More to Teesside than just steel

May 17 2009 Sunday Sun

DESPITE the proposed closure of the steelworks, we have much to cheer for in Teesside.

There is the 21st-century library in Ingleby Barwick, the luminous stained glass in Yarm Parish Church, the charm of the 11th-century church of St John the Baptist in Egglescliffe village, the architectural majesty of the Christopher Wren-designed Stockton Parish Church, and the contents of Stockton central library.

There’s also the tow path that runs from Victoria Bridge to the Tees Barrage, MIMA in Middlesbrough, the uninterrupted sandy beaches from Redcar through Marske to Saltburn, the independent and vibrant Yarm High Street, our Premier League soccer team, the simple beauty of the 12th-century St Peter’s Church on the Green in Thornaby and the secondhand bookshop in Saltburn.

We also have the cheapest property prices and rents in the UK, the functional simplicity of the 17th-century Friends Meeting House on The Green in Norton. And there’s the fact that two of the world’s great medieval cities and the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors are all within an hour’s drive, the world-rated faculty of medicine at the University of Durham in Stockton, and those of health sciences and computing at the University of Teesside.

I could go on.

No doubt your readers can supply many more examples. Suffice to say that Teesside is a great place to live.

We need a nationwide marketing campaign to tell prospective employers of how much their employees would enjoy living in Teesside.

Thereby, we could, perhaps, do something to ameliorate the blight of long-term unemployment that affects the region – DR MARK LEE, by email.