Great North Revolution aims to transform the region

Jun 10 2009 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

THE Journal today launches a Great North Revolution which will see the region transform itself and get its economy fit for the future.

Across the North East employers, businesses leaders, regeneration groups and Journal readers will be handed the chance to have their say on how the region uses its unique strengths to bring about another industrial revolution.

Some of the region’s leading experts have helped pick five key areas which will see the North East economy transformed over the next 100 years into a new economic powerhouse. To get the region there, business leaders have come together to map out the investment and direction needed to ensure the Great North Revolution campaign is a success.

Key sectors set to create thousands of jobs include work in new energy, using the North East’s industrial heritage and skilled workforce to help build and maintain the wind turbines expected to power large parts of the UK.

Other areas include low carbon transportation, healthcare, digital media and creative, and new materials and processes.

The North East branch of the CBI is helping to lead the campaign, alongside regional development agency One North East.

Experts say all aspects of the region will be transformed by efforts to build the economy of tomorrow, and already the Great North Revolution has won impressive support.

Bosses from more than 50 leading employers have already met to set out how they can work together and to agree a “route map top the future”.

Hugh Morgan Williams, director of specialist energy firm AAG Swepco, said new technologies were coming along that would “energise the region”.

He said: “We saw in the 19th century what steam power did for the North East. Wind power and printable electronics are just two technologies where the North East might well be able to take not just a national lead but a global position at the head of the pack.