Tees Valley Mayor Lord Ben Houchen was at the centre of a new storm today after he was accused by former South Tees Development Corporation (STDC) board member Steve Gibson of “giving away our children’s future” in his dealings at Teesworks Ltd (TWL).
His attack on Houchen, reported in the Northern Echo, was joined by Paul Booth, another former board member of STDC.
Both are prominent Teesside businessmen. Gibson is the founder of Bulkhaul, a global transportation company, and was reported in the Sunday Times Rich List in 2020 to have a net worth of £270mn. He is chair of Middlesbrough Football Club and was a Labour councillor in Middlesbrough in the 1980s.
Booth is a former chair of SABIC UK Petrochemicals and of Tees Valley Local Enterprise Partnership.
Gibson and Booth were appointed to the STDC board in 2016, according to the Financial Times (FT). Houchen was elected mayor the following year. Gibson and Booth were involved in a deal setting up a 50:50 deal with two local businessmen to establish TWL as a public-private joint venture (JV) to regenerate the former Redcar steelworks site.
But Gibson told the FT that Houchen sacked him and Booth after his landslide re-election in 2021, three months before the JV deal was renegotiated to give the private businessmen a 90% stake.
Gibson and Booth told the FT that the mayor’s “total incompetence” would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds, including between £350mn and £550mn in rent over the next 10 to 12 years.
Their criticism of Houchen comes six days before voters go the polls to decide whether to re-elect him for a third term as mayor.
It also comes on the same day as the Business and Trade Select Committee of the House of Commons called for a investigation by the National Audit Office into the finances of Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), STDC and Teesside Freeport, as reported by North East Bylines.
The mayor’s office has been approached for a response.
