Promise on Nightingale Hospital North East - and hopes for future of IAMP amid uncertain times

The facility opened earlier in May at what was supposed to be the Innovation Centre of the International Advanced Manufacturing Park (IAMP), a planned major new industrial site next to the Nissan car plant.

South Tyneside Council and Sunderland City Council have together spent several years working to turn the land next to the Nissan factory into a wider industrial site along the A19, which runs through the two authority areas.

Once completed this is expected to house firms involved in the Japanese car maker’s supply chain, as well as others working in areas such as renewable energy.

NHS chiefs have called the 460-bed Nightingale Hospital, one of several across the country, an ‘insurance policy’ which will only start taking patients if the region’s hospitals are unable to cope with a surge in COVID-19 cases.

And although it is yet to see a single COVID-19 patient, bosses at Sunderland City Council have insisted they won’t be demanding it is turned back over to business anytime soon.

“The economy is being hammered because people cannot get to work,” said Graeme Miller, the leader of the city council.

“It’s part of the ‘stay at home’ message and it’s why they’ve moved to the ‘stay alert’ message, because they want people to go to work.

“We’ve got the Nightingale Hospital at our Innovation Centre and that building will stay as a hospital for as long as the NHS feels it needs it.

“Then we will get the use of that as a graduate technology facility.”

Coun Miller added that despite a predicted ‘economic hangover’ left as a legacy of the coronavirus outbreak, businesses are ‘still interested’ in investing in and moving operations to the IAMP.

Next door, Nissan is also pressing ahead with plans to restart work.

Coun Miller said: “I’ve no doubt if it goes on for a year or more you’re looking at a serious global crisis.

“But if we can get through the summer and we deal with COVID-19 we may be able to see the economy start up again in the autumn.

“I think we have the resilience as a city to be able to do that.

“The council is doing everything we can to support businesses and we continue to look at what we can do to support small businesses and charities.”

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