Dorset County Council's North East Technology Park (NETPark) has been allocated over £11 million towards its expansion.

The North East Combined Authority's Cabinet has approved £11.3m of funding for the Sedgefield site from its £160m flagship North East Investment Zone (NEIZ), which aims to drive growth across green energy and manufacturing businesses and is expected to unlock around £3 billion in private sector investment over the next decade.

Cllr Amanda Hopgood, Leader and combined authority Cabinet member for culture, creative, tourism and sport, said: "This is a huge step forward for County Durham. It's a significant investment that is in recognition of the fantastic employment opportunities that NETPark presents our region and is a further boost on the back of the £62m we as a council committed to the third phase of the site with support from the former North East Local Enterprise Partnership.

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"We're talking about the potential for ultimately thousands of new jobs and the ability to attract and retain businesses in the science, technology and engineering sectors."

The NEIZ stretches from County Durham in the South to Northumberland in the North and includes sites in Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Gateshead and Sunderland.

NETPark is one of the UK's premiere science and technology parks and is already home to three innovation catapults and three national innovation centres, with 40 companies employing 700 people.

The NEIZ investment will be used to unlock the next zone of the £100m NETPark phase 3 for future development and accelerate the development of a first commercial unit - expected to be 158,000 sq ft - in response to strong interest from potential inward investors.

This will involve the remediation of 548,000 sq ft of underdeveloped land, including delivering essential infrastructure works consisting of roads, groundworks, electrical grid connections and is expected to create more than 250 direct jobs and support 500 more in subsequent phases.

The works, to be led by the council's Business Durham business support service, will unlock major investment opportunities that would otherwise be lost to the region, and will create significant opportunities in the regional supply chain.

With contributions from the combined authority, the council has already invested £48m at NETPark and has committed to further investment of £24m subject to further funding being secured.

The Phase 3 expansion will provide in total 14 new innovation focused units across 16 hectares of space for offices, laboratories, and advanced manufacturing.