The Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) occasionally holds committee meetings that try to show that Ben Houchen is interested in democracy, accountability, scrutiny, and all the rest of it. I decided to attend one of these meetings.
This was the get-together of the TVCA Transport Committee on Tuesday 27 May 2024 at Teesside Airport.
But these meetings get even lower numbers than a Jim Davidson gig at the Edinburgh Fringe. I was the only member of the public to show up.
Welcome to the cabaret
So, with Darlington Council leader David Harker in the chair, we’re straight into discussions about protocols and data security.
Item 4 – Bus Service Improvement Plan
Stockton councillor Bob Cook asked about the progress of ‘Tap On Tap Off’. Tom Bryant of the TVCA confirmed that it had been a great success since being introduced by Arriva plc, one of the two Tees Valley bus operators. No cash, speedier boarding, and a daily spending cap, what’s not to love?
However, Stagecoach plc, the other Tees Valley bus operator, hasn’t introduced it yet. So, you still get paper tickets and, because their system doesn’t talk to Arriva’s, customers who use both operators don’t benefit from the spending cap. When will this be fixed? 18 months apparently, due to ‘central government’ or something. Bryant can’t be aware that TfL, working with multiple bus operators, introduced such a system more than 20 years ago. But electric buses are on the way, 42 for Stagecoach and 20 for Arriva, ‘a catalyst to accelerate green transport in Teesside’ according to him. So, you’re going to electrify the trains, also? I’ll take that as a no.
Item 5 – Timetable updates
Alan Weston of the TVCA updated the committee on plans to restart the electronic timetable displays at the busiest bus station in the Tees Valley, Middlesbrough, which serves 30,000 passengers per day. Former mayor Andy Preston switched them off on 1 March 2023, allegedly as a cost-cutting measure, saying that the TVCA would source a replacement urgently. Fifteen urgent months later, Weston has contacted Durham County Council to see whether they can share their software to get the Middlesbrough screens working again. A suboptimal solution, to say the least.
Item 6 – Bus service improvements
In case you don’t know about Tees Flex, it’s a taxi/minibus mash up, consisting of empty comedy vehicles wandering around Teesside. Tees Valley residents can book a ride using an app. The service is contracted out to Stagecoach plc. Emily Campbell of the TVCA confirmed that there are 7,000 Tees Flex rides per month, each requiring a subsidy of £14, costing Tees Valley taxpayers a whopping £1.2mn per annum. Redcar and Cleveland is by far the most popular local authority for Tees Flex, and Tom Bryant reminded us that Arriva plc receives a similar per-passenger subsidy to Tees Flex for bus services there.
In summary: our taxes are being used to fund two rival services, busily stealing each other’s business. It really would have been much cheaper and more convenient for Tees Valley residents if the TVCA had bought minibuses, given them to local community groups, then provided an annual funding pot for them to offer free rides.
item 7: integrated transport programme update
Middlesbrough councillor Theo Furness asked Alan Weston about access facilities to the proposed £150mn health zone/bus station/railway station on the site of the former Tees Marshalling Yards in Thornaby near Teesside Park shopping centre. Would the centre be accessed via the B6541 Middlesbrough/Stockton Road or the A66? Weston said that the details were still being finessed as part of his re-election campaign announcement on 2 January.
Think of a number, then double it
Redcar councillor Carl Quartermain was concerned about the cost overrun on the Middlesbrough railway station upgrade, which had ballooned from £34mn at the start, to £50mn only a few weeks ago, and to £80mn today (see Appendix C of agenda papers, below). Although, bizarrely, when Ben Houchen did a photo op at the station on 27 July 2023, he said that the budget had increased to £35mn. Weston explained that Network Rail had made a specification error early in the planning process by nominating one of the freight bypass lines to the north of the station as the new third passenger platform. This explanation simply does not wash, as no serious rail professional would ever have considered it. It would have rendered freight movements from the Port of Tees to the rest of the UK unviable. I think Weston may need to have another go.
The banker’s railway
Carl Quartermain then asked about the cost overrun at South Bank railway station, a project which was only announced on 2 January, and which has escalated in cost from £40mn to £60mn in just four months (See Appendix C). Weston explained that the TVCA had not foreseen the need for a lengthier footbridge and Network Rail track alignments. However, Ben Houchen’s own press release on 24 March specifically mentioned the planned replacement of the footbridge.
Transporter Bridge
Theo Furness asked whether there was a timeline for the repair of the Transporter Bridge, something that Ben Houchen had promised as part of his election campaign. Weston couldn’t make any promises. Teesside readers will be aware that Houchen also promised to preserve the Dorman Long Tower, before hastily conniving with ‘culture’ minister Nadine Dorries to remove its Grade II listing, then blowing it to bits two days later.
Cycle lanes
Theo Furness then asked whether Houchen still intended to remove the cycle lanes on Linthorpe Road in Middlesbrough. Alan Weston insisted that the TVCA were about to green-light ‘Active Travel,’ with 21 new cycling schemes over the next three years. But, surely, the removal of the cycle lanes from Linthorpe Road would contradict this ambition? Readers will recall that Ben Houchen and his crony, previous Middlesbrough mayor Andy Preston, installed the cycle lanes in 2022 without consulting local authority best safety practice for doing so, resulting in a predictable spate of accidents when they opened.
In November 2023, newly installed Middlesbrough Chris Cooke vowed to remove them, but there was a catch. Although the TVCA had funded the installation of the cycle lanes, they wouldn’t fund their removal. Middlesbrough members of the public would have to pay for it. But then, in February 2024, an astonishing volte face from Ben Houchen – he would remove the cycle lanes if re-elected as Tees Valley mayor.
Item 9: Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Carl Quartermain expressed his concerns to the chair about the recent conduct of Houchen in failing to notify the Transport Committee of important announcements. This is part of a pattern going back seven years, whereby Houchen leaks the announcements to some journalists, not even bothering with a TVCA press release in many cases.
Quartermain had every right to be particularly concerned about Houchen’s conduct in respect of his press statements about Teesside Airport. In 2017, a year after the EU referendum, a cynical use of Brexiter language to take back control of the airport, then in 2018 the use of £35mn of our cash to buy out Peel Holdings stake, only to immediately set up an opaque ownership structure, which was specifically crafted to deny public scrutiny of the actual beneficial ownership of the airport, a far cry from Houchen’s promise to nationalise it. Then a promise, during and after the 2024 mayoral campaign, that he would never sell the airport followed, only a day later, by a revelation that he is selling the airport.
Ad hominem
Tom Bryant’s contribution here was an ad hominem attack on Carl Quartermain for his alleged lack of commitment in attending the relevant meetings, where he could have pieced the required information together. Quartermain took exception to this, and David Harker had to intervene to stop the argument, telling both parties to put their points via the chair.
Harker then tried to discuss the date of the next meeting, but the conversation was drowned out by a rare event at Teesside Airport: the noise of an actual aeroplane taxiing on the runway outside the window. The chair called the meeting to a close.
And earlier?
Well, so much for the Transport Committee meeting, but what about the debacle which preceded it? Well, seeing as you asked, let me reveal a masterclass in obfuscation and incompetence from the TVCA:
Your starter for ten
A group of Tees Valley residents, including myself, had tried to liven up the dull script by submitting a list of questions to the committee. But the TVCA really hates it when people do this, as can be seen the last time this happened on 29 February 2024. So, the usual box of tricks was brought into play.
I had emailed the questions using a Google doc but the TVCA weren’t happy because, they said, this represents a security risk. Well, Google docs are used throughout all levels of government without said risk, but if it made them happy, I converted the document into a pdf and re-submitted it. But the questions hadn’t been submitted in line with the TVCA’s protocol, which meant that they hadn’t been received in time. Of course, the TVCA had given very short notice of the meeting and hadn’t notified it via a press release, making it impossible for members of the public to meet the deadline. I emailed the TVCA to complain about their arcane and arbitrary policies and procedures, naming their legal officer Emma Simson, who I knew had sent it.
‘Statutory rules’
TVCA legal eagle Emma Simson’s response to my email was delayed. She reminded me that “There are statutory rules with which we the TVCA must comply, and I strongly refute any allegation you make of the organization ‘rigging’ a system”.
Simson’s ‘statutory rules’ were immediately put to the test.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive
The TVCA had scheduled another meeting at short notice, this one being the Audit and Governance Committee, on Thursday 30 May, and I and my colleagues had submitted questions to that too. Guy Close, the TVCA’s Governance and Security Manager, rejected these questions on the grounds that, according to the TVCA’s own protocol, the deadline for receipt of public questions is “at least three clear working days”, and we had failed to meet it.
Hoist by your own petard
However, my colleague Helen Taylor reminded Close that the TVCA’s own protocol was in breach of the advice note from the Society of Local Law Clerks, which stated that the TVCA should provide “at least three clear working days” of the meeting, something that the TVCA had failed to do. Close admitted that the TVCA had been in breach of this guidance, postponed the meeting until further notice, and made a verbal report to Ben Houchen. The meeting still has been rescheduled for 13 June. In an email dated 4 June 2024, Helen Taylor reminded Close that his decision to refuse to allow questions to the Transport Committee was also unlawful.
Guy Close’s application of the protocol has been both arcane and arbitrary, and his colleague Emma Simson really ought to have a word with him about it.
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