Green and pleasant land
There's more to Northumberland in commercial opportunity than a casual glance at the Top 250 might suggest, says Brian Nicholls.
NORTHUMBERLAND is relatively low profile but an attraction even so for anyone planning a seedbed from which to grow an aspiring Top 250 company.
They should not be put off by the fact that fewer than a score of Northumbrian firms may figure in the Top 250 now. The county has built a vibrant pharmaceutical industry with companies such as Aesica, Sanofi Aventis, Shasun Pharmaceutical Solutions, Testerworld, Piramal Healthcare and The Specials Laboratory.
It has flourishing specialists such as Simpsons Malt, the UK’s largest totally independent family malting business, with a product in demand from Japan to the USA.
Though England’s least populated county, with no town of more than 35,000, that does not necessarily mean difficulty in recruiting a substantial workforce. Alcan aluminium smelter and power station at Lynemouth employs more than 600; AAF McQuay, environment specialist, around 560; and Egger chipboard plant 400 at peak.
Its manufacturing is mainly in the south-east of the county and in Tynedale. Coalmining has been phased out with a heavy social cost still being paid, but with the development of “clean” coal the industry may be revived.
Farming remains vital and benefits from emphasis now on leisure and tourism, as England’s “best kept secret” is sampled by more and more visitors under regional development policy.
Leisure and tourism creates jobs and income by aggregate – a few jobs and enterprises here and a few there. It is unlikely, however, to produce businesses big enough to break into the North East Top 250.
So in essence manufacturing will flourish particularly in Cramlington and Blyth Valley, accompanied by the pharmaceuticals there and around Morpeth and Alnwick. Fast progressing offshore and renewable industries are increasingly important too as Britain tries to green itself with a significantly smaller carbon footprint by 2020.
The vision of Northumberland Strategic Partnership – co-ordinator of bodies working on the economic, social and environmental goals – is that by 2021 everyone there will have similar opportunities, be broadly satisfied with their quality of life and be able to influence decisions that affect them.
An immediate challenge, however, is to integrate local authority and staunch bad blood seeping after the Government’s surgical removal of smaller authorities in favour of an all powerful county council.
The Strategic Partnership, though the single such body for the county, is placed within the Policy and Partnership Service of the new county council. So there’s three layers of officialdom that entrepreneurs must break through for a start – four if you count the regional development agency One North East, which takes sub-regional bodies to its bosom, screaming or not.
The county in the end, though, is likely to follow guidelines laid last year in a document, Towards an Economic Strategy. This sees new opportunities also for creative industries and ICT.
The National Renewable Energy Centre (Na REC) at Blyth, with its own wind turbine plants in the North Sea, symbolises the importance of renewables, in which small companies already thrive. Waste recycling too gathers momentum as part of the green push.
Northumberland will need to be bold, the document says, to prosper in an increasingly global and competitive economy. It should now add the new county authority has to prove quickly that it is, indeed, streamlined towards this aim.
Already Northumberland is one of the region’s most active areas for business start-ups, with a growing number of disparate online enterprises. Unfortunately there are pockets still unable to access broadband – something both the county council and One North East need to have high on their agendas.
If you are an entrepreneur eyeing Northumberland, but anxious also for a long life in which to enjoy fruits of labour, then Berwick may be the place. It has the longest life expectation. Most work there however, is in hotels, restaurants and distribution, so ambitions less people-intensive might be in order.
And if you are in financial services, including insurance and banking – the main occupation band in Tynedale – you might reflect it is also the area with highest suicide rates. Coincidence? We couldn’t possibly comment.
