Defence specialist BAE Sytems announced plans to create more than 100 jobs at its Washington base on the back of a £280m contract win.
The MoD deal is for the supply of munitions, with the company saying current conflicts and tensions around the globe have thrown a spotlight on Ƶ manufacturing capabilities, as well as its long-running partnership with the Ƶ Armed Forces. The contract - which could increase to more than £400m - is set to create 101 production operative roles at the firm’s site at Washington, Tyne and Wear, as well as 65 jobs at Radway Green, Cheshire, and a further 45 at Glascoed, South Wales.
BAE Systems said the new roles significantly boost its existing munitions business, which has 1,260 people involved in either munitions manufacturing or test and evaluation at five sites across the Ƶ, at Glascoed, Radway Green, Washington, Bishopton near Glasgow, and Ridsdale in Northumberland.
The new deal comes in addition to its existing £2.4bn 15-year partnering agreement, and will significantly increase the production of defence stocks including 155mm artillery shells, 30mm medium calibre rounds and 5.56mm ammunition.
North East company Cenelec Standards Inspections Ltd announced plans to create 40 jobs as it expands into Europe with the help of a £350,000 NEL Fund Managers investment.
Cenelec Standards Inspections Ltd (CSI) has been helping firms operating in potentially explosive onshore and offshore environments, such as oil rigs and refineries, distilleries and chemical plants, to meet their health and safety obligations since 1986. The Cramlington-headquartered firm has recently won a major new contract with global food, agriculture and bioindustrial business Cargills, which will see members of the CSI team working in a range of Cargills’ facilities across Europe.
Around 40 new jobs are being created through the new contract, with CSI using a £350,000 investment from the North East Growth Capital Fund to help bring in the staff and equipment in needs to manage its growing continental workload. It marks the fifth time that NEL has invested in CSI over the last decade.
Previous funds being used to support the development of a training centre in Newcastle, while taking advantage of commercial opportunities around the world. Improvements to its training centre will be made from its latest investment, with CSI looking to extend the training packages it can offer.
Managing director Jonathan Gibson said: “While the pandemic was a challenge for us, we came through it well and are ready to move into the next stage of the business’s development. We work with many of our clients though long-term multi-year framework agreements, which gives us the solid foundations needed to both develop strong relationships with their teams and proof of our expertise when we’re talking to potential new clients."
North East defence specialists said they were gearing up for growth after announcing multimillion-pound investments to bring in new jobs, new equipment and factory upgrades. Pearson Engineering and Responsive Engineering were acquired in an undisclosed deal by global defence giant Rafael last September from Reece Group.
Now Pearson Engineering is ploughing profits into the Responsive Engineering to create a raft of new jobs, with more than £5m being spent on new manufacturing equipment, which it said demonstrates the company’s commitment to the North East and to the future of Ƶ manufacturing capability.
The investments are designed to help the Armstrong Works firms play a leading role in the delivery of critical equipment across most of the Ƶ’s armoured vehicle programmes, as well as serve a growing number of civilian markets such as rail, renewables, and construction.
Craig Priday, managing director at Pearson Engineering, added: “Investment in improvements to the historic Armstrong Works readies the site for the future and helps us to deliver against our commitment to our customers, across a wide range of sectors. Our customers, whether they are in defence, rail or energy require the highest levels of manufacturing capability, quality, and skill. We are proud of our continued commitment to investing in both our people and manufacturing capabilities, which also creates exciting and varied opportunities at both Pearson Engineering and Responsive Engineering, for generations to come.”
Growing Gateshead property company MCM Group swooped for two Tyneside industrial units in a £1.175m deal. The company has acquired Units 1 & 2 Neptune Court on Orion Business Park, North Tyneside, from Parmley Technologies and leased them back to the company in a 10-year agreement.
Parmley Technologies provides PCB (printed circuit board) manufacturing, as well as electronic control panel assembly, wiring, hydraulic assembly and testing, with its systems used in power distribution units, hydraulic and pneumatic control systems and joystick consoles.
The deal releases funds to support Parmley’s plans to grow and develop its business as it continues to see strong demand in the Ƶ and abroad for its electronic control technology. The two high bay units, which also have mezzanine storage facilities and a canteen, have 11,590 sqft of industrial workspace.
Derek Parmley, managing director of Parmley Technologies, said: “We have been based here at Neptune Court for over 14 years and our premises provide the ideal environment to cater for the evolving requirements of the business. The sale and leaseback deal will enable us to undertake strategic investment to facilitate further expansion and we look forward to a long and productive relationship with the team at MCM.”
Researchers at Northumbria University are working with world-leading businesses with the aim of being at the helm of the Ƶ's first university-led multi-satellite space mission.
A £5m funding injection from the Ƶ Space Agency will help Northumbria's Solar and Space Physics research group to further its work leading a consortium that aims to develop a world first system that allows satellites to communicate via lasers rather than radio frequencies. The method will make the communications more efficient and less vulnerable to disruption.
The award, which follows an earlier sum of £1m given to Northumbria, will be used by the consortium to design, test and build the first CubeSat with laser optical communications technology. The group includes experts from Durham University, satellite communications specialists e2E, manufacturer SMS Electronics Limited, and most recently Lockheed Martin.
Prof Eamon Scullion, a solar physicist at Northumbria University who is leading the project, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be one of the two final projects chosen by the Ƶ Space Agency for funding after a highly competitive process over the last three years. With our new technology, we are not only bridging the gap between satellites in low Earth orbit but we are bridging an even bigger gap between academic research and development and industry.
A Norwegian firm in the process of building a tyre recycling plant in Sunderland secured £33m ($43m) investment towards the project. Wastefront is setting up a Port of Sunderland facility that it hopes will process 80,000 tonnes of tyres per year once at full capacity. The Oslo firm has now got the financial backing of Dutch energy storage operator VTTI and an agreement to jointly set up another eight global sites yet to be decided.
The multimillion-pound sum will be put towards the first phase of construction of Wastefront's North East plant, which has already earned an offtake agreement with European rubber distributor Weber & Schaer for its recovered carbon black material. Building work on the plant will start this year with plans to be operational by 2026.
Vianney Vales, Wastefront CEO, said: "Our mission to create a green global industrial platform to solve the end-of-life tyre problem requires buy-in from major industrial companies. VTTI is a leading infrastructure company with a clear mission to grow in the energy transition and I am delighted to announce our partnership.
The Port of Tyne has announced additional multimillion-pound funding to support its plans to grow in the green energy and logistics sectors. The port, which announced a £50m fund from the Government’s Infrastructure Bank earlier this summer, has now highlighted £45m of long-dated loan notes from Pricoa Private Capital, along with a £5m revolving credit facility from Lloyds Bank.
Port bosses said the combined £100m refinancing package showed the confidence its investors had in its plans to establish itself as a leading player in the offshore renewables sector, as well as the automotive transition to electric vehicles, two of the key planks of the Ƶ’s net zero agenda. The funding will support the port’s Tyne 2050 strategy, specifically in giving it the financial backing needed to develop major infrastructure projects on its estate.
Mark Stoner, chief financial officer at Port of Tyne, said: “This ground-breaking capital facility will help the Port of Tyne accelerate its intentional ambitions plans to support the rapidly expanding and critical green energy and automotive transition markets, attracting international and home-based investment, area regeneration, highly skilled jobs and the associated economic prosperity to the North East region and to the Ƶ more widely.”
