Member News
More than 50 businesses and influential individuals have signed a letter from Mayor Ben Houchen to the Chancellor of the Exchequer backing his efforts to secure the Treasury’s new northern economic campus for Teesside.
Firms based in the region, including ConocoPhillips, Barker and Stonehouse, Port of Middlesbrough, Jacksons Law, and the Learning Curve Group have joined the call to Chancellor Rishi Sunak. The letter makes it clear that there is huge support to bring senior civil servants to the region as part of the planned overhaul of how Whitehall departments operate.
In October the Prime Minister announced that 22,000 civil servants will be moved out of London by 2030 in the biggest reorganisation of the Civil Service in a generation.
In his bid to secure the most powerful and important government department Mayor Houchen has put forward a number of locations to the Cabinet Office who are overseeing the reorganisation of government departments.
The backing of businesses from across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool comes after the region’s major universities back the plans.
In a joint letter send to Rishi Sunak earlier this month Teesside University and Durham University urged the Treasury boss to move almost 800 senior Whitehall officials out of the capital to a purpose built northern centre, dubbed ‘Treasury North’.
The bid has also won cross-party support with the leaders of all five local councils backing Mayor Houchen’s campaign.
Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “I’m thrilled that businesses large and small from across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool have got behind my bid to bring Treasury North to Teesside.
“The relocation to a large part of the Treasury Civil Service to Teesside is a once in a generation opportunity to significantly shift the thinking of Whitehall policymakers.
“It’s no secret that some mandarins have a hopelessly outdated view of Teesside that’s more akin to the 19th century rather than the 21st. What better way to challenge this than to move a large part of the most important department to Teesside.
“The overwhelming majority of people don’t live in big cities, they live in our towns and out villages, in the countryside and on the coast; if we want better policy those that make it need to live outside of the capital so that the ideas they come up with are informed by how the majority of people live around the country.
“I have no doubt the Chancellor understands how critical this decision is and that it is key to showing people across 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.
“The people back my bid, the Council leaders back my bid, the regions universities back by bid and now business back my bid.”
