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The South West must be thankful for almost 23,000 jobs which are expected to be created or safeguarded by the second round of funding from the Regional Growth Fund, the director of Bristol Chamber of Commerce told Insider.

The region bagged £88m from the fund, with nine bids successful, the government has revealed.

Successful bids included plans to invest £13m in superfast broadband and infrastructure in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; the creation of a research and development team for new products in the sub-sea oil and gas, defence and aerospace sectors; a £1.25m investment in the green energy sector; and £6m for the drilling of a borehole to test the viability of establishing a geothermal plant in Cornwall.

The government claimed the successful bids in the South West created or safeguarded an estimated 22,800 jobs.

Nigel Hutchings, director of Bristol Chamber, said: "Initially it is disappointing that we don't appear to have so many bids in the South West as in other regions.

"However, the jobs that will be safeguarded is what is fundamentally important because we have a large number of businesses involved in supply chains, especially in aerospace.

"There is a lot of high-tech in the supply chain down here and we must be thankful that the jobs protected are considerable, and therefore the expertise is retained."

He added: "The retention of expertise is crucial. If that is made redundant then we lose it for the region and then we may not have the kind of skills an investor is looking for."

In round one, the South West had four successful RGF bids of £8m, taking the total investment in the region to £96m.

A £43m bid to re-open the Portishead rail link to passenger train services by North Somerset Council was turned down, the local authority said. However, it was successful with another bid for a "revolving investment fund".

The successful bidders were: Universal Engineering, Mulberry Company, DTR VMS, Airbus Operations, Geothermal Engineering, The Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly LEP, City of Bristol College, North Somerset Council and one bidder that remains unnamed for commercial reasons.

Across the UK, 119 bids secured a slice of the £950m available in the second round of the fund.