A SCHEME to turn former farmland into a thriving business park supporting up to 10,000 jobs have taken a step forward following a promise of Government funding.

The Local Growth Fund is using taxpayers’ cash to support the installation of a new road and power services to attract more businesses onto the Merchant Park development close to Newton Aycliffe in County Durham.

The site is the location for the soon-to-open Hitachi Rail Europe train factory which will employ 730 people when it starts production in 2016.

The factory will occupy about a third of the 104 acre site and developers Merchant Place have bold ambitions to set up a hub that will house Hitachi suppliers, warehouses and an engineering technical college.

Geoff Hunton, spokesman for the developers, said that the factory was using 4 mega watts of power and with only about 2 mega watts now available for the rest of the site upgrades would be vital to attract additional tenants.

Once Merchant Park is fully occupied Mr Hunton hopes it will employ at least 2,000 direct jobs and 8,000 in the supply chain.

Speaking from Aycliffe yesterday morning, Brandon Lewis, Communities Minister, said: “What is happening here is nothing short of phenomenal. The North-East has a great manufacturing tradition and we hope investments in projects such as this can help draw even more companies to invest here.”

Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson, who played a leading role in Hitachi bringing the £82m investment to the region amid fierce competition from 32 rival sites, offered a guarded welcome to the Growth Fund money.

He said: “Any investment in the regional development of Aycliffe is to be welcomed, but I wonder how much of this is new money and how much of it, and the other announcements made today, are recycled from previous occasions.”

Mr Wilson did not attend yesterday’s launch event. Last night, he told The Northern Echo he was dismayed that he hadn’t been given sufficient prior warning that the minister was visiting his constituency, as is the normal protocol, and that he intends to raise his concerns as a point of order in Parliament.