THE TEES VIEW
Set for take-off – Alfanar’ s Lighthouse Green Fuels facility on Teesside will produce 180m litres of sustainable aviation fuel each year – enough to offset 27,000 short-haul flights a year.
The power game – Tees Valley Lithium will provide a worldclass solution to meeting an energy transition bottleneck as demand for battery-grade lithium skyrockets. welders, technicians, mechanical fitters, instrument artificers, operators and construction teams who have done this work for generations and still do it to the highest standard anywhere in the world. Project delivery is in our DNA. This is a region that powered Britain and built the modern world. We stand on the shoulders of giants who gave the world the railway, who built bridges that spanned impossible chasms in Africa, who crossed oceans in South East Asia and whose steel gave Australia one of her proudest symbols in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Every metropolis came from Ironopolis.
That is real pedigree. It shows what industrial places like Teesside can do when given the chance, the backing and the belief.
When industry is strong here, the whole economy feels it. Not only in the major plants, but in the supply chains, the smaller businesses, the local services and the communities around them.
That is why I am focused not just on attracting investment, but on making sure local people, local firms and local communities will benefit. Skills are central to that mission. For too long, young people in places like ours were told that success meant leaving and that technical education was somehow second best. That was always wrong. The future of Teesside will be built by skilled people, just as it was in the past. Young people being trained at Bede College, NETA, the Education Training Collective and Teesside University are our future.
We are building the pipeline for the jobs coming here. In carbon capture, hydrogen, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and beyond. So when investors come to Teesside, they will not just find sites and infrastructure. They will find the best people in the world to build, operate and grow complex industries.
In five years’ time, Teesside will look different.
You will see major industrial sites rising from the ground. You will see more young people entering high-skilled local jobs. You will see more investors recognising that this is not a region to write off, but a region to back. You will see stronger supply chains, growing confidence and a clearer sense that Teesside is once again becoming a place where things are made, developed and exported to the world.
That is the message I am sending to investors across the UK and around the world.
Come and see what is happening here. Come and see the industrial base, the ambition, the workforce and the determination.
You will be welcomed to a region that knows how to build.
Anything is possible here and we know how to do it, as we have done it before.
This is our shared opportunity and it will be our legacy.
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