In recent years, there has been much talk of 'levelling up' the North; creating equality with the more prosperous Southern counties through a programme of infrastructure development and investment in education and skills.
But what of the skills and industries already here? Paul Williams, chief technology officer at Everflow Group, argues that we already have plenty going for us here in the North East. The Tees Valley is an absolute hotbed of amazing, innovative companies – although, if I’m being honest, many of these don’t get the recognition they deserve. Too often in the media and among politicians, the focus is on the new – the new businesses, the new schemes, the new investments.
In reality (and I say this as someone who works for a new company – Everflow was founded in 2015), there is great stuff going on that’s not new, that’s not reliant on extra investment or outside help; it’s very much homegrown. Despite being born in Liverpool, I consider myself a proud Teessider by breeding, if not birth – and there’s nowhere I’d rather be. I love the North East – the people are warm, welcoming and trusting and the geography is just fantastic – all of which mean it’s not only a great place to live, but also to work. Our heritage Let’s look at what the Tees Valley alone has produced, because some really pioneering stuff has happened here. Darlington’s Cleveland Bridge built the Sydney Harbour Bridge among other iconic structures. The railways were invented in Stockton and Darlington.
Teesside used to set the steel price for the globe. Hartlepool, at one point, had more millionaires than anywhere else in England. And that’s not to mention Sunderland and Newcastle, which were both industrial powerhouses in their own right. The region was full of ingenuity, talent and creativity, and while some of those old industries may have disappeared, those skills haven’t. Our geography The beauty of the North East is you don’t have to fight to get anywhere. Look at the places we have on our doorstep – York, Durham, the coast, the North York Moors, Newcastle – why would we want to live anywhere else? In the past, the South has lured so many people away, but it doesn’t – and shouldn’t – have to. Because there is a life outside work. If you work in London, you’re facing a three-hour commute; here, it doesn’t get worse than the Marton crawl. Our people Teesside was built on immigration, with people coming to work from Germany and Ireland, and through the generations this has made for a strong sense of community. However, one of things I see all too often in these Teesside communities is the tendency to underestimate ourselves, to do ourselves down – an over-enthusiastic sense of humility perhaps.
However, despite this, they’re also driven to succeed, and there is such pride in the area – there’s very much an attitude of pulling together, of collaboration – another key element making the North East such a great place to do business. I’ll never forget one of the first things our CEO Josh Gill said to me; I’d rather be good in a great place to work, that great in just a good place to work. And that’s the ethos we, and other North East businesses, have, although the upshot is that if you are a great place to work, you end up attracting great people to work with you. Our future While our manufacturing glory days may have dimmed somewhat, we still have the passion and the drive to succeed, backed up through generations.
In the past, the competition in the Teesside steel industry led to great success, and the region is now starting to regain that competitive edge. We also have so much knowledge to build on; all that experience in processes, built up in the days of chemical and steel, can be used for the more modern technologies we’re seeing. So we can see this experience and knowledge in some of the areas that don’t get quite so much recognition, in terms of green energy, carbon capture and hydrogen tech. In fact, there’s an awful lot of exciting stuff going on up here that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, which is a shame, as we have so many talented people coming through the schools and universities, but they don’t know these industries and these jobs exist. The danger is they only know London, and they think that’s where they have to go to get those careers. So we need to spread the word that, not only are there these fantastic career opportunities here, but also those life opportunities – the ability to afford a house, to have a work-life balance, to have that time away from the daily grind. Because we’ve known about it for years; it’s time the rest of the country woke up to the fact that it’s great up North.
