At 9.00am on 1 November, Teesworks organised the first of a series of free tours of their site. I was lucky to get a golden ticket for the first tour. Ben Houchen, Teesside’s answer to Willy Wonka, wasn’t available to conduct the tour, so his deputy Neil Young, manager of the Teesworks Skills Academy in Grangetown, filled in on this occasion.
Teesworks Skills Academy
The tour commenced at the Skills Academy in the Dorman Point zone of Teesworks. To whet our appetites, Neil gave a 30 minute Powerpoint presentation prior to the tour. I was surprised by the extent and scope of the tour, having only expected a whistle-stop tour of South Bank Quay and the former Redcar steelworks. None of this site has ever been open to the public, and we were about to travel across a vast network of private roads built by Dorman Long and British Steel in various parts of the last century. We were handed a map of the upcoming tour – you can see this below.
Dorman Point
We boarded a coach and prepared to head east across Dorman Point. According to Neil, previous tours of Teesworks have used mini-buses, but this was a full-sized coach with 39 passengers, including BBC Look North’s business correspondent, Ian Reeve, and his cameraman. This zone is sometimes referred to as ‘Grangetown Prairie’ in Teesworks company literature, possibly a nod to Grangetown’s 19th Century reputation as a frontier settlement. It isn’t thought to be related to the number of cowboys who have worked there.
Where there’s muck there’s brass
Dorman Point is dotted with large heaps of ‘muck’. Three large industrial plants are due to be built here. Neil assured us that the ‘muck’ could be cleared up overnight should Teesworks need to commence construction on any of the sites, but this seemed to me to be unreasonably optimistic. The three plants that are due to be built here are the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility, Willis Sustainable Aviation Fuel and Circular Fuels. As with many of the other sites that we were due to visit along the tour, I have grave doubts about how many will actually come to fruition. Circular Fuels, an energy from waste plant, for example, was first announced in 2021 with a start date of 2025. That is not going to happen.
Lackenby
Continuing our way east, we crossed the public Tees Dock Road on a private bridge transiting from the Dorman Point zone to the Lackenby zone. The Lackenby zone is the western portion of the once-extensive Lackenby steelworks, owned by Teesworks and centred on the site of the former BOS plant. The eastern part is still a working steelworks operated by British Steel. Teesworks intends to build two industrial plants here. The first of these will be a 2-gigawatt capacity electricity substation to be built by Electricity North West, the fulcrum of a Private Wire Network (PWN). This capacity is quadruple that of the two nearest substations at Tod Point and Grangetown, making this the largest PWN in the UK. But 2 gigawatts is a lot of electricity. Nearly half of this will be provided by the NZT gas-fired power station at Redcar (if built) but all of the other proposed facilities are small scale, and it’s difficult to see how the shortfall will be made up. Construction of the substation has not started.
Tees Green Hydrogen
The other plant intended to be built on the Lackenby zone is Tees Green Hydrogen, a 5.2 Mw project by French energy giant EDF. Funding was allocated to this in the budget on 30 October, with presumably more detail to follow from DESNZ Secretary of State Ed Miliband. One of the local MPs, Luke Myer, was pleased. But Ben Houchen, perhaps with one eye on the ongoing Conservative leadership election, was unusually churlish. So, disappointingly, there was no sign of him there today in his traditional Bob-The-Builder construction cosplay photo-op outfit. Neil later confirmed that Tees Green Energy is due to rely, in part, on electricity from the Redcar wind farm, also owned by EDF. However, this power is already allocated to the National Grid, so I am not sure how this is supposed to work.
Electric Arc Furnace
We headed east and skirted the current Lackenby steelworks site. The sheer scale of the former British Steel site is almost overwhelming, as we passed a mix of industrial buildings, many of them disused now, and railway tracks that used to connect Lackenby and Cleveland works, parallel to the road that we had just driven. Just south of the Universal Beam Mill we reached the site of the proposed Electric Arc Furnace (EAF). Ben Houchen announced that he was bringing steel-making back to Teesside as the centrepiece of his May re-election campaign, and this phraseology was echoed by our tour guide today. But the new government has already given a £500 million subsidy to Tata to build an EAF in Port Talbot, and they are haggling with British Steel over whether to throw a similar amount at an EAF at their Scunthorpe plant. Will Teesside get its EAF? Rachel Reeves has reminded us that money’s too tight to mention, and even the Tees Valley mayor is doom-mongering about the entire future of British Steel.
Trunk Road
We exited the Lackenby works on to the Trunk Road, heading towards Redcar. More reminders of Teesside’s industrial might, in the form of the former ICI Wilton complex, are hidden behind a screen of trees to the right. Our guide Neil reminded us that Wilton, although not part of Teesworks, is part of Teesside Freeport. It’s still a site with tremendous potential, with its own Private Wire Network, along with a network of pipelines that can supply water, natural gas and other industrial gases. The most recent tenant, AngloAmerican, isn’t faring so well though. Their Woodsmith polyhalite mine near Whitby has been put on hold. The Woodsmith mine is meant to be connected to their Wilton site by a tunnel, most of which is complete. AngloAmerican’s Wilton site is next to the Trunk Road, and a proposed conveyor belt will cross this road on the way to the Redcar Bulk Terminal for export overseas. Polyhalite is a natural ‘super-fertilizer’ according to its promoters, although its efficacy is disputed by others.
Steel House Gate
We turned off the Trunk Road and headed into Teesworks’ flagship site, the former Redcar steelworks, via the Steel House Gate, known in Teesside slang as a ‘Ben’s Boondoggle’. Steel House itself, the former regional headquarters of British Steel, is immediately to the right of the gate. Steel House’s distinctive hexagonal structure is best viewed from above, but the building has been empty since the closure of Redcar steelworks in 2015. Plans for refurbishment of Steel House were first announced nearly five years ago, so Teesworks isn’t serious about it, and even our guide admitted that recent artist’s renditions of the proposed upgrade are far-fetched. A services complex, including a hotel and two parades of shops, is planned further along the Trunk Road, but this is in the realms of fantasy too, although the two proposed fast-food drive-thrus will probably make it.
Long Acres
Long Acres is the first of four zones within the Redcar complex. It straddles the Middlesbrough to Redcar railway line, and the intact, but abandoned, Redcar British Steel station can be seen to the right. The station could be reopened, but the current structure isn’t fit for purpose. Two Battery Electric Storage Systems are proposed here. Nat Power is planning the 1 GW capacity Teesside Gigapark and EOS are proposing a much smaller 100 MW facility next door. But Long Acres resembles a moonscape right now. There’s a lot of work to be done.
Net Zero Teesside
We moved across to what is the most impressive sight in Teesworks – a vast plain that has been levelled to house the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) power station and carbon capture facility. We donned hard hats and hi-vis jackets and alighted from the coach for a closer look. Other than the SeAH monopile factory, of which more later, this has been the most hyped Teesworks project. The biggest investment in Teesside since ICI? That’s a bold statement. As recently as 6 October, HM Government confirmed funding for NZT, giving the impression that it has been fully green-lighted. But Neil, our guide, confirmed that BP and Equinor, the lead partners, have still not made the Final Investment Decision on the project. Shovel-ready? Almost.
The Foundry
The Foundry zone adjoins the NZT site. Incredibly, and poignantly, the stump of Redcar Blast Furnace remains here, despite the main site being razed in November 2022. On the last day of production in 2015, molten iron taps were left running, leaving a residual plug of solid iron. Years of Teesworks press releases had given the impression that the former Redcar steelworks site had been fully remediated, and the sight of the furnace is a jarring one. Neil confirmed that it would be too hazardous to dynamite the plug, and it will need to be painstakingly dismantled.
He was asked about preserving the remains as a heritage piece but alluded to this not being the case. The Teesworks Heritage Task Force failed to preserve the entire blast furnace and the Dorman Long Tower, and this could be an opportunity to make amends. The task force was co-chaired by Redcar’s ex MP Jacob Young and Kate Willard OBE, but it remains to be seen whether the current incumbent, Anna Turley, has been invited in for her input. She certainly hasn’t been invited to Freeport meetings at the time of writing this.
Redcar Bulk Terminal
Redcar Bulk Terminal is the fourth and final zone at Teesworks Redcar. Close up, the two enormous riverside gantry cranes are another awesome sight. The terminal was built to import coal and iron ore. Neither of these commodities are handled now, but it remains busy. Polyhalite from Boulby mine is exported, and building aggregates are imported. Close Teesworks watchers will be familiar with the shady past of the bulk terminal.
Ready for my close-up
We exited the Redcar steelworks site and made our way back to the Lackenby zone via another internal road, heading west, and skirting the Lackenby steelworks on the opposite side than earlier in the tour. To our left, the former coil plate mill, closed by British Steel successor company Corus in 2001, is extant. The cavernous interior of the mill has been touted to film companies as a potential studio, but the proposed Crown Works Film Studios in Sunderland is likely to dominate film and TV production in the North East of England.
A site for sore eyes
We were making our way to High Tip, a 50 metre high waste heap, to view the SeAH monopile factory.
High Tip contains 9 million tonnes of steelmaking waste, too expensive to remediate, but it has been capped with inert blast furnace slag. Former owners SSI promised to remediate High Tip in 2014, but they high-tailed it out of town before doing so. And there are two neighbouring tips that warrant attention. Immediately adjacent to High Tip is the even larger Highfield Environmental landfill site.
This is a live site that handles both hazardous and non-hazardous waste. Neil said that Teesworks and Highfield are in constant communication, with Teesworks encouraging Highfield to keep the site tidy by covering the waste in topsoil as soon as it is practicable. But the earth-moving machines and lorries create a lot of dust. On a more positive note, the seagulls are having the time of their lives. But Neil, probably understandably, failed to mention a smaller tip on the far side of the Highfield site. This is the South Lackenby Effluent Management System (SLEMS), probably the most toxic site in Teesside. Steelmaking waste, including tars, hydrocarbons, and other hazardous, carcinogenic compounds, continued to be dumped here as late as 2015. 1.5 million tonnes of it.
But what a view
There’s a dramatic 360° view of Teesside from High Tip. Roseberry Topping, the Transporter Bridge, Saltburn cliffs, Hartlepool Headland, it’s all there. But we’d been brought there to view the SeAH monopile factory, and it dominates the view to the west. The statistics are impressive. 810 metres x 200 metres x 40 metres. You could fit the London Shard in here twice apparently, but you’d probably have to lay it on its side.
South Bank Quay and the monopile factory
Back down from the tip, and South Bank Quay was the next port of call. With typical grandiosity, Teesworks claims that the quay is 1000 metres long. That may happen in the future, but right now it only stretches to 450 metres. Neil said that we were witnessing a historical moment – the first deliveries of steel slab delivered on to the quay from the river Tees. Once inside the factory, the slab will be cold-rolled into part-cylinders, which will then be welded into monopiles. SeAH is still projecting a production start date of 1 January 2025. The building site is a hive of activity, but getting it ready within two months will be a challenge. We headed back to the Teesworks Skills Academy, ending an epic 30 kilometre journey.
