In this part, I’ll analyse the 11 Teesworks zones, detailing what has happened there in the past, the current state of play, and the future plans for the zones. You can read Part 1, an introduction to Teesworks, here. Part 2, an analysis of the key role played by Joint Venture partners Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney in the acquisition of land at Teesworks, can be found here.
Land ownership
Before describing the Teesworks zones, it’s worth remembering that the STDC, or at least two of its subsidiary companies, owns all of this land, not Teesworks. From time to time, Teesworks will cherry-pick the best plots of land and buy them from the STDC. This arrangement was singled out for criticism in the Tees Valley Review (TVR). TVCA CEO Julie Gilhespie made a seemingly half-hearted attempt to persuade the JV partners to revisit this arrangement. Gilhespie’s effort was, in effect, rebuffed. This failure could be one of the reasons why the Deputy Prime Minister has yet to respond to Ben Houchen’s TVR proposals from 27 September 2024. The relevant correspondence can be found in TVR Appendices 18 to 20 in ‘Further Reading’ below.
The 11 Teesworks zones
Teesworks mentions 11 zones in its publicity. But, right from the off, the numbers don’t stack up. Of the 11 zones, three of them, Teesport, Bran Sands and Redcar Bulk Terminal (RBT), aren’t even part of Teesworks. Then there’s the Lackenby zone. About 80% of the so-called Lackenby zone is owned and operated by British Steel. So, now that we’ve established that there are only seven and a bit zones, not eleven, we can begin. Oh, did I mention that one of the remaining zones, South Gare, consists of undevelopable salt marsh and sand dunes? I’d better concentrate on the zones that are actually part of Teesworks, and are of some use. All of the zones are shown on the map below:
20,000 jobs at Teesworks?
No, far from it, Teesworks is extremely misleading on this point too. Its site map, shown here, lists 22 employers located within the Teesworks estate. This is somewhat of an exaggeration, because the correct total is 21 less than this. That’s correct, it’s one. That one is the SeAH monopile factory in South Bank, which is due to start operating later this month. Teesworks Skills Academy appears on the list, but that’s just an office for their employees, of which there are three.
And while I’m on the subject…
Construction hasn’t even started at Circular fuels Ltd, BP (presumably this is a reference to the NZT power station), or Net Zero Teesside (again, Teesworks is probably referring to the seperate NZT CCUS project). Hanson Cement at Redcar is a small satellite of its South Bank depot, which is also shown on the map, but isn’t part of Teesworks. Green Lithium is just a concept of a plan, and the PMAC Redcar Energy Centre will, in my opinion, probably never get off the drawing board. The MGT Teesside biomass plant has never operated, is mothballed, and is unlikely to ever operate. The Anglo American polyhalite export terminal is on hold after the company slashed investment in their Woodsmith mine near Whitby.
Go on, go on, go on
The Tarmac depot doesn’t exist anymore. PD Ports, Asda and Tesco are all on land owned by PD Ports itself not Teesworks. British Steel, British Oxygen Company (BOC) and Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) occupy their own land and, you’ve guessed it, they’re nothing to do with Teesworks either. The three sites shown at the bottom of the map are located within the Wilton International complex and, yep, you’re ahead of me. Finally, ownership of the Redcar Bulk Terminal (RBT) is split between the quayside operation, which is owned by PD Ports, and the adjoining land, which is owned by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), ultimately owned by Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) plc.
Spinning a yarn
In summary, the Teesworks map is a fantasy. Apart from projects that don’t, or ever will exist, the remainder are almost exclusively businesses that have nothing to do with Teesworks. Most of them existed well before Teesworks was created, and will exist long after it is gone.
I’ve got a beautiful girlfriend but she goes to a different school…
Ben Houchen and the JV partners keep saying that they’ve had hundreds of enquiries about sites at Teesworks, but the details are never forthcoming, and neither are the deals that are supposed to follow. For example, back in 2019, Houchen was demanding £50m from Downing Street because he’d had ‘serious expressions of interest’ in Teesworks from ‘hundreds of companies’. Those hundreds of companies can’t have been that serious though, because none of them has ever shown up.
…and the dog ate my homework
The paucity of interest by investors was illustrated when Teesworks published its annual accounts on 30 December 2024. JV partner Martin Corney bemoaned the lack of new tenants, blaming it on the Tees Valley Review, July’s General Election and a plague of locusts. The numbers revealed that Teesworks derived most of its income from scrap metal sales in 2023/24. That’s not a surprise, because in reality Teesworks has only ever been, essentially, a scrap metal business. Corney also erroneously claimed to the Teesside Gazette that the Tees Valley Review process is over. It isn’t. The TVCA is still awaiting a response from Angela Rayner. You need eyes in the back of your head with these people.
Lovely jubbly
But Martin didn’t stay gloomy for long, as Teesworks announced an increase in its dividend from £3mn to £20.2mn, despite operating profit falling from £22.2m to £1.8m. Martin Corney’s personal payout will be £3.9mn, but he’s been outdone by his other JV partner Chris Musgrave who will net over £9mn. Although, according to research by Leigh Jones in the Teesside Lead, their payments could be substantially more than this, and they may have paid themselves up to £130m over the past three years. Regarding the two other partners, Ian Waller received £3.9m, and Chris Harrison received £1.3mn.
South Bank zone
I’ll work through the zones from west to east, starting in South Bank (highlighted in pink). Here is a reminder of the zonal map:
As discussed above, the South Bank zone is the most advanced of the 11 zones. In fact, it’s the only one where a manufacturing facility is actually being built. In addition to the new quay and the SeAH monopile factory, Casper Shipping is building a customs facility for Teesside Freeport. What could possibly go wrong? High voltage electricity transmission lines cross the site parallel to Smiths Dock Road and could restrict any development here. As discussed in Part 1 of this article, half of this zone is taken up with slag heaps and landfill sites.
Dorman Point zone
The next zone, Dorman Point (highlighted in red) also known as Grangetown Prairie, is across the main railway line from South Bank. Dorman Point is the most historically significant of the zones. John Vaughan started building blast furnaces here as early as 1850, and the site remained in constant use as an iron and steel works from then until 2015. In addition to the rarely used Teesworks Skills Academy, three industrial plants are planned here. These are the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF), Willis ‘Sustainable’ Aviation Fuel and Circular Fuels Ltd. I doubt whether there’ll be any spades in the ground at Dorman Point anytime soon. Views of the zone on 2 January 2025 showed heaps of rubble spread all over the site:
Lackenby zone
Lackenby (highlighted in green) is on the other side of Tees Dock Road from Dorman Point. The sites are connected by a private road. Teesworks owns a small slice of the Lackenby zone, on the site of the former BOS plant. It’s planning two facilities here, which may be built some day. These are Tees Green Hydrogen for EDF, in effect a slick public relations operation, and an electricity substation for Steel River Power Limited (SRPL). SRPL is 50% owned by Electricity North West and Steel River Energy Limited, a joint venture company owned by Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney, the little scamps. In May 2024, at the same time that it reported on delays to the demolition of Redcar Blast furnace, the Northern Echo also reported some delays to the remediation of the Lackenby site. Teesworks doesn’t provide a clear commentary on land remediation, so it’s difficult to ascertain whether these delays have been overcome.
Electric Arc Lark
Despite the misleading impression given by Ben Houchen, Teesworks isn’t the planned site of a future Electric Arc Furnace (EAF). Teessiders would be forgiven for thinking that the EAF will be located at the former Redcar steelworks, but in fact it’s due to be built on British Steel land, 2 miles away from there. This is part of Houchen’s myth-making about Teesworks being the new ICI. ICI employed north of 40,000 Teessiders at its peak and to suggest that this many jobs, or anywhere near it, will ever come back to Teesside is a cruel, cynical deception.
British Steel?
But the Teesside EAF is never going to be built. The UK government has recently given Indian company Tata Steel £500m to build an EAF in Port Talbot, and are just about to hand over double that amount to build two EAFs at Chinese company Jingye’s Scunthorpe plant. This is in contrast to Jingye’s initial proposal to build one EAF at both their Scunthorpe and Teesside plants. So will Ben Houchen finally bring steelmaking back to Teesside, which he claimed as one of his key election promises? Of course he won’t. And remember, EAFs don’t actually make steel, they recycle it, so Houchen’s boast never held any water in the first place.
The last act of a desperate man
On 15 January, Ben Houchen claimed that the failure to protect the UK steel industry, and the Indian and Chinese companies who own it, was somehow a threat to the UK’s national security. But Houchen was, and remains, a keen Brexiter, and he knows that Brexit has damaged the UK’s national security more than any other single event.
Steel House zone
The Steel House zone (highlighted in orange) chiefly consists of Steel House itself, the former regional headquarters of British Steel, which sits within extensive grounds. Ben Houchen announced plans to refurbish Steel House five years ago, but those plans came to nothing, as Ben Houchen’s plans always do. The building itself is extremely delapidated, as you can see from the photo below:
Part of the Steel House zone is occupied by the south western extremity of Coatham Marsh. You can read more about the Steel House zone in the paragraph about Coatham Marsh SSSI below.
Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)
Before I go any further I’ll explain briefly about the BNG legislation which was introduced in February 2024. Information about BNG can be found here. BNG should ensure that, in the event of building development, habitats for wildlife are left in a measurably better state than they were before the development. Developers must deliver a BNG of 10%. For the purposes of BNG, biodiversity value is measured in standardised biodiversity units (BDUs). There are approximately 5 BDUs per acre.
BNG In Teesworks
BNG will impact Teesworks in two different ways, depending on the land type. In the case of ‘developable’ land, this will have a negative impact. Teesworks owns 1334 BDUs in this category, approximately 270 acres. Any clients who build on this land will need to deliver a 10% BNG gain, which will add to the cost of any development. This isn’t unique to Teesworks, it’s a feature of the system. In the case of ‘undevelopable’ land, of which there are 350 BDUs, this provides an opportunity to ‘enhance’ the land. This creates a credit which can be sold to developers elsewhere. More information on BNG can be found in the ‘Teesworks Environment and Biodiversity Strategy’ in ‘Further Reading’ below.
Long Acres zone
Long Acres (highlighted in turquoise) is the most intriguing of the Teesworks zones. This site was first acquired by Dorman Long & Co in 1917, and they built Redcar Iron Works here. It closed some time in the late 1960s. The land came into the ownership of the newly nationalised British Steel Corporation in 1967 and then passed through a succession of companies until Teesworks inherited it as part of the compulsory purchase from SSI. British Steel built a new steelworks at Redcar starting in 1976. This is the steelworks which was infamously closed in 2015. But the newer steel plants didn’t occupy any of the former Redcar Iron Works site at what is now known as Long Acres.
Heavy Metal
However, British Steel did need to build their ‘Hot Metal Railway’ across the site, to transport 350-tonne torpedo ladles of molten iron from Redcar Blast Furnace to the BOS Plant at Lackenby, three miles away. So, British Steel demolished the former Redcar Iron Works, which had been abandoned several years previously. The hot metal railway ran from north to south through Long Acres, dividing it roughly into two. Remarkably, the rails are extant. To the east of the railway line, a massive heap of blast furnace slag occupies the western part of Coatham Marsh. This slag dates back to the former iron works, and some of it will have been there for over a century.
Coatham Marsh Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)
Coatham Marsh SSSI lies to the east of Long Acres. The slag heaps extend across two Teesworks zones – Long Acres and Steel House – plus the SSSI within the wider Coatham Marsh area. Open mosaic habitat has been established throughout the entirety of Coatham Marsh. Teesworks destroyed a large portion of this habitat in the Steel House zone in order to build a Park and Ride facility. They were entitled to do this because this zone doesn’t form part of the SSSI.
Nice work if you can get it
Also, the work was done prior to the introduction of BNG legislation and so Teesworks didn’t need to buy any biodiversity credits to offset the damage done. Ironically, now that the legislation is in place, Teesworks has noted that the remainder of Coatham Marsh has the potential to generate 102 BDUs if they enhance the open mosaic habitat. This will generate substantial income for Teesworks. Numerous companies have sprung up since February 2024 to provide such habitat enhancements. One such company is TCC Land, of which JV partner Martin Corney’s son Chester is a director. There is no suggestion that TCC Land will bid for contracts at Coatham Marsh.
The teardrop explodes
Back to Long Acres, where the remainder lies to the west of the hot metal railway. This site is known as the Teardrop because of its shape. Two new Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facilities are proposed to be built on the Teardrop. The larger one is the Teesside Gigapark, proposed by NatPower. As its name suggests, it will have a capacity of 1 gigawatt (i.e. 1000 megawatts). Next door to the gigapark, a company called Energy Optimisation Solutions is planning a much smaller 100 mw BESS. Once operational, BESS sites are monitored remotely, and they don’t generate any permanent jobs onsite, apart from maintenance contractors. Here is a map of the Teardrop site:
It’s complicated
The Teardrop is a complicated location. Dorman Long ran a slag wool works here until 1967, adjacent to their Redcar Iron Works. The site has been out of use since Dorman Long quit, and large waste heaps remain. As with Coatham Marsh, this is open mosaic habitat, and Teesworks may need to purchase BDUs if they are to disturb them. Here is a photo of the Teardrop site:
Follow the Fleet
The Teardrop is bisected from east to west by The Fleet, a stream which drains most of Redcar before flowing through Coatham Marsh. When construction commences, the Fleet will need to be channeled under the site in a culvert, but culverting is an expensive process these days due to climate change mitigation. Finally, the CATS natural gas pipeline runs past the western boundary of the site. This asset has UK-wide strategic importance, and care will need to be taken to avoid damaging it. This photo shows the CATS pipeline North Sea terminal, about 300 metres north of the Teardrop.
The law’s delay
At the recent consultation event for the proposed Mowbray Gigapark, the Teesside Gigapark project manager confirmed that NatPower doesn’t expect Teesworks to hand the site over to them until the second quarter of 2027. That’s understandable given the above problems. However, a planning application was submitted to the local authority on 12 December 2024. In this application, the name of the landowner has been redacted, but their address has been listed as the Business Suite at Teesside Airport. This isn’t Teesworks’ address, it’s the headquarters of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA). I thought that Teesworks owned all of this land, but Teesworks is based in the City of Durham and Long Acres is one of their seven and a bit zones, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. The planning application can be found in ‘Further reading’ below.
The Net Zero Teesside (NZT) zone
The NZT zone is the only part of the former Redcar steelworks site that has been fully remediated. BP, Equinor and TotalEnergies have created a joint venture to build Net Zero Teesside, a carbon capture plant. Next door to this, BP and Equinor will be joint venture partners in NZT Power, a gas-fired power station. Both projects should start construction this year.
The Foundry zone
The Foundry zone (highlighted in yellow) is another problematic one for Teesworks. The Redcar Blast Furnace, is located here, and therein lies the problem – it shouldn’t be there anymore. The furnace was dynamited on 23 November 2022. But on the last day of production in 2015, the last steelworkers had played a joker. The ‘salamander’ tap, which was supposed to drain the last molten iron from the base of the furnace, wasn’t switched on. Whoops. Thousands of tonnes of iron solidified to form a plug that the Teeswork contractors still haven’t been able to shift, so who knows how they’ll manage to clear it. This is how the blast furnace looked on 8 January 2025:
Waiting for Godot
Because of issues with the blast furnace, the remediation of the Foundry zone has been delayed indefinitely. Two projects are pencilled in for the Foundry zone, but they are being delayed for reasons unrelated to the remediation problem. BP is supposed to be building two hydrogen facilities here, one blue and one green. BP recently lost out in a blue hydrogen allocation round to build H2Teesside. BP’s executives are growing cold on hydrogen. Similarly, they’ve delayed their HyGreen (green hydrogen) project, as many similar operators have. Green hydrogen is prohibitively expensive to produce. Both the blue and green hydrogen projects may surface towards the end of this year. But, then again, they may not.
South Gare zone
The South Gare (highlighted in pale yellow) is the final Teesworks zone. British Steel acquired this land in 1976 as part of its preparation for a second blast furnace at Redcar steelworks. But the second blast furnace was never built, and the land passed through a succession of companies to Teesworks. This zone forms part of the South Gare & Coatham Sands SSSI and consists of saltmarsh, sand dunes and open mosaic habitat. The latter is the remnant of yet another former ironworks, Warrenby. However, because of the SSSI classification, no potential BNG enhancements have been identified,and there’s no money to be made. This zone is understandably classed as ‘undevelopable land’ and Teesworks isn’t seeking any tenants for it. Here is a photo of the zone on 8 January 2025
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Thanks to James Waterson for contributing to this article
Further Reading
Tees Valley Review, appendices 18 to 20
Teesworks Environment and Biodiversity Strategy
Teesside Gigapark planning application
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