Prosperity
Under Conservatives, Hartlepool was open for business and we led the charge of skills development, business relocation and high skilled jobs, aimed at bringing about huge prosperity for the town.
We delivered the strategy that is still being delivered at the Council even though there has been a change of leadership.
The key to our strategy was finding what our key niches were and these are clearly in Creative Industries, Tourism and the plan for mainstream industry linked to our freeport.
Working in Partnership
As part of our £25m investment from the Conservative Government, we have worked hard to partner with big business and in that time brought about the the revival in our town with the Wesley Chapel conversion into a 36 bedroom hotel and wedding/large dinner venue, the train station opening us up to more intercity business and a vision to see the town succeed in all sectors. We have been proud to deliver.
Add to this the private investment made into The Grand Hotel and via Hartlepool Development Corporation, we bought and will be resurrecting the dated Middleton Grange Shopping Centre.
Attracting Business
We had a huge amount of success when we encouraged Steel Benders UK to relocate from Middlesbrough to Hartlepool. Their developing new site will also bring about an increase of jobs - 15, and will secure another 45 people. Their expanding portfolio of customers and their direct passion for Hartlepool is fantastic. They sponsored a 9,000 person attended Tribute Festival in September 2024, which was a huge success with another fantastic company - Orangebox Training sponsoring Kaiser Chiefs in front of 5,000 happy people back in July 2024. This brings huge direct and indirect economic benefits for our economy - and the social return is phenomenal too.
Supporting Business
Former Mayor and Councillor, Brian Cowie - now Deputy Chairman, Membership and Chairman Councillor Mike Young spent a great amount of time visiting and supporting local businesses - and continue to do so. This gave and gives us the huge opportunity to find out what is going well, and what isn't and feeding this back into our Association and Council via Mike's continued role on Economic Growth and Regeneration Committee.
One such businesses is 'I Love Wallpaper', run by the Henderson family. A brilliant business that is going from strength to strength designing and manufacturing wallpaper across the globe.
