Alexander backs city’s potential

The Government will put £300,000 into a project to turn a dry dock in the city’s Fruit Market district into a new centre capable of housing 115 digital businesses and a further £400,000 into a support service to help new firms in Hull.

Ministers have also earmarked £2.15m to help build a leisure centre in Bridlington which will form part of a wider £25m regeneration scheme for the town centre which was hit last year by the withdrawal of supermarket chain Tesco.

The three projects are together expected to help create more than 500 jobs directly.

Speaking on a visit to Hull, he said: “In Hull we’ve got some of the key growth sectors for the UK economy with huge potential to grow.

“Obviously we’ve got the digital sector, where Hull has huge strength. I’m told it has the fastest broadband speeds in the whole country and some of the fastest in the world - a huge advantage for these businesses.

“The renewables sector is obviously also very important and that’s something we are hoping will grow in this city too and we are working hard to make that a reality.”

City leaders in Hull continue to wait for a firm decision from engineering giant Siemens over whether it will go ahead with plans for a new wind turbine plant, seen as one of the key elements of the area’s ambitions to be a green energy hub.

Mr Alexander said the Government was continuing to “work closely” with the company. was putting in place a new framework to support renewables and had made clear commitments on the amount of power the country needed from offshore energy. All of those things should help to give even greater confidence to companies in the renewables sector, inclduing to Siemens, that this is a great place to carry out that business,” he said.

The three projects backed yesterday will receive money from the Government’s Coastal Communities Fund which supports regeneration in coastal areas.

In all, 50 projects nationally will share around £27m and Ministers have announced the fund will have a further £64m to spend over the next three years.

Yorkshire’s local enterprise partnerships are hoping to secure much larger sums from the Government’s Local Growth Fund to support major programmes aimed at growing the region’s economy.

But there are concerns that with the £2bn pot forecast to be hugely oversubscribed, the North could find it harder to make the case for investment compared to parts of the country with stronger economies.

Mr Alexander said: “The money will be allocated competitively according to the best bids but the judgement of the best bids involves all kinds of factors.

“We want to see the projects that will make the most difference in the economy of each area and of course where you start from is an important part of assessing what makes the most difference so of course those things will be taken into account as part of the assessment process.”

The Coastal Communities Fund cash was welcomed by Peter McGurn, chief executive of the Goodwin Development Trust, which is behind the business support scheme in Hull.

“Our 20 years’ experience tells us that employment is the greatest cure for economic and social ills - and this funding will be used to create new jobs and businesses by facilitating the expansion of our ENRG Business Start-Up and Growth service,” he said.

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