page_title: Darlington
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Darlington / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Darlington Market Hall. Taken on a Monday in October 2009.
context_page_description: Darlington is a large market town in County Durham, in North East England. With a population of 105,564 in 2011, the town lies on the River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees. The town is administered as part of the Borough of Darlington. The town owes much of its development to the influence of local Quaker families in the Georgian and Victorian era, and who provided much of the finance and vision in creating the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first steam locomotive powered, permanent passenger railway The town is often colloquially referred to as 'Darlo'.
context_section_description: EE are the largest private sector employers in the town, hiring 2,500 people. Another major employer in the area is the English division of the Student Loans Company, Student Finance England, who are based at Lingfield Point and employ over 1,000 people. Nevertheless, there are major engineering sites, with both Cleveland Bridge and the industrial arm of AMEC headquartered in the town. Another major firm within the engineering industry based in the town is Cummins which has a large scale engine building facility in the Morton Park area of Darlington. UK retail company Argos have their largest warehouse distribution centre in the North of England located in Darlington, within Faverdale Industrial Estate to the North West of the town.
  Other large service sector companies with offices in the town include Darlington Building Society, Bannatyne Fitness Ltd and the national vehicle rental company Northgate, which is headquartered in the town; also within the Morton Park area.
  As well as the large engineering sites based in the town, Darlington is also home to many businesses within the modern and developing industries including Information Technology. With large firms such as Infoserve Ltd having offices within the Morton Park area to the east of Darlington, located next to the A66 Darlington Eastern Bypass.
  Close to the Darlington A66 Bypass is also the Link66 redevelopment scheme, which is a large plot of land close to the Morton Park site. It is hoped developers will see potential in the site due to its excellent transport links with fast access to the town centre and central park regeneration zone via the new Darlington Eastern Transport Corridor constructed in 2008. While also being in close proximity to the A1(M) Motorway which heads south to London and north to Edinburgh.
  In November 2012, a deal was signed between Darlington Borough Council and developer Terrace Hill for a £30 million re-development of the site of the former Feethams bus depot. The development includes a new multiplex cinema run by Vue Cinemas to serve Darlington and the wider South Durham area, as the area currently has no multiplex cinema. Residents currently have to travel to Teesside for the nearest multiplex cinema. The development will also house a new 80 bedroom Premier Inn hotel, and various food and drink venues including Prezzo, Bella Pasta and Hungry Horse. The proposal had an expected completion date of late 2014, though this did overrun with completion early 2016.
  Darlington Borough Council also announced the neighbouring site, previously a car park for the town hall, was also to be redeveloped to house riverside office space for the Department for Education in an effort to safeguard Darlington jobs. This was officially opened on 19 March 2015.
  The international telecommunications company BT Group recently announced Darlington as one of the economically important locations in England to have BT fibre-optic cables installed underground as part of the company's BT Infinity superfast broadband rollout project. BT Group cites their decision to include Darlington in the national rollour of multi-provider fibre optic (cable) broadband as necessary due to the towns relatively large amount of IT demanding firms and future plans for developments including space for high-tech firms. Darlington Borough Council, residents and local businesses praised the decision by BT Group and it is hoped the investment will attract enterprise to the town, potentially creating employment for residents and boosting the economy.
  The Morton Park area of Darlington is currently undergoing a partial redevelopment, with areas of unused waste land being redeveloped into modern industrial and office space, the developments add to the plans for redevelopment of the current Council depot on Central Park which is also to be redeveloped into commercial space and the Link66 scheme also close to Morton Park.
  Other commercial spaces in Darlington include North Road Industrial Estate, which includes a Morrisons superstore supermarket; Cleveland Trading Estate and Faverdale Industri
caption: Darlington market hall
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