Why Goole is fast becoming Yorkshire’s investment hot spot: Steve Silvester

In fact, Goole’s unique location was the very reason that the town was first established back in 1826, following the development of a canal linking it with Leeds.

It started life as the ‘company town’ of the Aire and Calder Navigation Company and grew wealthy on the back of the booming trade through its port.

For more than 150 years, Goole was the primary route used to export coal from Yorkshire’s coalfields to the continent. Engineers developed an innovative system of transporting coal using boats made up of a series of compartments, which were nicknamed Tom Puddings and linked together in long ‘trains’ that were towed along the canal by a tug. At the docks, hydraulic compartment boat hoists lifted the Tom Puddings and tipped their contents into the holds of waiting ships.

Of course, times have changed, but Goole’s strategic location and impressive transport links make it just as appealing to investors today as it was 200 years ago.

Today its port handles 1.5 million tonnes of cargo annually and a proportion of this still reaches the town via the canal network, although its road and rail links are now just as important.

Just minutes from junction 36 of the M62, Goole is within easy reach of Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and beyond, as well as the primary routes North and South via the national motorway network.

Facing Europe, its port has a dedicated rail freight terminal and offers access to global shipping opportunities via the Humber Estuary. Meanwhile, Goole Station operates regular services to Hull, Doncaster, Sheffield and East Yorkshire’s coastline, as well as connections through to London, Manchester and Leeds.

During the last 30 years, Goole has benefited from a series of innovative regeneration initiatives aimed at encouraging inward investment and creating new business and job opportunities for its population of around 22,000 people, as well as a string of environmental and social improvements to enhance and support local communities.

The town’s transport links mean that most of Yorkshire is within an easily commutable 30-mile radius, so there’s a readily available workforce for potential investors.

Historically, much of Goole’s available development land has been in public sector ownership and a huge amount of investment has already taken place to create the infrastructure needed to encourage and support businesses to locate in the town.

This includes the Goole 36 Enterprise Zone, which is already home to the likes of Guardian Industries, Tesco Distribution and Croda International, as well as Siemens Mobility’s new £200 million manufacturing, service and warehousing facility, which will create up to 700 new jobs when it starts building trains for the UK market in 2024.

The University of Birmingham, supported by Siemens Mobility, has been awarded £15 million by the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) to establish a new world- leading Railway Research and Innovation Centre nearby.

The development of Goole 36 involved the creation of a brand new link road, which is called Tom Pudding Way in a nod to Goole’s industrial heritage. It connects key employment sites with the town centre and the motorway network.

Goole’s location also puts it at the very forefront of the Humber region’s drive to become the first net zero industrial region by 2040.

International energy producers, major regional industries, leading infrastructure and logistics operators, global engineering firms and academic institutions are working collaboratively to decarbonise the region by creating shared pipelines for low-carbon hydrogen and captured carbon emissions.

There are also plans to develop a Green Heat Network in Goole that will use waste heat from existing industrial processes to provide residents and businesses in the area with cleaner, cheaper energy.

With so much to offer, it’s easy to see why Goole has, once again, become an investment hot spot.

It’s a great place to live, work and do business.

Stephen Silvester is Inward Investment and Infrastructure Manager for East Riding of Yorkshire Council.