MORE than 100 business leaders representing tens of thousands of workers have become the latest to back calls to locate the Treasury’s new northern economic campus in Teesside.

Figureheads from some of the area’s biggest employers – including PD Ports, Thirteen, Cleveland Cable Company, Charles Clinkard and Wilton Group have signed a joint letter to Rishi Sunak, urging the Chancellor to bring the jobs to Teesside.

The Northern Echo:

Government has proposed 750 senior Whitehall officials move out of the capital to a purpose built northern economic campus, dubbed ‘Treasury North’. The move has received cross party support from politicians across the Tees Valley.

And the independent letter, signed by 115 business leaders, calls on the government not to miss this “golden opportunity to give our region a much-needed and long overdue economic boost”.

“The Tees region has a range of perfect locations to benefit from the Treasury North,” it says.

“We have the first-class skills and a wide range of outstanding businesses to service a government department ready and waiting.

“Just as importantly, we have an economy that needs help from the levelling up process and would benefit hugely from the once-in-a-generation investment and positive spotlight from such a move.”

The letter insists that by transferring Treasury jobs – and the related investment – from London to another city, such as Newcastle, Leeds or Manchester, would “not be levelling up at all”.

Karl Pemberton, president of the Institute of Directors Tees Valley and managing director of Active Financial Planners, said: “The Tees Valley has been dealt many blows in modern times, far more than most. However, I now believe that we should be at the front of queue when it comes to the government’s levelling up agenda.

“We have the locations and the workforce available, and we have the resilience to make the opportunity a huge success.

Jane Armitage, managing partner of Jacksons Law Firm, said: “The Tees Valley has an excellent workforce ready and willing to work in Treasury roles and excellent training providers to train the employees of the future.

“These people need to the opportunities that this move would create and they need to know the government shares our belief that this area has so much to offer.”

The Northern Echo: Tees Valley Mayor Ben HouchenTees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, said: “There is now unprecedented support for my bid to bring a large part of the Treasury to Teesside. Local people from across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool back the bid, businesses back the bid, the Council leaders back the bid, and our regions universities back the bid.

“The number one reason for moving swathes of the Civil Service out of London is to change their outlook and mindset in order to make better policy; with the vast majority of people living outside a city this simply will not happen if the government take the easy option and simply moves from the capital to another metropolitan city such as Newcastle, Leeds or Manchester.

“The Treasury is the most important and most powerful department within government and what better way to significantly shift the thinking of Whitehall policymakers than to move a large number of their civil servants to Teesside?

“There can be no better way for the Prime Minister and Chancellor to show the people of Teesside, who lent the government their vote at the last general election, that levelling up really means something and is more than an empty slogan.”