Member Article

North East “willing to work” says MP

The North East is home to individuals who are “willing to work and willing to adapt” according to David Milliband.

The MP for South Shields visited the town to officially open the South Tyneside headquarters of Energy and Utilities consultancy Utilitywise. The firm, which currently employs 190 staff, has moved into the former Garlands Call Centre premises which will give them the capacity to create a further 200 jobs by the end of the year.

Speaking to Bdaily at the opening, Mr Miliband said: “Utilitywise is a big business by South Shields standards, employing 190 people with more jobs to come.

“Its a very useful and innovative business model in tough economic times, and I very pleased to hear that they are not only able to hire locally, but to hire skilled people locally who are doing a fantastic job.”

Utilitywise was established five years ago as a small family owned business, and aims to provide a complete package of energy services to companies looking to get the most value out of their energy contracts.

Adam Tompson, Utilitywise chief operating officer believes that the new investment will aid the firm in their plans for further expansion.

He said: “So often there is a need to educate businesses about how much they are spending on their energy, and certainly as you go up the consumption ladder in terms of spend, customers are increasingly aware of how much they spend on energy. So if we can help people do that while creating jobs in the process, I am very happy to do that.

“Over the next year we hope to continue our organic growth, expanding into European geographies, so we want to look at broader more technical products and services whilst also expanding into France and Germany.”

The opening of Utilitywise’s South Shields headquarters is the latest in a string of successes for the region, including investment at the Nissan car plant in Sunderland.

Reflecting on this economic triumph, Mr Miliband also expressed the hope that this would draw further investment to the North East.

He added: “The fact that the economy is pretty flat is obviously the biggest dark cloud on the horizon and we desperately need to see more demand in the economy and more investment and that really the key to making deep inroads into levels of unemployment we are currently seeing.

“The most significant thing about Nissan is that it’s now got the most productive car plant in Europe and it’s based here in the North East.

“So anyone who is in doubt about the potential of North East people to manage work in high productivity businesses has got their answer there.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .