A headline on Teesside Live on 22 July 2025 read “Huge Teesworks-based schemes in jeopardy due to industrial site land clash”. It’s a useful summary of the overall situation.
Data centre debacle
The headline referred to a debacle at the Redcar site. Teesworks Ltd wants to build a data centre there. But it also wants to build a blue hydrogen plant next door. The conflict arises because it isn’t safe to build data centres next to hydrogen plants. How do we know this? Because Teesworks has hired a London-based law firm, Broadfield, to object to planning consent for BP’s H2Teesside project.
Hazardous substances
Teesworks claims that the data centre would be an infrastructure site of “critical national importance”. But H2Teesside would require a ‘Hazardous Substances Consent’ which would create a planning restriction preventing the go-ahead of the data centre.
Spanner in the works
Broadfield’s letter appears to be a detailed rebuttal by Teesworks of plans to build H2Teesside. This is strange, because H2Teesside is also one of Teesworks’ projects. Here’s Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen boasting about it in March 2021.
Expense no object
Broadfield law firm has been hired by the South Tees Group (STG), a collective name employed by Teesworks Limited, the South Tees Development Corporation (STDC), South Tees Development Limited and Steel River Power Limited (of which more later). Teessiders will be dismayed to realise that more public money may be being used to pursue yet more expensive legal action. They’ll fear a re-run of the long-drawn, expensive and pointless case of STDC versus PD Ports.
The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing
Teesworks applied for outline planning permission for the data centre in March 2022. The planning application can be found by visiting the Redcar and Cleveland Council planning portal, here, and search for Application Number R/2020/0821/ESM. So, for more than three years, Teesworks has been lining up projects for two separate investors that are incompatible with one another. Cock-up or conspiracy? My money, as always with these people, is on the former.
Exaggerated job claims? Surely not
Teesworks is claiming that 700 people would work at the data centre, if built. Data centres run on a handful of staff, usually no more than about 20 or 50 people, so Teesworks’ claim sounds unrealistic.
“Teesworks schemes in jeopardy”
But that Teesside Live headline is also a useful summary of the current state affairs with Teesworks projects. I’ve done a summary of progress (or, more accurately, lack thereof) at the various Teesworks zones in the Redcar area. A site map is shown below.
The Foundry
This is part of the former Redcar steelworks site. As noted above, Teesworks is planning to build a data centre and/or the H2Teesside plant here. The squabble about which of these will be built will probably be resolved when BP finally pulls the plug on H2Teesside. It’s on its last legs right now. The Telegraph recently reported that BP will walk away unless The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero can provide subsidies. This is unlikely given the current state of central government finances. BP was also due to build a green hydrogen project, HyGreen, at The Foundry, but that was cancelled in March 2025.
Any old iron
Any projects that do make it off the drawing board at the Foundry will be delayed by the existence of the remains of Redcar Blast Furnace. Almost three years after the main structure was demolished, the solidified cast iron base remains, and Teesworks still hasn’t figured a way to remove it. The overall Redcar site was declared free from its so-called top tier COMAH (Control of Major Accidents Hazards) status two years ago, but it is not known whether this applies to the former blast furnace.
Net Zero Teesside (NZT)
The NZT zone is immediately south of The Foundry. Teesworks intends to build Net Zero Teesside, a carbon capture project, and Net Zero Teesside Power, a gas-fired power station here. Both projects are joint ventures, with BP as the lead partner. Despite BP getting cold feet about two of their four Teesworks projects, things are more encouraging here. A recent site visit has revealed the existence of a construction compound, so work may be about to commence. But appearances can be deceptive. A ground-breaking ceremony was held here more than two and a half years ago, in January 2022, and nothing much has happened since.
Long Acres
Continuing south of NZT we come to Long Acres. Teesworks is planning two Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) next to each other here. The larger of the two, the Teesside Gigapark, has been proposed by NatPower. This is intended to store a gigawatt of power. A smaller one, proposed by EOS, will store a tenth of this. But there are a couple of problems with this site. NatPower has confirmed that the land won’t be remediated for another two years, so construction won’t be able to begin until then. It’s another former steelworks site.
Powerless
The second problem with Long Acres is its remoteness from the electricity network. There’s a nearby substation called Tod Point, but it wouldn’t be able to cope with the high voltages required by the BESS plants. NatPower has agreed with the National Grid to connect the Teesside Gigapark to its larger substation at Lackenby via a new underground cable. But it’s quite a distance at 3.5 miles and would involve a ‘cut-and-cover’ tunnel through complex industrial terrain.
Wilton International
Wilton International is a huge petrochemical site on the edge of Redcar. It was built in the 1950s by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). During its peak it employed 25,000 workers, but ICI ceased to exist in the 1990s, and many of the plants there have closed down. However, several thousand people still work there. Wilton International is now owned and run by Sembcorp UK Ltd.
Teesworks Limited and Wilton
Up until now, Wilton International, although part of Teesside Freeport, wasn’t considered to be part of the Teesworks project. However, the 25 July 2025 edition of Private Eye magazine has reported that Teesworks Ltd has bought Wilton’s electricity network, known as the Private Wire Network (PWN). A Land Registry search revealed that the sale of 20 electricity substations was completed in October 2024, for the sum of £10.91. This works out at approximately 55p per substation.
Steel River Power Limited
The substations will be handed on to Steel River Power Limited (SRPL), a company that is 45% owned by Teesworks’ illustrious private venture partners, Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney. 50% of the company is owned by North West Electricity Networks Ltd (NWEN). NWEN has agreed to spend £100mn to upgrade the equipment.
Enron
Part of the Wilton site was occupied by failed energy firm Enron, who operated a power station here, from 1993 until the company went bust in 2001. The power station produced a whopping 1,875 MW of electricity, so Enron will have needed to upgrade the connection to the national grid. Apart from this upgrade, the PWN is more than 70 years old, so NWEN will have their work cut out to refresh it.
One-Stop-Shop
But, the transaction is baffling. Sembcorp prides itself on offering a ‘one-stop shop’ to potential investors at the Wilton International. Its clickable map shows all of the services that would be needed to start a factory, without having to search for individual utility networks. This includes land, fibre, demineralised water and industrial gases such as oxygen, CO2, and hydrogen.
Middle man
Sembcorp’s map also included, until recently, electricity supplied via the largest PWN in the UK. The map of the PWN can be seen here. But investors won’t be able to avail themselves of the one-stop-shop anymore. They’ll have to buy their electricity connection and supply via a middle man – SRPL.
A mixed bag
Wilton International has had some setbacks lately. Sabic has confirmed that it is closing the Olefins 6 cracker plant with the loss of 330 on-site jobs, and several hundred more in the supply chain. Next door the Ensus biofuel plant is in peril due to the recent trade deal between the USA and the UK. But, the good news for Wilton International, although not necessarily for anyone who lives close by, is that it may be getting a new hazardous waste incinerator.
If at first you don’t succeed
In January, an industrial waste company, CSG, applied to Redcar and Cleveland Council to build a waste incinerator at Wilton International. As I reported here, the planning application was refused. But CSG wouldn’t take no for an answer, and has appealed the decision, which will now be decided by the Planning Inspectorate.
Another data centre
In addition to the data centre at the foundry on the Teesworks site, there’s also an application to build one at Wilton International. However, this one has had a long gestation period, having first been mooted in 2016. This should have given Sembcorp ample time to undertake due diligence to ensure that another site of ‘critical national importance’ isn’t built in a dangerous location. As previously stated, this is a huge petrochemical plant, so there must be some risk.
Thanks to James Waterson for providing additional research for this article.
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