Business Editor Andy Richardson takes a detailed look at a 10 year master plan to create thousands of jobs at the Netpark science and technology hub

WHAT is Netpark?

That was the question I put to shoppers in Sedgefield, County Durham last Thursday morning. I wanted to hear what, if anything, residents knew about the glass and chrome businesses park that has been steadily growing on the outskirts of their town for the past decade.

My question yielded blank looks, cheeky guesses (no, Mr Clarke, it’s not where they make netties), and a handful of well-informed answers from parents whose children had attended open days at the site. My unscientific survey suggested that most locals were in the dark about a technology hub that will shortly bid for the attention of the world and bring thousands of new workers to this part of the North-East.

Tellingly, Netpark used its tenth anniversary celebrations at Durham Town Hall last week to talk more about its ambitions for the next decade rather than to revel in its past achievements - apt for a venture founded on the principle of innovation. A master plan has been drawn up to make the site, which was once home to the Durham County Asylum, a world class innovation hothouse that combines research with product development. It will bill itself as the Global Hub For Materials Integration.

If it succeeds, Netpark will become one of the biggest science and technology parks in Europe.

The scale of the proposed expansion is dramatic.

The park inhabits a verdant 15 acre site, comprising 23 companies employing a total of 400 people. It has two PLCs, and the same number of the government's elite 'catapult' innovation centres aimed at helping the UK compete with the best in the world. It is almost full, with seven occupants looking to expand and more keen to move in.

By 2025, the ambition is for it to occupy another 30 acres on council-owned land to the north of the existing site that will host 200 more companies, directly employ 3,500 people and support 7,500 local manufacturing and supplier jobs.

At its heart will be an integration centre to support the park’s businesses – most of them small firms - with vital services, such as access to finance, export and marketing.

There are plans to train skilled technicians via its own apprenticeships and to open a UTC (University Technical College) on the site.

The park will forge strong links with bodies, including Innovate UK, universities and international experts, and have a permanent presence in local colleges as part of its outreach programme.

It wants to open offices in major innovation hubs around the world.

Netpark aims to become a regional innovation brand with a global reach.

The expanded park will be powered by sustainable energy sources and host an on-site hotel, restaurant, conference centre, crèche, gym, shop – in short, it will become a self-contained innovation village. It will be as if Google had shifted its headquarters from California to County Durham, well, not quite, but you get the idea.

“Netpark has made rapid progress over the past couple of years and it is really gaining momentum, so we are really confident that we can deliver this,” says Dr Simon Goon, managing director of Business Durham, as we look over the plans in offices adjacent to the Gala Theatre.

He draws confidence from a flurry of recent investments at the park, the continued support of Durham University, the local authority and CPI (Centre for Process Innovation), as well as recent headline-grabbing stories from Kromek and Polyphotonix.

Kromek, which spun out of Durham University to become an AIM-listed transatlantic business, provides a blueprint for the kind of operator Dr Goon wants to attract. The firm, which was the first to move onto the park, found a way of producing high quality, commercial volumes of the mineral cadmium telluride and then integrated it into products that make the world a safer place. Kromek sensors can now be found in scanners that thwart terrorists, detect early stage breast cancer; and help security services to monitor radiation levels.

Award-winning Polyphotonix is led by former artist Richard Kirk who used his skill with organic light to develop a mask that could end up saving the NHS £1bn a year in treatments for diabetic blindness. Imagine if Damien Hirst had invented a treatment for the common cold and you get some idea of Mr Kirk's talent for melding modern art with medicine.

His firm and Kromek share a quality that eludes so many R&D-led companies: an ability to sync their discoveries with products people want to buy. There are plenty of firms that have set up at Netpark and fallen by the way side. Its 10 years have not been one unbroken line of runaway successes.

It is worth noting that neither Kromek nor Polyphotonix have so far reported a penny in profit. They both required hefty injections of taxpayers’ money to fund their work. They are tipped for greatness, but it has taken a great deal of effort to get them to this stage. They are reminders that industrial research demands vast reserves of patience, skill, faith and cash.

Tapping into a reliable source of funding will be crucial to Netpark achieving its potential. The Government, and Durham County Council are very excited by the expansion plans that have been worked up with CPI and Durham University. Money has already been allocated to improve the park’s infrastructure - drainage, utilities, roads, broadband and the like. A council meeting last month approved £12.9m funding, with £1.2m coming from the authority’s capital programme and the remainder from self-financing borrowing.

Furthermore, Mr Goon and his team have produced a business case to help persuade ministers that Netpark is given wide-ranging tax breaks – similar to an enterprise zone – that will help it attract inward investment and create a relaxed tax and planning regime that gives business the freedom to grow.

Other benefactors - such as charitable foundations and blue chip sponsors - will be sought to help underpin ongoing phases of growth.

Facilities, such expensive labs and clean rooms, will also be vital for the type of firms that Netpark wants to attract. This is where CPI comes in. It already has a base at the site that has given the likes of Polyphotonix access to equipment that would otherwise be way beyond its grasp. Alongside its own research into revolutionary products, such as printable electronics and graphene, CPI gives small scale innovators access to a low risk environment where they can test and refine their inventions.

CPI’s existing resources and future investments, alongside the development of the new integration centre, will help knit together the park’s disparate businesses into a community with a shared purpose. That is the aspiration that Dr Goon and his team are hoping to make a reality. It is big groundbreaking stuff.

How the people of Sedgefield will feel about the project remains to be seen. It will bring high quality jobs to the area, but it will also but a strain on existing infrastructure. One things is certain. If this plan takes off it will be hard to ignore.

What is Netpark? Ask that question in 2025 and the blank looks you’ll get will be because the answer is blindingly obvious.