THE Teesdale Business Park, Thornaby, employs more people and contributes more to the local economy than during the heyday of the famous Head Wrightson engineering works that once occupied the site, a survey shows.

Office, learning and other developments account for 4,500 jobs at Teesdale.

The businesses and other organisations on the site put up to £47.3m a year into the local economy through salaries, researchers found, and the value of financial transactions that pass through Teesdale could be as high as £1bn a year.

The survey was carried out on behalf of Stockton Borough Council and the Teesdale Business Association by Professor Alan Townsend, director of the International Centre for Regional Regeneration and Development Studies based at the University of Durham's Wolfson Research Institute at Stockton.

Its aim was to gather information on the number of businesses and jobs created, their spending and employment impact on the Tees Valley, average earnings, journeys to work and where businesses had moved there from.

The results, show more people are employed at Teesdale than in any one manufacturing industry in the Stockton area, representing around six per cent of all work in the borough.