True, there are reasons to be cheerful

Feb 11 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

THE Blockheads, minus Ian Dury of course, are appearing at The Sage Gateshead in April and whilst everyone may think they have been hit with a “rhythm stick” at the moment, perhaps we should think of “Reasons to be Cheerful-Part 3!” Are there three reasons to be cheerful? Huge efforts have been made to support busi- ness and there are some good news stories that we should celebrate.

The new £28m plant at Thorn Lighting in Spennymoor secured 700 jobs. On top of that, they have spent £1.3m on an academy to train employ- ees as well as £3m in research and development of lighting technologies at its labora- tory and the neigh- bouring North East Technology Park (NETPark) – an investment in plant, skills and the future.

Northumberland County Council helped save 190 jobs at Cheviot Foods by funding costs to allow the management buy-out to go ahead.

Villa Soft Drinks in Sunderland was bought out of administration by Malcolm Slatcher, who owns the Bottling Company, safeguarding 25 jobs and creating nine more. One North East supported the buy out with an investment of £132,000.

There are three reasons to be cheerful and we need more. The more interesting aspect is the partnerships that support these developments with One North East, the County Durham Development Company (CDDC) and Northumber- land County Council being key partners.

The Journal asked for 50 things that can make a difference and everything mentioned above does that. As does the fact the North East has the best local government and health service in the country. I should mention the utility of the year as well in Northumbrian Water-well, you would expect me to say that and it is true!

NECC’s manifesto for the year is targeted at making a difference as it represents the views of 4,500 members across the region from all sectors. The Manifesto commits NECC in 2009 to push for a series of actions to achieve the following goals:

Removing barriers to businesses at a time when they need the minimum level of distraction from delivering on their individual strategies;

Improving performance of businesses through targeted support to help them maintain and plan for growth;

Developing infrastructure to improve the region’s competitiveness in good times and bad; and

Recognise businesses’ contribution to the region and the reasons a strong private sector must therefore be maintained.

NECC also supports “Think North East England First” and the manifesto is one of the key ways it will do it. “Reasons to be Cheerful”, I think so!

John Mowbray, NECC vice-president and director of corporate affairs at Northumbrian Water