi-billion
pound mine near Whitby, to a purpose-
built processing and shipping facility in the
shadows of the former Redcar Steelworks.
From there, the final product will be
shipped to customers all around the world.
The main parts of the 225-metre-long
machine arrived at AV Dawson’s Heavy
Lift Port on the Teesside Docks after a
seven-day journey across road, river and
sea, from a specialist factory in western
Germany.
Tunnel contractor STRABAG, which
also worked on the 35-mile Gotthard
Base Tunnel under the Alps, has already
recruited 400 workers to excavate the
tunnel, with three quarters of them
coming from the local area.
They are part of a 900 strong workforce
currently involved in building the project,
a figure that will have grown to 1,700 by
the time the mineshafts reach the first
polyhalite in 2021.
A further 2,500 long term direct and
indirect jobs are expected to be created
when the mine is fully operational.
CPI has been given £107m of
government funding to help develop
Tees technologies.
Oopsie Daisy’s
opens in Loftus
A new children’s soft play centre and café
has opened in a long-term vacant unit in
Loftus, thanks to Redcar and Cleveland
Council’s £2m High Street Support
Scheme.
The scheme provides grant funding
to improve shop or business units in
Eston, Loftus, Guisborough, Saltburn and
Redcar town centres.
One of the first businesses to benefit
is Oopsie Daisy’s – a soft play area for
under 5s and café on Loftus High Street.
Business owner Kelly Jones was able
to fully renovate an empty property to
bring it back into use after benefitting
from a grant of £10,000. Kelly also
invested some £20,000 herself.
The building, which had been empty
for two years, required a complete
overhaul including new electrics
and plumbing, damp treatment and
installation of a disabled toilet, a staircase
and a new floor.
100-UP FOR JOBS HUB
The award-winning Grangetown Training
and Employment Hub has reached the
milestone of helping 100 Grangetown
residents find work.
Unemployed since May last year,
52-year-old Alan Gray’s future looked bleak,
until support from the Hub, including skills
training and CV writing, led him to getting
a new job with Bentall Rowlands, assisting
the building of the silos at the under-
construction MGT Power Plant.
Alan (pictured right), a married father-of-
five, is the 100th successful Grangetown-
based job seeker the Hub has helped.
A recycling plant capable of turning 80,000
tonnes of plastic per year into renewable
fuels could soon be built on Teesside.
Tourian Renewables has submitted
a planning application to Redcar and
Cleveland Council outlining its plans to build
the new facilitity at the Wilton International
site. Once completed, the plant would
be capable of turning dry plastics into a
renewable source of fuel and plastics.
#TalkingUpTeesside
Investors
in People
Gold
award
hat-trick
Redcar and Cleveland Council has been
named as the only authority in the North-
East and Yorkshire to achieve Investors in
People North’s Gold status.
It is the third time in a row the local
authority has achieved Gold award level.
The appraisal, which was carried out
at the end of 2018, included surveys,
interviews with members of staff and
observation.
The latest Gold award was achieved
under what are thought to be new,
tougher assessment standards.
“This is fantastic news and tribute to
the hard work of our council employees
who are dedicated to serving the people
of Redcar and Cleveland,” said council
leader Sue Jeffrey (pictured).
SEALPUMP DOUBLES
PREMISES
A Redcar company heading for a £2m
turnover as one of the UK’s leading
designers of industrial spray systems has
doubled the size of its premises and is
boosting its apprenticeship plans.
Sealpump Engineering was the first
tenant to move into UK Steel Enterprise’s
Innovation Centre at Redcar when it
opened in 2000.
The company has steadily taken on
additional workshop and office space
since then and this latest move, into one
of the centre’s largest workshops, means
it can invest further in testing facilities
and grow its team of six designers and
sales engineers.