All I want for Christmas...

Dec 24 2009 by Karen McLauchlan, Evening Gazette

THE Chancellor failed to deliver in his December pre-Budget report, so we asked leading Tees Valley business folk what Santa could possibly bring to brighten their New Year.

RAY PRIESTMAN , location director for the North-east at business advisors Vantis, would like St Nick to give banks a kick. Increasing their financial support for start-ups and SMEs with growth potential would help to protect local jobs, as well as create new employment and self-employment opportunities, he says. “In light of the recent Corus announcement, it is clear that this is badly needed.”

PAULINE OSBORNE , North-east regional chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), would be grateful for a little relief in her Christmas stocking - small business rate relief that is, which would automatically “reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and ensure that it benefits those businesses it is designed to”.

DAVID McNEE , general manager of The Mall in Middlesbrough, wants Santa’s elves to keep shelling out locally. “I would like the general public to continue to support the town centre and local retailers - and continue to take Middlesbrough’s retail offering from strength to strength.”

STEVE GUEST , MD of Techconsult UK at Wilton, would just like everyone to cheer up. “People are too negative sometimes. We talked ourselves into a recession, we talked ourselves into a global banking crisis. If people had a more positive outlook, things might improve a bit quicker.”

TONY SARGINSON , regional manager for manufacturers’ organisation EEF, wants Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to play Father Christmas and bring him a long-term manufacturing strategy - and “the guts to stick with it”. “My message to the Government is: Be bold. I know we’ve had a bad time of it on Teesside but we’ve still got to go for high-value, niche products that can help us recover from recession.”

RAF ALI, director of Middlesbrough cash-for-goods store CeX, might be disappointed this year. He wants the VAT rate - due to rise to 17.5% in January - kept at 15%, but it’s unlikely Alistair Darling will have a last minute rush of generosity having ruled it out three weeks ago. “It all comes down to how much money consumers have in their pocket.”

EMMA FINN’s dearest wish is for Teesside to avoid any more large-scale redundancies following news that Teesside Cast Products will close in January. She launched Eaglescliffe-based Finn Copywriting in 2006 after taking voluntary redundancy herself and knows just how much motivation it takes to succeed.

NEIL KENLEY , director of strategic investment and marketing for Tees Valley Regeneration (TVR) wants to unwrap “a positive, exciting era of new industries for the area”. “There is already a healthy pipeline of opportunities, including new energy, engineering and off-shore fabrication businesses and in the future we hope to be leading the field in these areas. The Tees Valley has a history of adaptability – we cope well with upheaval and change.”

MARTYN PELLEW , group development director of PD Ports, would like Rudolph to get a move on and bring “an early announcement that businesses on the Tees are definitely going to get work supporting the massive growth in offshore wind and energy that will come from our Government’s commitment to renewable energy.”

PATRICK PHELAN , MD of Hartlepool’s JDR Cables, wants Santa to prompt a worldwide increase in demand for oil and gas. “This year we saw the first serious reduction in demand for 30 years, that has a major impact and interruption to the continuity of oil and gas projects. We need momentum to keep things going. Renewable energy projects are bridging the gap for us. But there will still be work in oil and gas for 30 to 40 years at least.”

HUGH LANG, chair of Tees Valley Unlimited, Christmas has a wish for unity - “a determination right across the Tees Valley to tackle the difficult challenges we face in defending our key industries and helping those most directly affected. At the same time we need to keep our eyes to the future, recognising that the chance to create a new and vibrant economy, embracing opportunities in fields such as low carbon technology, is within our grasp.

MIKE McNULTY, Environment Agency project manager, who also works with the Tees Valley Green Business Network, is wishing for “some clear leadership next year, a sense that political leaders are working together” and a focus on the do-able. According to the EA around £1 billion could be saved by straightforward measures such as switching lights off. “Businesses need to start thinking about saving energy and seeing waste as a resource.”

DR GRAHAM HILLIER, director of strategy at Wilton-based Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) wants to spread goodwill between industry and academia. “In the past, everything linked together from ICI, to steel to shipbuilding. We can do the same with low-carbon technologies, we just need to get industry and the community working together to find a coherent, co-ordinated approach. The components the Tees Valley already has in order to build the next generation of low-carbon industry put us in the top few locations in Europe.”

ALASTAIR MacCOLL, chief executive of Business & Enterprise North East, the organisation that delivers the Business Link and International Trade services in the region, has a double wish: For Tees Valley to help establish the North-east as a world leader in the new and renewable energy and low carbon sectors; and for a substantial increase in the number of SMEs. “At Business & Enterprise North East, we will be doing everything possible to ensure that both of these wishes come true, so that the region can look forward to a prosperous 2010 with more jobs and sustainable, flourishing enterprises than ever before.”

STEPHEN LARKIN’S top present won’t fit under the tree. The regional director of the Institution of Civil Engineers North East would like a large package of improvements to the public transport system. “Delays and lack of capacity make public transport extremely frustrating to the general public. The need to increase capacity is urgent, and we also need investment to bring our transport networks up to the standards which will be required as demand grows.”

SARAH GREEN, regional director, CBI, is wishing for a reality check from government. “The critical issue in 2010 is to ensure government demonstrates they have a credible plan to restore public finances. In the North-east we need to look at the impact of the recession and find ways to redeploy or find relevant work for those who have been made unemployed, or who have left school or graduated during this difficult period. Without such measures the North-east will find it does not have the skills to compete once the economy begins to grow”

SANTA came early for Professor GRAHAM HENDERSON, Teesside University vice-chancellor, with news that Teesside had been voted university of the year in November. But he’s not resting on his Christmas laurels. He’s hoping his wish that the university will be able to make “an even greater contribution to the development of the Tees Valley and its communities” will be granted, but more especially “for the talents of the Corus workers to be recognised through new investment”.