BOSSES at a North-East port business said the region’s coast was an obvious location for companies working in the offshore wind farm sector to site new facilities.

Teesport owner PD Ports believed areas such as Hartlepool had large brownfield sites ideally placed for companies manufacturing and supporting wind energy projects.

The company said the Port of Hartlepool, part of PD Ports, was an obvious location to site facilities, as the closest UK port to Dogger Bank, the Government’s largest designated offshore wind farm zone.

Firms in the North-East have already won business worth more than £150m to help create offshore wind farms and on Friday, steel firm Corus announced its intention to invest £31.5m in a centre producing foundations for offshore wind turbines at its site near Redcar.

Corus Long Products director Jon Bolton said it was chosen because it was definitely the best site.

PD Ports recently hosted a Chain Reaction conference in Hartlepool to build support for the concept of turning the North-East coast into a centre of excellence for the offshore wind farm industry.

Paul Barker, development director at PD Ports, said: “We have the skills, the facilities and the determination to blend the experience of the past with the vision needed to make this new industrial revolution work.

“The people here have the engineering skills to work with the new technologies which will be used to produce everything needed for onshore and offshore wind farms.”

Speakers at the Chain Reaction conference called on the Government to make sure planning consent procedures for renewable projects were fast.

Mr Barker added: “We need to act now to build the facilities and infrastructure for the wind farm manufacturers if the UK is to develop a sustainable renewable energy manufacturing and logistics sector.

“This is the perfect opportunity for the Government to back UK manufacturing and exporting, while at the same time making sure we meet our commitment to its 2020 renewable energy targets.”

JDR cables, a leader in the field of subsea power cables, moved into the PD Ports-run port facility at Hartlepool, in July last year, and last month announced it was expanding its operations on the site from 100,000sq ft to 216,000sq ft.

The business recently received a £2m Government grant towards its work in wind farms and also has a £33m deal to work on the London Array, in the Thames estuary.

Patrick Phelan, managing director of the JDR Cable Systems group, said that Hartlepool was a key facility for the company, particularly with its proximity to Dogger Bank, and added that the firm had reaped the benefits of having direct access to the North Sea and the proximity to all the major offshore wind farms currently under development in the UK.

Wind power is a key part of the North-East’s drive to become a centre of excellence for green industries, with the New and Renewable Energy Centre, in Northumberland, internationally renowned for its wind turbine testing facilities and Clipper Windpower set to build a £25m blade factory in Newcastle.