PATIENCE, perseverance and partnership played a key role in getting a global rail company to choose Newton Aycliffe as a preferred site to build nextgeneration trains.

Should lobbying efforts to secure Government support for the InterCity Express Programme pay off, it will provide a fitting finale to nearly two decades’ hard work to find the right occupant for one of County Durham’s largest flagship manufacturing sites.

The land at Amazon Park, in Newton Aycliffe, is owned by Durham County Council which as far back as the early Nineties had recognised the site’s location and transport links as major strengths for multi-national companies looking to establish manufacturing operations in the UK.

“For County Durham, it presented an opportunity to attract a company of the like of Nissan to set up operations,” said Stewart Watkins, managing director of the County Durham Development Company (CDDC) which is the county council’s innovation and strategic investment arm.

Mr Watkins added: “We wanted to bring in a big impact player that would give a similarly strong economic injection to the one that car manufacturing gave the region. However, our work to market the site coincided with a major shift in the world economy.”

Virtually overnight, the economies of Eastern Europe, China and the Tiger economies of the Far East and Asia sucked manufacturing overseas where cheap labour and raw materials destroyed the profitability of production plants in the UK.

Faced with a rapidly evolving business landscape, the county council could have followed the lead of others and broken up the 104-acre area into smaller plots, but it recognised the business beacon that a single site occupier would bring to help Durham’s SME (small and medium enterprise) community develop and grow.

ADECADE later, CDDC formed a partnership with developers Merchant Place to find the right tenant. Having already installed the necessary access to the site by building a road bridge over the railway line and a roundabout at the northern entrance with the help of partners, the public-private alliance put in the hard yards needed to market such a large plot of land on the global stage.

Geoff Hunton, director of Merchant Place Developments, explained why the site fits Hitachi’s needs for a long-term manufacturing project such as IEP.

He said: “We can provide rail access into the heart of the site, a test track and a purpose-built facility that we are able to price and finance.

And the site requires no major remedial work.

“We could also provide Hitachi with a landmark development that would provide a high-quality working environment in a sustainable and energyefficient building that is designed for the purpose of assembling rail carriages and stock.”