A CUTTING edge manufacturing park is set to welcome an extra 175 jobs to Teesside from a new green energy project, according to a regeneration chief. 

The £55m Tees Advanced Manufacturing Park (Tees AMP), near Newport Bridge, was launched with money from Middlesbrough Council, the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), the SSI task force and private investment. 

The 27-acre site was made to become a cluster for technology manufacturing firms – and it is now understood about 80% of the buildings on the stretch have been let. 

Now a regeneration boss has revealed how an investment has been lined up for another part of the site.

Middlesbrough Council leaders met behind closed doors on Tuesday to sign off an “urgent” and “time sensitive” item relating to Tees AMP.

No further details were released publicly as the virtual meeting was shifted into a private session due to “commercially sensitive” information.

Then on Wednesday, Richard Horniman, director of regeneration at the council, told an infrastructure scrutiny panel the authority was seeing “reasonably strong interest” in at least half of the site.

He also revealed an advanced manufacturing company had been signed onto the site earlier this week – with the firm starting its fit out next week. 

Mr Horniman added: “We’ve also got a proposed inward investment for the currently undeveloped part of the site which was approved at executive yesterday (Tuesday).

“That would potentially bring 175 jobs over the next couple of years as a relocation from down south in the green energy field.”

The aim of TeesAMP is to create 1,000 jobs on the 11-hectare site with buildings ranging in size from 3,000 sq ft to 30,000 sq ft.

The first phase of the project on the banks of the Tees promised 180,000 sq ft of industrial space and units, while “phase two” has lined up another 100,000 sq ft to be used on the site. 

A planned £8m extension to The Welding Institute (TWI) was unveiled at the former Newport Ironworks in October last year to offer specialist equipment and laboratory space for research. 

Broken down, funding for the Tees AMP project comes from £12.5m via Middlesbrough Council, £7.6m from the TVCA, £2.3m from the SSI Taskforce set up in the wake of the closure of Redcar steelworks with the rest from private investment.