Business correspondent Deborah Johnson looks back on a year of job losses and job creation, and an event that shook the banking system to its foundations - the collapse of Newcastle-based lender Northern Rock

JANUARY

■ Brewer Scottish and Newcastle announces that its iconic Newcastle Brown Ale will no longer be exclusively made in the North-East, after moving its bottling operation to a plant in Tadcaster, South Yorkshire. As a result, 66 jobs were lost in Dunston, Gateshead.

■ Chilli Developments launched a £10m David and Goliath legal battle against Tees Valley Regeneration and English Partnerships, claiming both parties went back on a "lock out" (exclusivity) agreement relating to the redevelopment of five acres of the 50-acre Middlehaven site, in Middlesbrough. The company, set up in 2003, secured funding and planning permission to build a £50m complex of flats, offices and bars on the Middlehaven site.

■ The North-East Chamber of Commerce signed an agreement with its equivalent in Abu Dhabi to strengthen trading links. The deal cemented the region at the forefront of Middle Eastern trade, and was described as a huge breakthrough for companies in the North-East.

FEBRUARY

■ Cleveland Bridge claimed victory in the latest chapter of its battle with Multiplex over the Wembley Stadium contract after the High Court ruled that the Darlington firm was not responsible for any costs associated with the temporary works on the construction of the roof of the venue. The ruling meant the amount Multiplex could claim from Cleveland Bridge was substantially reduced.

■ Newcastle-based Barratt Developments became Britain's biggest housebuilder with the takeover of Wilson Bowden in a £2.2bn deal. The deal saw the company's value rise to about £4.3bn, and put it ahead of its main rival, Yorkbased Persimmon.

MARCH

■ IT company Infoserve secured a deal with leading internet search engine Yahoo!

which it said could see at least a six-fold increase in turnover and bring hundreds of jobs to the region. The Darlington firm announced it had won the exclusive rights to provide Yahoo! with search facilities in the UK, in a deal that would "change the scale of Infoserve's operation".

■ Newly-launched Virgin Media announced it planned to cut 149 jobs at its Teesside call centre - only months after assurances were given that the site was safe from redundancies. Only a month after being rebranded from ntl, Virgin Media announced the cuts in the service and installation departments in Stockton, but said it planned to create 100 jobs in other and of the business.

■ The Bonne Bouche factory in Hartlepool, closed for good after going into administration for the third time in three years. It became clear the closure was permanent when the plant machinery was put up for sale.

Administrators KPMG announced the search for a buyer had been abandoned and the factory's 242 employees had been made redundant.

■ Energy company SembCorp Utilities revealed plans for a £36m heat and power plant on Teesside. SembCorp appointed Stockton-based Aker Kvaerner Engineering Services to develop the new facility - including a gas turbine and steam generator - at Wilton.

APRIL

■ Call centre operator Garlands said it planned to create 320 jobs in Stockton, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool after a series of successes for the firm, which has seen clients renew business and the signing of a new deal with an unnamed international software company.

■ Developer Merchant Place unveiled plans for a 100-acre distribution centre in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, which was expected to create more than 1,000 jobs. The 1.5 million square foot warehouse was hailed as the greenest warehousing development in the UK.

MAY

■ Billionaire sportswear tycoon Mike Ashley became the largest stakeholder in Newcastle United, buying an inital 41.6 per cent of the club's shares with his specially-created company St James' Holdings Limited, and going on to successfully take over the club.

The businessman paid more than £55m for his stake in the Magpies.

■ Biodiesel company Worldwide Bio Refineries, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, was drawn into an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Officials feared shares in Worldwide Bio Refineries, may have been sold by unlicensed traders at inflated prices as part of a socalled "boiler room scam."

■ A bid by PD Ports to build a £300m deep sea port and bring 5,500 jobs to the North-East cleared its first milestone when the planning application was granted outline approval by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

JUNE

■ Zero-emission vehicle maker The Tanfield Group became the third-largest manufacturer of powered access vehicles in the world after buying a US company for £50m. The company said it would create up to 300 jobs in the region in the next 18 months as a result of the acquisition of US-based Snorkel.

■ Nissan revealed its plans to invest £2.4m in its North-East plant to help it keep pace with increasing worldwide demand for its latest Qashqai model.

The investment will allow the Sunderland site to increase production levels by 20 per cent, after orders for the 4x4 hybrid Qashqai exceeded all expectations following its launch in December.

Demand for the model was 50 per cent above expectations in Europe, with 10,500 orders taken instead of the predicted 7,000 in its first month on sale.

JULY

■ Troubled Biofuels Corporation announced it was to stop trading on London's junior stock market. The green fuels firm, based on Teesside, cancelled its Alternative Investment Market listing after a series of loss-making months.

Biofuels agreed to a debt-forequity swap with its bank, Barclays, which saw it reregister as a private company with the name Earls Nook Limited.

■ Electronics company Filtronic saw annual operating losses increase nearly six-fold in one of its main divisions, only weeks after shedding 131 jobs at its North-East base. The company saw losses in its compound semi-conductors business, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, widen from £5.1m last year to £29m for the year ending May 31.

■ Zero-emission vehicle maker The Tanfield Group revealed its plans to invest £15m in building a factory in the US, with a second planned for 2009, as it pushes ahead with its North American expansion.

The Wearside group revealed exclusively to The Northern Echo that it planned to build a factory for its Smith Electric Vehicles division, believed to be in California, as it makes inroads into the continent.

■ Call centre operator Garlands revealed plans to create 1,000 jobs in the North- East with the opening of its third regional base in South Shields, South Tyneside. The centre, due to open in February, takes Garlands' regional workforce to nearly 4,500.

■ Cumbrian Seafoods announced plans to open a £10m factory in the North-East, leading to the creation of up to 350 jobs. The company said it would be opening the factory in Seaham, County Durham, after choosing the town ahead of 19 other possible locations in the North.

■ Supermarket chain Kwik Save plunged into administration and announced the immediate closure of 90 stores nationwide. The retailer, which ran into trouble months earlier, asking employees to work without pay for days, said the remaining 56 stores in its chain would transfer to another company.

AUGUST

■ The creation of up to 150 jobs was announced with the opening of Amec's newest North-East base. The project management group opened its design and engineering centre on Wynyard Park, Teesside, which will employ about 300 people within a year. About 150 design workers have transferred to the site from Amec's base in Wallsend, Newcastle, and the company pledged the remaining 150 posts would be created in the coming months, including positions for trainees and graduates.

■ Chemicals group ICI - one of the most famous names in British industry - became destined to fall into foreign hands after agreeing an £8bn takeover offer from Dutch rival Akzo Nobel.

■ Power station builder NEL Power was rescued from administration by a rival energy company, in a deal that saves the jobs of its 54 employees. The firm, based in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, was acquired by Carron Energy, after NEL Power - and its subsidiary firm NEL Recruitment - went into administration in July.

■ Darlington was boosted by two job announcements in a fortnight with the Student Loans Company (SLC) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) pledging to move into the town.

Glasgow-based SLC said it would create up to 520 jobs when it moved into the town in April 2008, and would make its new North-East base a national centre for its operations.

The ISA - a Home Office department set up to protect children and vulnerable adults - followed by pledging to create up to 230 jobs when the department starts work in the new year.

SEPTEMBER

■ Northern Rock announced it had been forced to seek emergency funding from the Bank of England, prompting the first run on a UK bank for nearly 150 years, as savers queued across the country to withdraw savings.

■ The North-East missed out on its bid to become home to a £1bn energy research centre.

The region was shortlisted in the running for the Energy Technologies Institute, a centre of excellence that is expected to attract more than £1bn of investment and lead to the creation of thousands of jobs. Instead, the Midlands was chosen.

■ Darlington-based Malcolm Engineering Company ceased trading after efforts to rescue it from administration failed. The company had traded in the town for more than 40 years, and about 90 people were made redundant.

■ PD Ports' plans to built a £300m deep sea terminal could be only months away from final approval after the sole objector to the plans withdrew. The campaign to build the container terminal at Teesport, in Middlesbrough - known as the Northern Gateway scheme - are now unopposed by Hutchison Ports, which owns terminals in Felixstowe and Harwich.

■ Newcastle Building Society announced it was expanding its operations in the North-East and creating 500 jobs over the next five years.

The financial institution has acquired premises at Cobalt Business Park, North Tyneside, in addition to its main office in Newcastle, to accommodate the growth.

■ A daily flight from Newcastle to Dubai was launched by Emirates Airlines, with journeys to and from the North- East for the first few months of the service over-subscribed.

OCTOBER

■ Thousands of jobs will be created in the Tees Valley after Sonhoe Development Company revealed plans to create a £2bn crude oil processing plant.

The refinery will be built at Wilton, near Redcar, east Cleveland, and will create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and another 400 jobs once it is operational. Development agency bosses estimate that another 1,500 ancillary jobs will be created when the plant opens. The development - exclusively revealed by The Northern Echo - would represent one of the largest single investments in the process industry in the UK in the past two decades.

■ Chief executive Adam Applegarth and chairman Matt Ridley announce their resignations from Northern Rock. Private equity firm JC Flowers became the second of the crisis-hit lender's potential suitors to formally declare its interest, following the lead of a consortium led by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group.

Northern Rock confirmed for the first time it is holding talks with several possible suitors over a takeover deal - but said that discussions are at "a very early stage".

■ Engine maker Cummins announced it had won the contract to supply engines for the buses that will be used in the public transport system at the Beijing Olympics. The company's plant in Darlington was chosen ahead of its sister operations in the Far East for the commission after impressing organisers of next year's Olympics with its lowemission engines and high productivity.

■ The region received a devastating jobs blow with three companies revealing concerns for their futures.

Electrolux, which employs 500 people in Spennymoor, County Durham, said it was reviewing the future of the site and looking overseas at cheaper alternatives.

Microchip maker Atmel announced it was selling its plant at Silverlink, North Tyneside, early in the new year, meaning 600 jobs would be lost.

Production is to be transferred to the US and France. US-owned Atmel, which took over the site in 2000 after Siemens pulled out with the loss of 1,100 jobs, put the plant up for sale in December last year.

More than 160 jobs were also lost on Teesside with the closure of the RPC Beaute cosmetics plant in Thornaby.

The factory's future had been under review for several months, and a decision was made to close the loss-making site.

NOVEMBER

■ The new chairman of Northern Rock has conceded that jobs may be lost as a sale of the troubled lender looks "increasingly likely".

Bryan Sanderson revealed that the bank is now nearly £20bn in debt to the Bank of England, a figure that could rise by another £5bn by the time Government aid ends in February, as the company named Sir Richard Branson's Virgin consortium as its preferred bidder.

However, rival potential suitor Olivant gained backing from the Treasury to draw up a bid to rival Virgin.

■ BT announced it will invest £370m in the North-East during the next five years to improve its technologies, products and services.

The investment will enable the communications group to introduce its 21st Century Network, marking a new era in the way businesses and individuals communicate, work and access information.

■ PD Ports announced that it was hoping to create more than 800 jobs over the next two years with plans to build a new £50m imports depot at its flagship Teesport terminal. PD said the scheme would complement its existing application to build a deep water terminal at Teesport - through a scheme known as the Northern Gateway - allowing direct imports from the Far East and creating up to 5,500 jobs in the region.

■ A pay dispute in which more than 200 workers walked out of the Queen's Award-winning Davy Roll manufacturing plant was resolved.

Production at the Gateshead plant, which was given a Queen's Award for Enterprise earlier in the year, came to a standstill when 200 employees went on strike over disparities in the company's bonus scheme.

However, the matter was resolved when the 67 workers at the plant who were left out of the scheme were reimbursed.

■ Tyre manufacturer C-Tyres went into administration, with the loss of 100 jobs. The plant closed several weeks earlier after a dispute with the landlord of its site in Langley Moor, County Durham.

However, company bosses insist hopes remain high that a buyer could be found.

DECEMBER

■ Electrolux announces it will close its North-East plant after a review lasting nearly two months concluded it would be cheaper to manufacture its ovens in Poland.

Five hundred jobs will be lost at the factory, in Spennymoor, County Durham.

■ It is announced the North- East will receive £255m over the next seven years to help the economy grow, after the region's funding proposals were approved by the European Commission.

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) can provide up to 50 per cent of cash for projects and the approval could result in more than £500m being invested in the North- East up to 2013.

■ Northern Rock shareholders reveal the only proposal they were prepared to back was from Olivant. The Northern Rock Shareholders Association said it was encouraging members to vote against Virgin.