The recently established property development team of the Department for International Trade (DIT) is currently assessing 75 projects across the north east and Yorkshire, its regional manager has revealed.

Ummar Hannif, Yorkshire and North East Regional Manager at the DIT, told our Tees Valley Development Plans Conference that the department had recently widened its inward investment to UK real estate. He is one of seven DIT regional managers, who have been handed responsibility for identifying real estate opportunities that may attract overseas investors.

16 of the 68 schemes in the DIT’s real estate pitchbook, which range from leisure and retail to renewable energy and ports, are located in the North of England. In addition to this there is a futher 75 being considered, half of which are in the north east and Yorkshire, with Hannif saying: ‘’It’s important that the world can see a pipeline of investable properties.’’

Once projects have been approved, which usually takes eight weeks, they enter the DIT’s portfolio and are set out to the UK’s embassies.

An example of the projects that the DIT has helped to arrange financing for is the Sirius Minerals extraction project, which transport polyhalite from North Yorkshire via a tunnel to the former SSI steelworks site on Teeside where it is turned into fertiliser.

Councillor Sue Jeffrey, Leader of Redcar and Cleveland Council, told delegates that Tees Valley has benefitted from being one of the first sub-regions to set up a combined authority. Noting that the Government’s appetite for such devolution deals has diminished, she said: ‘’Some local authorities should have moved quicker to get the benefits of a combined authority.’’

The leaders of the area’s councils, who make up the cabinet of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) focus on the needs of the wider sub-region rather than their local areas when they meet, said Jeffrey: ‘’We don’t think about fair shares, we think where the investment is needed right across the Tees Valley region. The combined authority enables us to compete internationally in a way we previously couldn’t have done. It’s still early days but the signs are good that we can get the Tees Valley economy on track for a long-term future.’’

John Anderson, Assistant Director of Economic Initiative at Darlington Council, said that the authority’s draft local plan is about to be submitted to its cabinet. The draft blueprint includes proposals for 10,000 new homes by 2036 including ‘significant’ urban extensions to the north west and east of Darlington.

He said the plan, which is due to go out to public consultation at the end of June, also includes smaller greenfield and brownfield sites within the town’s urban area.

In the town centre construction is due to begin later this year on a 35,000 sq ft office development, which has been bankrolled by his authority, the TVCA and the government’s regional development fund.

In Darlington’s eastern growth zone, he said planning permission had been granted in April for 100,000 sq m of B8/B2 space at Ingenium Parc, which is being pump-primed with infrastructure funding by the TVCA. And at Symmetry Park, which is located next to the A66 on the outskirts of Darlington, permission has been secured for 142,000 sq m of district space targeted at a single user.

John McNicholas, Engineering & Programme Director at South Tees Development Corporation, said the organisation has received more than 100 investment inquiries even before marketing had kicked off.

Many of the queries for the site, for what he described as the ‘largest single regeneration opportunity in the UK’, were related to offshore energy and advanced manufacturing.

McNicholas said the masterplan for the 4,500-acre site, which occupies a giant stretch of the south Tees riverside in Redcar and Cleveland, had identified 2,300 acres of development opportunities that were most suitable for large land users and clusters of uses.

The development corporation’s site includes Tees Port, where Geoff Lippitt, business development director of its owner PD Ports, said a new £650m biomass power station is currently being constructed on a semi-redundant area of the dock.

The 299MW MGT power plant’s boiler, which will be fed wood pellets by a three quarter of a km long conveyor belt from the dockside, will be operating by 2020.

Simon Dew, Senior Development Surveyor at developer Muse, said that the masterplan for the company’s Northshore development on the opposite side of the Tees had been extensively revised following the recession with a greater focus on housing.

But he said that a 128-bed hotel, which has been funded by Stockton-on-Tees Council and will be operated by the Hampton by Hilton chain, is due to be completed in early 2019.