Creating a platform for significant change

With work to transform its sprawling estate matched by wider environmental endeavours and a desire to support economic and social prosperity in the North East’s shifting political landscape, the Port of Tyne is at the axis of great change. Here, Steven Hugill chats to Matt Beeton, the trade hub’s chief executive, to find out more.

www.portoftyne.co.uk

@Port_of_Tyne

Matt Beeton tugs at the thick collar of his high-visibility jacket, adjusting his stance to face the length of a mottled grey-white concrete expanse.

Over his shoulder, a heavy roller emerges from behind a bank of bright yellow cabins as excavator buckets gouge new courses in the land.

Great change, as well as an unforgiving wind, is in the air at the Port of Tyne.

It began in late 2019, when Matt, nearly a year into his role as the trade hub’s chief executive, unfurled its Tyne 2050 blueprint.

Planting seeds for the base’s long-term future, the venture sets nearly 30 headline targets - from carbon neutrality and eventual all-electric operations, to doubling diversity and catalysing cross-industry collaboration - which aim to place the port as a pivot point in environmental, digital, social and maritime transformation.

And the first shoots are more than coming through.

From the concrete square upon which Matt stands today, soon will rise a home for the energy of tomorrow, an offshore wind contractor lying in wait for a new factory where coal was once processed.

The scene is replicated around a bend in the Tyne, where Dogger Bank wind farm joint operator Equinor runs a scarlet-cladded, 200-job operations and maintenance headquarters.

Both firms were attracted by the port’s 200-acre Tyne Clean Energy Park.

Straddling the river across four sites, the development is a flagship scheme within Tyne 2050, its creation providing both the space and transport links for renewable firms, marine engineers and their supply chains to flourish.

Matt says: “When I arrived at the port, it was still reliant on coal, and we needed to think of a new business model and what we stood for.

“One of our key targets was to align ourselves with generational jobs, and be part of areas such as the green energy market.

“Tyne 2050 was founded to help us do that, and we’ve made fantastic progress.

“Attracting Equinor was a massive plus.

“The jobs and value for the port and the region from Equinor’s arrival have been phenomenal - if all options are taken, that company alone could represent nearly 100 years’ worth of operation.

“Equinor came here because it could access skills, but it did so too because our visions aligned.”

And Matt reveals the momentum behind Tyne 2050 - which aligns with the Government’s own Maritime 2050 policy and the North East Strategic Economic Plan - is being maintained by the development of further redundant port areas for prospective operators, with the ambition having recently helped two long-term renewable and recycling partners extend tenancies.

He says: “We spent more than £10 million on the port last year, which was more than had been invested in a decade, and we want to double that figure this year.”

However, the blueprint extends far beyond earthmovers and land remediation.

In a world of evolving energy and efficiency drives, the port - which helps power one in every eight lightbulbs and processes 40 per cent of the UK’s tea stocks - is matching physical revision with digital and psychological change.

Key to its efforts is the Maritime 2050 Innovation Hub, which stands close to the port’s Jarrow Road entrance.

With partners including Teesport operator PD Ports, Nissan and Blyth’s Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, the endeavour works with the Department for Transport and industry body MarRI-UK to develop solutions capable of making environmental, economic and social advances, across areas such as artificial intelligence, the circular economy and the future of mobility.

Matt says: “We use the phrase ‘intentionally ambitious’ here, and the Maritime 2050 Innovation Hub is a great example of that in action.

“We launched it to corral ports, organisations and people into thinking about - and tackling - the challenges we’re facing.

“I’m a firm believer in collaborating with other players, and it has worked really well.

“We’ve got a great foundation to make significant progress.”

Those advances, says Matt, will be supported by other partnerships to further influence positive change across global shipping.

He says: “We’re sharing non-sensitive data with other ports around the world, to see how we can better do things across areas such as cost, speed to market and decarbonisation.

“For example, we might think we’re doing something right here, but it might be forcing more carbon down the supply chain elsewhere, and we really want to understand our place as a link in that longer chain.”

And such commitment to collaboration extends to the North East’s governmental landscape.

With agreement in place for a £4.2 billion, mayoralled devolution deal for the north of the region, Matt wants the area’s maritime cluster - which includes the Port of Tyne alongside the region’s other sea-based hubs and airports - to unite and maximise the power shift’s potential.

He says: “The opportunity is there to make a massive difference.

“If you look at what is happening in the North Sea, around areas such as offshore wind and hydrogen, we could be the epicentre of clean energy for the UK and beyond.

“If we are smarter about coordinating ourselves and about emphasising each of our unique points, in conjunction with what is happening on Teesside and Scotland’s planned east coast freeport, we could do so much more.

“Pulling the region and its assets together would provide scale, from which we could generate and attract investment to plan a new hinterland.”

Matt adds: “We have a platform to do something special, to increase prosperity and create more jobs.

“It’s all to play for, and I can’t help smiling about the proposition before us.

“The opportunities are endless.”

Supporting a new industrial dawn

From the creation of a green energy hub to major aviation investment and rising river-borne trade, the Tees Valley’s commercial sector has newfound momentum. And at the heart of the progress is The Endeavour Partnership. Here, Steven Hugill speaks to managing partner Lee Bramley, to learn more about the Stockton-based law firm’s support for the region’s renaissance, and why seeing the area thrive means as much personally as it does professionally.

https://endeavour.law

@Endeavour_law

The sun rises over Lee Bramley’s shoulder, spreading speckles of yellows and gold across the undulating waters of the River Tees.

In the foreground, the early Edwardian splendour of Middlesbrough’s Transporter Bridge stands silhouetted. A poster project for the sweat and toil of the area’s industrial heyday, it’s a scene enough to make any proud Teessider’s heart swell.

Middlesbrough’s famous crossing, a new commercial dawn is rising.

Art has met real-life, and Lee, as managing partner at The Endeavour Partnership, is fully immersed in the glow.

He and the Stockton-based firm’s expert teamswhich provide advice across areas such as commercial property, employment law and HR, and corporate and commercial matters, the latter including banking and finance support - are playing a fundamental role in the area’s reawakening, replacing the painter’s palette with brushstrokes of their own.

Operating as Tees Valley’s largest commercial law firm, the business is a crucial cog in the regeneration wheel.

Helping organisations right across the TS postcode, from family-founded transport firm AV Dawson to Wynyard Park franchise operator Racz Group, it is also supporting Tees Valley Combined Authority with economic growth and job creation as part of its elite legal panel.

“We are a Teesside business - there are eight equity partners who own The Endeavour Partnership, and six of us are from Teesside,” says Lee, who grew up on a Middlesbrough terraced street.

He adds: “We understand the landscape, and we’re committed to making it a better place to live and do business.

Far from being a lament to the generations of yesteryear, however, the tableau - hung on a wall in Lee’s home office - is in fact a window into a new world.

With Redcar’s sprawling old steel site being transformed into the Teesworks green energy hub and trade burgeoning on the waterway straddled by

“It is really important to us as individuals, and The Endeavour Partnership, to make that happen.

“Growing organisations lead to more jobs and regeneration, and more money being retained in, or moving back into, the community - and we are proud to be supporting such expansion.

“Over the last ten years, for example, AV Dawson has evolved into a much larger organisation, doing exactly that - and we’ve been with them all that time.”

The nurturing extends further, however, with Lee - in his role as chair of trustees at The Teesside Charity - and The Endeavour Partnership both cultivating a hothouse environment wherein the next generation of seedlings begin growing into fully-rooted success stories.

Formerly known as the Middlesbrough and Teesside Philanthropic Foundation, the charity has created a bursary scheme that funds a student’s journey across a three-year Teesside University course.

Elsewhere, The Endeavour Partnership, which employs 44 staff in offices watching out over Stockton’s rapidly-changing waterfront, offers annual training contracts and provides work experience and ‘day in the life’ insights for scores of students every year.

“Helping the area and the people where you’re from has, over time, become more important to me,” says Lee, who was previously part of the team that ran the Finlay Cooper Fund, the charity established by exMiddlesbrough FC defender Colin Cooper and wife Julie following the death of their two-year-old son.

Lee says: “It comes back to being involved in the growth and success of Teesside.

“As a younger person, there are three things you need to help establish your career – a work ethic, a talent or ability and then an opportunity.

“And that last point really resonates with us at The Endeavour Partnership; it’s why we work so closely with Teesside University,” says Lee, who studied at the Middlesbrough-based institution with grant support.

He adds: “We have no glass ceiling; of our eight owners, two began as trainee solicitors here.

“We’ve always grown organically, and our success has, in no small part, been down to the loyalty of our people.

“We have very low staff turnover because there is a pathway to the top, and we are committed to helping more get onboard and have successful careers.”

Such action to augment the region’s talent stream will, of course, help deepen The Endeavour Partnership’s own skills pool, which will in turn provide fresh momentum to a firm primed for another record financial year.

Fuelled by recent tier one Legal 500 rankings - which include a citation praising The Endeavour Partnership for its ‘national firm level service’ - and rising local demand, as well as international work, means it is set to exceed the £508 million deals total it achieved in the year to July 2022.

The Endeavour Partnership

As the largest commercial law firm in the Tees Valley, The Endeavour Partnership is experienced in all aspects of business law. Recognised for its specialist departments and multiple layers of expertise, the firm offers commercial legal solutions that go beyond static advice, and is committed to producing innovative options for clients while still demonstrating business-focused thinking.

For more information on how its expert services could help your business, visit http://endeavour. law or contact 01642 610300.

Key to such financial success, which places The Endeavour Partnership within the higher echelons of the wider North East legal sector, are its service levels and the tremendous client longevity they foster.

Lee says: “We often get enquiries about a potential deal involving a company we’ve never worked with before, but which has come to us on recommendation.

“A German company looking at a deal on Teesside called us recently - we were endorsed by someone we’d worked with 12 years ago.

“We also have a very good track record of working for organisations being acquired by a national or international company, and then retaining that successor business into a new long-term relationship.”

And Lee says such reputation will remain a key factor as The Endeavour Partnership looks to grow through 2023 in a market affected by ongoing turbulence from the legacy of COVID-19, rising inflation and Russia’s Ukrainian invasion.

He adds: “We are cautiously optimistic; we’ve seen no reduction in work - in fact, we’ve seen quite the opposite.

“We’ve made great progress and, as we go through this year and further onwards, will continue delivering our expert services to support clients across Teesside’s changing landscape and beyond.”