Tynemouth MP Alan Campbell is backing the bid for a North East England Freeport which would cover the Port of Tyne and the Port of Blyth.

Alan said “The bid presents a useful opportunity for our region and it would create 60,000 jobs, including over 30,000 on the new Freeport sites and 30,000 construction jobs regionally.

A number of North East England Freeport sites are located in some of the region’s most deprived areas. The Freeport could provide a unique ‘levelling-up’ opportunity in these communities, creating new green jobs as well as employability programmes to ensure that these jobs are accessible to local people.

It’s understood the location of the new freeports will be announced in Wednesday’s Budget.  Clearly this is a big test for the Government’s commitment to ‘levelling up’ in the North East.”