This Is Tees Valley This Is Tees Valley - Issue 1 2020 | Page 15

Heritage - Tees Valley mayor Ben
Houchen says the region has the
experience, know-how and facilities
that make it ready for investment.
Ben’s vision for the Tees Valley is to create
a 21st-century economy that will futureproof
industry and jobs in a sustainable way for the
environment too.
A pledge to bring steelmaking back to
the region centres around the electric arc
method, which sees the manufacture of
steel from scrap or direct reduced iron.
Carbon capture and storage, says Ben, has
a huge potential in terms of job creation
in the industry itself but also for taking
that clean technology and developing it
– the use of hydrogen to power buses, for
example, developing battery technology,
electric vehicles, industrial processes that are
sustainable and use clean energy.
It isn’t reinventing the wheel, he says. But
it is about developing and driving forward.
He is passionate about the area he
represents, and that passion comes in part
from generations of the Houchen family who
are dyed-in-the-wool Teessiders and have
been since the early days of the industrial
revolution which first transformed the area.
Mayor Ben Houchen has
a £588m fund available.
That passion also extends to the Tees
Valley’s many natural attributes – a beautiful
coastline, countryside and hills as well as
its heritage and history and yes, even the
industrial landscapes that have been forged
on sheer hard work.
He cites the Tees Valley’s five major
borough towns, all of which are distinctive
in their own ways, together with the many
other towns and beautiful villages from coast
to country, rural to industrial in nature, that
make for a diverse and interesting place to
call home.
“You have the hustle and bustle of towns if
you want it, the countryside if you want it.
“We have an amazing coastline and the
Cleveland Hills – anything you could want
within a half hour’s drive.”
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