North East businessman, Chris Musgrave, has confirmed that he has entered into an agreement with Samsung to purchase its site at Wynyard, Billingham.

A new company, Wynyard Ltd, has been formed to undertake this initiative.

According to Mr Musgrave: "The departure of Samsung and the subsequent loss of jobs is very disappointing and, like most people, I believe we need to act quickly to find alternative jobs for the area. The Wynyard site contains high quality buildings and the North East has a first-class workforce. "I think we should be able to attract new business to the area fairly quickly. Eventually I would like to develop the rest of the site and create a first rate new business park. This could provide significant employment but we have to be realistic and the first priority must be to refill the existing buildings and get the lost jobs back.

"I'm confident that we can turn this into a success story for the North East, but it's early days and we face a number of challenges. I know that everyone involved shares the same objective that I do and that's to attract business, creating long-term sustainable jobs. We've already had detailed discussions with the Samsung Project Group representatives and other interested parties to agree the best way forward. I am also in the process of finalising plans for the development of the rest of the site and will provide details of this shortly."

Last year Chris Musgrave's property investment arm was in discussion with Samsung regarding a possible separate property deal when, following a business review, the manufacturing giant decided to close its Wynyard plant.

When the final decision to close the factory was made early in the new year Samsung entered into an arrangement with Chris Musgrave's company to purchase its complete site and help re-create the lost jobs.

In 2001 Samsung had sold its old factory in Billingham to Chris Musgrave who now uses it as the headquarters for his JCM group of companies.

There are no plans to move any of Mr Musgrave's other business interests to the Wynyard site and the JCM group of companies has no direct involvement in the Wynyard project.