Editor Martin Walker introduces the 21st edition of Aycliffe Today Business…
This year is already proving to be a hugely positive one – not just for Aycliffe Today, but judging by all of the really positive news that has emanated from the business park in only the first two months of 2016.
The arrival of Crafter’s Companion has created a new buzz. The former Holiways site will finally, after four long years, come back to life when the UK’s largest paper crafting supplier moves in over the next month or so.
Crafter’s Companion have really exciting, ambitious plans – and you can read more on page 5, while we also talk to the firm’s founder, Sara Davies, in an exclusive interview on pages 17-19.
We also recently heard the news that councillors have voted in favour of a proposal to install vital new infrastructure just off the A167 – effectively a springboard to create more than 3,000 new jobs in Aycliffe. Read more about that on page 4.
And on page 9, you can read how landowners have invested £1m in a refurbishment programme which has brought more new arrivals to the business park and has made other redundant areas and units now fit for purpose.
Many people have repeatedly said over the last two-to-three years, in these very pages, that Aycliffe Business Park was set to boom, and that industrial space would soon become a premium.
It’s fair to say those predictions are now slowly starting to flourish into reality.
Last year we saw the opening of Hitachi Rail Europe’s train-assembling factory and later this year we’ll see the birth of the region’s first University Technical College (UTC) here in Aycliffe – an engineering Centre of Excellence and, hopefully, a conveyor-belt for ready-made employees to service the ever-growing business park.
I’d like to think Aycliffe Today has had a small hand in the ongoing success of the park, in promoting the North-East’s biggest single cluster of businesses like nobody else, and we look forward to delivering all the latest news in the coming months and years as this success story continues.
Several companies have already signed up to long-term agreements with Aycliffe Today Business as they look to use the area’s only business publication for their marketing, PR and personnel requirements.
Our next issue will be out in May (deadline 22nd April), so get in touch with us if you want to get involved.
Our trained journalists can write your advertorials and we can take your pictures. Or if it’s a traditional advert you’re after, our professional graphic designer can do that for you.
This is all part of the package – professional writing, photography and graphic design – which offers a truly unrivalled service in Newton Aycliffe and County Durham.
Thanks for reading – and you can read our latest business magazine online free by clicking here.
Martin Walker
Editor
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 01325 728024