Over £600,000 to be spent by Northumberland County Council on Blyth town centre site acquisitions

The money, taken from the project’s existing acquisitions budget, will be spent on more sites in the town centre. The exact sites are confidential for commercial reasons.

Energising Blyth is the council’s £90m flagship project to transform the county’s largest town and is funded by the government’s Future High Street Fund, Town Deal, and Levelling Up Deep Dive schemes, and investment from the council and other partners.

Among the schemes delivered by the project is the acquisition of Keel Row Shopping Centre to use as the site for the Energy Central Institute higher education facility.

Keel Row closed its doors for good in February ahead of the major redevelopment. The council also acquired the centre’s car park and vacant property 7-9 Bridge Street from Northumberland Estates, the Duke of Northumberland’s property firm.

Speaking at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, cabinet member for business, Cllr Wojciech Ploszaj, said there were other sites around Keel Row that the council wanted to acquire in order to move the project forward.

Conservative council leader Glen Sanderson said: “This will allow us to continue our great work funded by government and delivered by ourselves bringing much needed money and investment into the town.”

The council has previously said the Keel Row sites will undergo a “masterplanning process” to “optimise” the benefits to the town, with the Energy Central Institute being described as the “main focus”.

The institute will be a “cutting-edge higher education facility supporting the growing low carbon and renewable energy industry in Blyth.”

The plan was unanimously approved by the cabinet members.