A NORTH-EAST town has been singled out by an economic thinktank as one of the best placed in the UK to benefit from a pot of Government funding for economic growth.

Darlington is among the top four locations in the country which meet the criteria for money under the Government’s new £1.4bn Regional Growth Fund, according to economic development experts Regeneris Consulting.

Research showed that Darlington, along with Sheffield, Blackburn and Liverpool, had both the greatest needs and potential opportunities and therefore could benefit most from the fund.

The consultants based their analysis on two factors: the town or city’s dependence on the public sector; and the amount of private industry which has been identified by Government for growth over the next few years.

Growth industries identified in the report include telecommunications, biotechnology, electronics, chemicals, broadcasting, information technology, and professional and business services.

Darlington scored high on both criteria because it has a high dependency on public sector jobs, but also thriving private sector industries in some of the named areas, including the Orange mobile phone call centre.

Although the exact assessment criteria is not yet known, the consultants based their analysis on the Government’s statement that the fund would support communities which are too dependent on the public sector and which also have significant potential for private sector growth.

Simon Hooton, director of Regeneris, said: “All of these towns and cities rely heavily on public sector employment and have a clear economic gap with the rest of the country, but they all have a reasonably strong base of private sector employment in nationally important sectors on which to build.

“They are therefore best placed to benefit from the new fund.

“Other areas are close behind and should be supported but there is a risk of the fund making little real difference to conditions on the ground if it is spread too thinly.”

He said although there were other places in the North-East which relied on public sector jobs as heavily as Darlington, they did not have the same potential for growth in the identified sectors.

Darlington MP Jenny Chapman said: “Darlington needs to take every opportunity to support its private sector. We have a very strong track record with some great entrepreneurs, and some very good businesses.

“The Government should be doing everything it can to promote the private sector in Darlington.

I am concerned, because when I asked David Cameron in Prime Minister’s Question Time about expanding private sector industries in the North-East, he didn’t know.

“If he is making decisions which are going to lose people their jobs, he should know what the expanding industries are in this region. It is disgraceful. If you’re talking about that number of public sector job losses, we need a serious expansion of the private sector to make up for loss.”