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About 120 jobs have been created on Teesside because a car parts firm is building a new plant. Nifco makes parts for Nissan, Toyota and Honda and is spending £8.5 million on a new facility in Stockton’s Durham Lane. The existing 180 jobs at the company have also been safeguarded.

A North East-based hotel and fitness chain has revealed plans for a new head office. The Bannatyne Group could start work on the new four storey building in Darlington within eight weeks. The firm is owned by entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne, best known for his appearances on television show Dragon’s Den. It employs 3,000 people around the country.

Cleveland Police Authority (CPA) has had to agree a cull of 230 officers as a means of meeting a 20 per cent cut in government funding. The authority said officer ranks would reduce from 1,727 to 1,572 over the next 12 months. It added that the authority had agreed to make savings of £12m in the next financial year alone.

North Yorkshire Police has revealed it is to cut up to 350 staff jobs in the wake of public service cuts. The county authority announced its budget for 2011/12 would be £140.5m. During the coming financial year ten police officer jobs would be lost through natural wastage.

A specialist legal company which employs more than 130 people, is about to open its sixth office in the UK to boost the north-eastern economy. The firm is at the advanced stage of looking for a suitable premises for a fledgling Newcastle operation.

The York branch of union Unison was considering its response to the announcements that City of York Council officials are planning to make £21m of savings within 12 months. One of the results of the authority’s cutbacks in the next financial year is 170 jobs going during that period, plus 650 posts will be shed over four years.

Job losses and millions of pounds worth of cuts to services have been announced in North Yorkshire. North Yorkshire County Council’s chief executive Richard Flinton said the authority had to save £37m in the next financial year. As well as axing 330 jobs from the council, the body has proposed to close nine elderly people’s homes, plus cut grants to the county’s theatres.

Remploy – which has factories in Gateshead, in Spennymoor, County Durham and other sites in the region – is looking for employees to take severance packages. Bosses said Remploy is not fulfilling its mission to provide sustainable employment opportunities for disabled people.

Violent crime will go up due to deficit-busting measures – this warning came from police forces across the North-East. The North Yorkshire force will lose 200 officers and 350 support staff.

Cash-poor Durham County Council is still paying staff to work at Glendale House, in Blackhall, County Durham, even though its last resident departed nearly a month ago. One worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “Everybody’s fed up.

The Otter Hotel, in West Auckland, remains in ruins after it was destroyed by fire more than a year ago. Local people and officials are concerned the site will continue to be an eyesore as there seems to be little prospect of the debris being cleared.

Steelmaking could gain a symbolic boost in the North-East after the deal to reopen the redundant Teesside Cast Products plant edged closer to reality. Thai company Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) is poised to buy Tata Steel’s facility at Redcar, east Cleveland, which was put on hold for development last February. If that opening can be confirmed, it would mean a tremendous turnaround in the fortunes of the plant.