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Business co-editor Martin
New money or Tees
Walker weighs up the contrasting
PR skulduggery? views on Teesside’s £123m windfall...
Run down – the former
steelworks at Redcar have been
derelict since SSI’s collapse
more than two years ago.
O
pinions were divided when chancellor
Philip Hammond confirmed “new”
funding of £123m to kick-start the
work of the South Tees Development
Corporation (STDC), as well as a number of
other positive funding announcements for
the region, in his autumn budget.
On one side, our Conservative mayor
for Teesside, Ben Houchen, claimed all
the plaudits when, two days prior to the
budget, he sent a rallying cry to Hammond
demanding at least £100m for the area.
Some cynics suggested it was all PR
skulduggery – that Houchen knew the cash
was on its way, so he primed the media to
set up an almighty “Look what I did” media
stunt, and Hammond would name-check
him during his budget speech to rapturous
applause.
Labour Party politicians claim that only
£5m of the funding is new money – while the
Tories rebuked those claims instantly.
One might argue it’s unnecessary and
unsavoury to publicly bicker over whether
the money is new or not. Because the fact
remains that £123m has been allocated to
redevelop the former steelworks site, which
has stood depressingly derelict since SSI
closed it down just over two years ago.
What is clear is that both sides of the
divide are using the Redcar site as a political
football, which is ironic, given Steve Gibson’s
heavy involvement in STDC. The Boro and
Bulkhaul boss spoke, typically passionately,
at the official launch of the plan, held at the
Community Heart building in Redcar.
“We have a spring in our step – we’re
Bold plans – Boro chairman
Steve Gibson helped launch
the South Tees Development
Corporation.
happy,” he said, as he joined both Houchen
and Redcar’s Labour council leader Sue
Jeffrey at the launch.
“There are things going on that we hope
to conclude in the new year that we think will
have enormous impact on the Tees Valley and
its people.”
It would be interesting to know what
Gibson made of the public scrap between
Houchen and both Redcar MP Anna Turley
and Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald after
the chancellor’s budget, but my guess would
be he’d have been fairly unimpressed.
The budget announcement has to be
viewed as promising news for Teesside,
with the caveat that we’re a long way off
seeing any movement on the site, let alone
it creating new jobs. It will take about three
years before developers can safely start their
groundworks.
Teessiders are well used to false dawns.
And I don’t think that’s being negative. I think
you can be positive and realistic at the same
time.
But STDC is clearly making huge strides.
They say they have already had 60 enquiries
from potential investors, and Houchen has
described the site as “the single biggest
development opportunity in the UK”.
The ultimate vision is to create 20,000
Teesside jobs – and I’m sure we’d all
agree that would be something we can all
truly celebrate, regardless of our political
persuasions.
To find out more about the STDC’s
master plan visit www.southteesdc.com