The three main players in one of the biggest construction projects ever seen on Teesside – bringing more than 2,000 jobs - have spoken exclusively to The Northern Echo about what it will mean for the region.

The £450million SeAH Wind site at the former steelworks will be home to an 800-metre-long building which will be the world’s biggest monopile facility and is the first of its kind in the UK, providing the pillars under massive wind turbine blades.

Almost 400 people are now working on the site, with 750 direct jobs in total and 1,500 to come through the supply chain.

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Today a landmark deal worth well over £100million was signed to use British Steel for the main build, with SeAH, British Steel and Northallerton-based fabricators Severfield agreeing to work together.

SeAH’s David Jack told The Northern Echo: “Our decision to use British Steel is a vote of confidence because the companies that we're choosing are not only local, but they're the best of their type in Europe.

“Using British Steel with the high quality they have, and then having the chance to work with Severfield, really made a lot of sense.

The Northern Echo: Work on the SeAH siteWork on the SeAH site (Image: Newsquest)

“With the same thinking, we are already starting our first apprentices working with Hartlepool College and we are talking about doing a bespoke employer-led programme with Nutec, so that we can get the best of the local talent who are either established and already have the skills or are developing those skills going forward.

“Of all the people we have employed, almost 90 per cent of them are based in the Teesside area, as well as a lot of local contractors building the factory. The local content value of each monopile we make will be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

The timeline for the project reflects its scale, with 36 metre columns already installed to for the cranes, which will be coming by early next year. Then the installation program for the equipment, which is ready in various parts around Europe and in Korea, can follow.

SeAH is on course to start the commissioning of the factory at the back end of 2024 with the first monopiles already contracted and due to be delivered in the middle of 2025.

David told us: “We’re very happy with everything so far, now we've just got to concentrate on getting the job delivered not only to the local community, but also to the Government and to our customers because they've placed a lot of faith in the project.”

Over at Northallerton, Severfield is the UK’s leading structural steel expert, with projects including the Wimbledon No.1 Court Retractable Roof, the Spurs stadium in London and The Shard.

Looking over the SeAH site today, Director Harry Price told us: “It’s a fantastic project for us. Obviously, you can see the scale of it all here, with a significant amount of fabricated steel which will keep us busy for a while.

“But it is just great to have a project this close to our headquarters. We have a huge proportion of our workforce based in the North East, so it's perfect to have a local project for them to work on.

The Northern Echo: British Steel and Severfield expertiseBritish Steel and Severfield expertise (Image: Newsquest)

“The key thing for us is that confidence that people continue to invest in the UK and British manufacturing and building projects like this up and down the country.

“Severfield is a member of the five per cent club, so at least five per cent of our employees are apprentices. We want to increase the number of apprentices we have in this business and increase local employment, but you've got to have the projects like this to do so.”

For Teesside Mayor Ben Houchen the decision to buy British is a key moment, as it now provides a template for major tenants who will be SeAH’s neighbours to do the same.

“This shows that it isn’t just about investors, it's about other local businesses that can help support that, as this deal does for 700 jobs at British Steel," he told us.

“We still do steel in Teesside at Lackenby and at the Skinningrove Rolling Mill, and I'm pleased to say that this contract means that not only are we building the world's largest monopole factory, but the steel is coming from just a few hundred yards away.

“But it also demonstrates to future investors that we have the expertise. We've got the businesses, we've got the people, we've got the skills, we've got the talent. So if you want to come to Teesside, you don't have to worry about whether we can build a factory, whether you can fill those jobs. The people want the work, they've got the energy, they've got the skills, they've got the appetite.

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“I’ve already said I'm going to be standing for a third term as Tees Valley Mayor, and I approach it with excitement because what we're seeing now is the last six years has been a huge amount of hard work from an area that felt despair, from the closure of the steelworks, to now where we've put a lot of work into new investments.

“People are starting to see that turn. The next four years are going to be incredible because these projects are going to start being finished and SeAH is going to be open. They're going to be creating those thousands of jobs.

“What that ultimately means - the most important thing to me - is that local people can have opportunities to build a life for themselves and a career in our local area rather than feeling like they have to leave.”