The news that Hitachi is to bring their European train building factory to Newton Aycliffe is brilliant for the town. 730 working in the factory and 200 construction jobs will bring a welcome boost to employment in the area. And these are not minimum wage jobs.
They are high value, skilled jobs which will be well paid, bringing extra spending power to the town and surrounding area. One of reasons why Hitachi is coming to Aycliffe is because the town has a skilled worked force. And to add to the skills apprenticeships will be offered to our young people.
There will be many more thousands of jobs in the supply chain. The Hitachi plant will only cover a third of the site up for development, leaving plenty of room for suppliers and other companies to move onto the designated land.
The news Hitachi is to build its research and development facility at Aycliffe also shows the company’s long-term commitment to the area. Hitachi Rail Europe will use the site as its base to export trains to Europe, I understand the company has been shortlisted for one European contract already and has also been shortlisted for providing the rolling stock for the Crossrail infrastructure project in London. It is early days, but the Hitachi development could be to County Durham and the Tees Valley what Nissan is for the North of the region.
Work on the site will start almost immediately, but the construction of the site will start in the New Year. Trains will start rolling out of the factory in 2015. 600 carriages will be manufactured for use on the Great Western line between London and South Wales from 2017 and the East Coast mainline from 2018.
The new trains will leave the factory and join the railway along the original route used by George Stephenson Locomotion No. 1 187 years ago. A piece of history not lost on the Japanese. Train building has come full circle.
We have many excellent companies on the industrial estate.
We can add Hitachi to their names. We need to take great pride in ourselves and what we have achieved as a town and a region. Hitachi would not have been agreed by the Government if it wasn’t for the campaign we launched here two years ago. We can achieve great things if we all stand together. In my view Newton Aycliffe is on the way up.
Phil Wilson M.P.
