We recently learnt that the flagship plans of Lord Houchen of High Leven’s Middlesbrough Development Corporation have collapsed, with the £200mn flight of fancy being described as “financially unviable”.
It was three-and-a-half years ago in a disused Middlesbrough town centre shop that Lord Houchen launched this latest vanity vehicle for playing with public money.
At the event he was asked by a journalist why he thought he was the person with the skills to deliver regeneration of the centre of our town.
His reply began: “Maybe I have an overinflated view of my abilities.” He needn’t have gone on.
Background
It is worth rewinding the clock back to the beginning of this sorry tale. At that event the Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen and the then Middlesbrough Mayor Andy Preston spoke of turbocharging this, supercharging that and fast-tracking the other.
It took until the following February in 2023 that an actual proposal was put before elected representatives.
Middlesbrough’s Labour councillors, then in the minority on the council, diligently considered and, having actually attended, voted on the proposals. With independent and Conservative councillors not bothering to show – including the Mayor who was supposed to be presenting the item and his deputy, who preferred to be on the telly – the MDC was voted down.
Key concerns for Labour councillors were around a loss of planning powers, the transfer of council assets and the lack of expertise on the MDC board.
As part of the proposals, £18mn of investment was lined up for Middlesbrough, including £8mn to transform Gresham. Labour councillors argued that the money should be available for the council, regardless of whether an MDC was set up.
They were also concerned about the transfer of assets to the new development body.
Then in an incredible affront to democracy Lord Houchen and the Secretary of State Michael Gove decided to simply ignore the democratic will of Middlesbrough Council and create the corporation anyway.
It was described within the council chamber at Middlesbrough Town Hall as “the biggest smash and grab on Middlesbrough Council assets since its inception”.
A further affront to the town was delivered by Lord Houchen when another one of the Labour councillors’ concerns came to fruition – planning powers were stripped from Middlesbrough Council and instead handed to a private firm in Newcastle with a £1mn budget to go with it.
Less than six months later we had Lord Houchen’s Masterplan with its promises of 1,500 new homes and 4,000 new jobs in a document which pointed to many successes of Middlesbrough Council’s regeneration and planning teams – Boho buildings, Baker and Bedford Street with their Orange Pip Market, the Historic Quarter around the train station, the new Middlesbrough College and Northern School of Arts, collaborative work with Teesside University and others – while stripping them of the ability to continue that work.
And at the heart of the document – and Lord Houchen’s PR strategy for some time – its proposals for Gresham – the area so cruelly denied the investment it was promised when the incoming Tory/Lib Dem coalition came to power in 2010 as they scrapped Labour plans at a stroke.
It included delivering homes for professionals, student accommodation, a secure multi-storey car park, a business space to assist new firms, and leisure facilities to support the university.
Then there was the hotel, and the promise the “listed Crown Pub will be brought back into use as a focal point for this part of town”.
The board papers recently approved state “budget allocation approved to date by MDC totals £11.466mn. This funding was allocated to develop the project through to completion of the technical designs and prepare the site with enabling works ahead of the approved funding package and final construction contract.”
It adds: “As a result of a review of the financial environment and project viability, concluding that current market conditions make proceeding at this time financially unviable”.
This is Lord Houchen’s mess and his alone to own.
