IAMP (International Advanced Manufacturing Park) is one of those projects that felt right from the very beginning. Back in 2010 when I first started talking IAMP with former Sunderland City Council chief executive Dave Smith, we felt we already had the ingredients for something special in the region.

The Nissan plant was being highlighted, almost weekly, by then-business secretary Vince Cable as ‘the most productive car plant in Europe' and for ‘building more cars than the whole of Italy'. The supply chain in the region was expanding and broadening to include automotive companies that didn't even supply Nissan as well as other advanced manufacturing businesses.