Pioneers put our region on the map

Oct 29 2009 by Stewart Watkins, The Journal

THERE is an old maxim that success has many fathers. But though this is generally meant in a somewhat pejorative sense, in the North East this phrase is true on a more literal level.

Our region has been through some of the most testing times of any part of the UK in recent decades and has come out at the other side as one of the most forward looking.

The explosion of the research and development sector and the knowledge economy in the region leaves other areas trailing in our wake.

And our success has been down to many passionate people, as another familiar phrase goes, passionate about the place they live and work and hell-bent on exploiting its huge wealth of potential.

One of these people was a man with an incredibly ambitious vision for a large brownfield site at Sedgefield, County Durham. He hoped this could be transformed into a community filled with some of the most cutting-edge science companies in the world.

At the time, it seemed a somewhat fantastical vision. And yet here we are little more than a decade later with NETPark, one of the fastest-growing science parks in the UK.

Prof John Anstee recently retired as scientific director of NETPark but I’m sure he looks with enormous pride and satisfaction at the incredible strides that have been made. I am delighted we have now dedicated the major conference room at NETPark to him.

And John is not an isolated case. Our region has been fortunate enough to have many fathers to nurture its success. Prof John Burn at Newcastle University is a world leader in the field of genetics, while Bob Coxon, chairman of CPI, has played a pivotal role in the development of the process industries sector in the North East. Helping the region make tremendous strides in very challenging times, Margaret Fay at One North East has steered the agency through turbulent waters.

The region needs visionary champions involved in major projects that will help put the North East on the map. And as we face the recession this becomes ever more important.

We need people with confidence in the capabilities and potential of our region who can take it forward.

Whether these be champions in the field of business, science or sport, these people are crucial to the region’s growth and success. They are the fathers of success in the North East and without them our region would be a much poorer place.

Stewart Watkins is managing director of the County Durham Development Company