'Some of Britain's best innovation happens in Rotherham'

The chancellor has said "some of the best innovation anywhere in Britain" happens in Rotherham.

John Healey was speaking on a visit to a global manufacturer in the town where he also met some of the country's first "AI apprentices".

Since becoming chancellor he has also highlighted the Advanced Manufacturing Park, built on the site of the Orgreave Colliery and home to big global brands like Rolls-Royce and Boeing, as an example of how the north could be reindustrialised.

He said the success of the park also means young people are able to find skilled jobs close to where they live.

A recent report raised concerns that Rotherham has the fewest suitable entry-level jobs for young people in Britain.

The findings, published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said the town had 46 online vacancies for every 1,000 young people, while the Cotswold district council area, for example, had 288.

On a visit to ASSEAL, a global manufacturer of seals based in Rotherham, Healey said supporting young people into work was a focus of the government.

"This area of South Yorkshire will be the first to develop a new local apprentice service matching those youngsters who can't get a start with potential employers and work placements," he said.

Rotherham had a rich heritage of coal mining and steel production, but large numbers of jobs were lost when those industries ended.

Twenty-five years ago the redevelopment of the former Orgreave site provided a blueprint for how heavy manufacturing can be replaced by something greener and more sustainable.

The vision to develop the site began in 2001, when landowners Harworth Group partnered with anchor tenant the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) to bridge the gap between university research and factory floors.

It is the UK's first technology park dedicated to high-value manufacturing and production. Sheffield and Rotherham councils have been heavily involved in the transformation of the brownfield site.

Now a new generation of workers whose families worked in heavy industry is employed at the AMP.

Sean Delaney, 26, is the son of a miner who retrained as a plumber after the closure of Harworth Colliery in Nottinghamshire.

Delaney left school in 2019 before a chance meeting in a pub with one of the AMRC's founders, Adrian Allen, led to a tour of the site off the A630 between Rotherham and Sheffield.

He said: "I knew Sheffield was a world centre of industry, but I never had any idea of what sort of companies and what sort of industries were on this site only half an hour's drive from my home.

"People were already seeing the jobs market was more difficult for university graduates, so I thought it was worth taking an opportunity to be an apprentice here."

Delaney started a degree apprenticeship as a machine technician, which gives him secure employment and a qualification without student debt. The University of Sheffield partners with the research centre.

"A lot of 'levelling up' exists to help people from areas like mine, former coal mining villages, former steel towns, particularly for young people who don't go to university.

"It's been brilliant for the local area. During my apprenticeship I've met loads of different young people who have jobs, some with family backgrounds similar to mine."

Since becoming chancellor, Healey has highlighted the innovation in South Yorkshire in numerous speeches.

He is MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough, and pointed to the AMP as symbolising the "new age of industrialisation".

He described it as "one of the most concentrated areas of innovation anywhere in Britain" where "young people are working with high-tech systems, making things that their grandparents could never have dreamed of".

He went on to announce that Rolls-Royce would invest an extra £300m in its UK factories - including its plant in Rotherham.

Healey has also announced that the National Wealth Fund will create and support a further 130,000 jobs across the UK by 2030 across sectors including AI and technology, defence and clean energy.

The director of the park's research centre, Matthew Farnsworth, said the chancellor had shone a spotlight on the AMP because it could be difficult to illustrate economic growth in the post-industrial age.

"For the AMRC it has meant £350m inward investment, creating an opportunity for 2,500 jobs and 2,220 apprentices. Around 1,858 of them are from Rotherham and Sheffield, which means young people securing training and jobs in the local area."

Part of the old colliery is now the Waverley housing estate, with 4,000 homes and a growing community. Local schools focus on STEM subjects and Farnsworth believes there is a visible path from growing up on Waverley to a training place at the research centre and a career.

In 2005 the centre employed 20 people, it now has a workforce of more than 700.

The eventual goal is for the AMP to provide 4,000 jobs - eight times the number of people who were employed at Orgreave when the colliery closed in 1990.

Farnsworth added: "The future is exciting, the infrastructure is here, the investment has been made and I think future programmes aligning to defence, aerospace and nuclear energy growth could be exponential again over the next 25 years."

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