BUSINESS leaders and key figures from the community turned out in force yesterday to discuss the future of the Tees Valley.

Delegates at a conference at the Samsung Training Centre at Wynyard heard about the progress being made in developing the Tees Valley Vision Study.

The £750,000 project, supported by regional development agency One NorthEast, English Partnerships and the five local authorities in the Tees Valley, is designed to analyse the enormous economic and social challenges facing the area and develop a strategy for a better future.

The conference was organised by the Tess Valley Partnership (TVP), which has played a key role in the Vision Study, and featured a number of key speakers, including partnership chairman Alistair Arkley and Dr Nicholas Miles, of GHK Consultants, which has been involved in preparing the first phase of the report.

Mr Arkley, also a board member at One NorthEast, said: "The partnership is designed to bring together key players in the Tees Valley to work together to face the major issues which must be tackled if we are to deliver a better economy for the area, better social conditions and a better environment.

"The development of a vision for the future which we can all support, and help to deliver, is absolutely vital.

"Just a few facts demonstrate why we need radical thinking and radical change.

"In just 20 years the Tees Valley has lost 68,500 manufacturing jobs, 56 per cent of the total, and right now almost half the wards in the area are in the top ten most deprived in the country and 38 of 50 secondary schools in the area perform below the national average."

Mr Arkley said it was time for the area to start playing to its strengths.

He said: "We do have important advantages on which we can build. For example, we can reinforce our position as a global location for the chemical industry and using the fact that we have one of the biggest ports in the country, coupled with our own airport, as the bedrock for a modern transport infrastructure.

"The Vision study has identified a range of options. These include using the expertise of the University of Teesside to make our area a major centre for the digital and multi-media industries, promoting a new Tees crossing to help boost the regeneration of both banks of the river and developing a new Light Rapid Transport system.

"We believe that the Vision study can point the way forward, providing the whole area is willing to make it work.

"The decline of steel underlines the central message which has come through the visioning exercise, that we cannot depend on the major industries which have driven the Tees Valley economy for the past 200 years to sustain our economy in the 21st Century.

"Neither can we rely on people from outside the area to bail us out. Our fate is in our own hands, and we need everyone to play their part.