RTV to launch major programme

Jan 22 2008 by Karen McLauchlan, Evening Gazette

RENEW Tees Valley, which has played the central role in the rapid growth of the area's renewable energy and recycling industries over the past four years, is to launch a major programme to ensure Redcar and Cleveland communities enjoy the economic benefits.

RTV has been given management control of a proportion of Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) funding to enable it to use its knowledge of the environmental industries to bring businesses and jobs to prioritised areas of the borough over a three-year programme.

RTV’s commerce manager, Paul Jackson, will lead an RTV LEGI team that includes two new appointments: Marshall Grant recruited as LEGI sector specialist and Sharron Henderson as administrative supervisor.

The team will draw upon RTV’s specialist industry expertise and contacts, use the strong partnerships it has established and adopt its supremely practical and delivery-focused approach to business creation and development to add to the other significant inputs from LEGI workstreams on specifically targeted regeneration areas.

Its role will be to identify, promote and support opportunities in the borough for inward investment and business start-ups, leading to a guaranteed high percentage of jobs. In tandem with the core RTV team and its partners, it will also promote the growth of existing businesses operating in, or servicing, the renewable energy or recycling/waste management sectors.

Mr Jackson said: “RTV’s approach has been independently assessed as extremely successful over the past four years.

“LEGI has provided an exciting opportunity for us to apply the significant learning and expertise developed during this period in the areas of Redcar and Cleveland that have not yet enjoyed the full benefits of the Tees Valley’s emergence as a national centre for the environmental industries.”