Leadership blog - 18.02.19

In this blog, the Leader talks about how Sunderland has recently played host to, or been involved in organising three North East-wide events, welcoming friends and colleagues from across the region.

Reflecting on the past couple of weeks, I'm delighted that our wonderful city has played host to, or been involved in organising three North East-wide events, welcoming friends and colleagues from across the region.

The month began with the North East Automotive Alliance Awards, held at the historic Roker Hotel. It was an honour to welcome attendees to our beautiful seafront to celebrate the considerable achievements and successes of the automotive sector this past year and to congratulate some incredibly worthy winners.

It's always particularly heartening to see the young award winners and to celebrate their talent and enthusiasm in the early stage of their careers, knowing that the industry is going to be in incredibly good hands and will continue to go from strength to strength in the coming years.

Then last week we had the North East Public Health Conference at the Stadium Light where colleagues gathered to discuss the challenges we face as a region. It was a really productive day where learning, good practice and ideas were shared to help drive health improvements and opportunities for people throughout the North East.

The week ended with the North East Contact Centre Awards, organised by the city council, which is always a real highlight of the business events calendar, and just like the Automotive Awards, recognises the outstanding achievements of this really important sector in our region and the world-leading standards of customer service that its employees provide.

Sunderland is at the heart of all of these sectors and a good many more, and I was really proud to see this recognised earlier in the week with the announcement that we've been ranked third best place in the UK to start a business.

A report by Paymentsense has ranked towns and cities according to business survival rates, weekly salary, average rent, population and so on and citing our strengths in the services, automotive, sciences and tech sectors, has found that Sunderland trumps a whole host of major cities around the UK including London, Manchester and Glasgow.

This really is great news as Sunderland's economic regeneration continues apace and I look forward to bringing news of many more exciting developments as the year goes on!

Cllr Graeme Miller
Leader