On 9 September 2022, Ben Houchen’s South Tees Development Corporation (STDC) applied for planning permission for a new 1,500 space Park and Ride (P+R) facility on the Trunk Road near Redcar. The application can be found in ‘further reading’ at the end of this article.
Futurama
Workers destined for various sites within Teesworks will park up their cars here, then get whisked to their worksites in autonomous pods. I’ll come back to that nonsense in a minute. How many workers? Thousands of ‘em.
Coatham Marsh
The P+R is intended to be built on Coatham Marsh next to Steel House, the former regional headquarters of the British Steel Corporation. The outline of the P+R can be seen below:
Coatham Marsh consists almost exclusively of blast furnace slag dumped by the former Redcar Iron and Steel works. Slag was dumped there from the late 19th Century until 1967. In the intervening period the landscape has naturally evolved naturally into an open mosaic habitat (OMH).
Open Mosaic Habitat
This artificial habitat is very similar to natural limestone landscape found in places such as the Yorkshire Dales. Because of this, much of Coatham Marsh is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). However, in response to a question that I submitted to the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) Cabinet meeting on 27 September 2024, the TVCA insisted that the portion of the marsh that has been allocated to the P+R isn’t part of the SSSI. Therefore, although the land is still OMH, the STDC didn’t need permission to destroy it. And destroy it, they did.
Kafkaesque nightmare
You’ll note that my question was put to the TVCA and not the STDC. Spoiler alert – they’re effectively the same entity, as evidenced by the Tees Valley Review recommendations. My question to the TVCA cabinet meeting, and its answer, can be found in ‘Further Reading’ at the end of this article.
Planning deferred
The planning application was heard by the Regulatory Committee of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC) on 5 February 2023, However, despite the recommendations of the planning officers, committee members led by Cllr Anne Watts, independent councillor voted to defer the decision. This despite claims by Neil Westwick that Teesworks would generate 20,000 jobs. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve debunked that grandiose claim. Cllr Watts said part of the site being proposed was recognised “green wedge” land and 5% of that would be lost, and that ‘this is unnecessary and is vandalism as far as wildlife is concerned’. The planning application can be found in ‘Further Reading’ at the end of this article.
Rinse and repeat
But the planning officers at RCBC don’t like it when elected representatives or members of the public interfere with their arrangements to help big business. They’ve got recent form on this, as you can read here. The officers brought the planning application back to the Regulatory Committee less than four weeks later, on 3 March 2023, and the application was approved. Ben Houchen said that “it was again frustrating to see that Labour voted against it. There’s a pattern from the Labour Party here. They tried to close the airport. They tried to close the freeport, they objected to the Treasury moving to Darlington…continuing their efforts by trying to halt progress of Teesworks, all at the expense of local people who just want to access good quality jobs. Parklife!”
Stuck record
Enough with the airport already, Ben. And it was not the Labour Party who led the opposition to the P+R. But don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. And now, Houchen’s favourite bit of every Teesworks escapade, the demolition phase. But sorry, Ben, no fireworks display this time, I’m afraid. Just earthmovers and JCBs to obliterate the open mosaic habitat, and 56 years of tranquility.
The Detectorists
The destruction spree continued unabated. I visited the site on 2 March 2024, and it resembled a WW1 battlefield. I reported on my visit for North East Bylines. You can read the report here. Here, I mentioned that hundreds of tonnes of scrap steel were recovered from the site. What I failed to mention then was that this was structural steel from the late 19th Century.
No Nukes
It’s highly-valued low-background steel, produced prior to the detonation of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often used for modern particle detectors. Was this whole exercise just a ruse to recover this metal? We’ll never know.
Job’s a good ‘un. Or is it?
Three months later, on 25 June 2024, Teesside Live reported that preparation of land at the site had been completed, and that the STDC would now be able to move on to the construction phase. This article was such a blatant copy and paste of an STDC press release that Teesside Live did not attach a byline to it. Martin Corney was quoted as saying: “Hundreds of well-paid jobs have already been created for the people of Teesside and this project will allow hundreds and thousands more people to be well served when they work here”
Tumbleweed
You’ll recall Ben Houchen criticising some imaginary Labour party councillors for delaying the P+R. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that, nearly eight months after bragging that the land was ready, not one piece of work had been done. So there’s no hurry then? It’s almost as though Houchen’s party-political hatchet job on Labour on 5 March 2024, for allegedly delaying the project, was just cynical, performative, partisan, opportunism as part of his Tees Valley mayoral re-election bid.
Planning application reprise
And so, on 29 January 2025, nearly two and a half years after being accepted by the RCBC Regulatory Committee, the planning application for the P+R came before them again. So, I repeat, there’s really no hurry with this project. But what was going on this time? Well, this time it was an ‘Application for Approval of Details Reserved by Conditions for Approval’. What has changed? Well, check the small print and you’ll discover that there’s been a change of land ownership.
Land Rush
The landowner to whom planning permission was granted on 9 September 2022 was the STDC. But, since then, the STDC has transferred ownership of all 2,400 acres of its land to South Tees Developments Limited. Yep, that’s what the RCBC Regulatory Committee was being asked to approve on 29 January. And so, they did. The ‘approval of details’ planning application can be found in ‘Further Reading’ at the end of this article.
Your daily commute
But what does the future hold if the Redcar P+R eventually gets built some time in the next five years? If you’re going to be working at the Teesworks site, and some people eventually will, Ben Houchen has given an update on how all of this is going to work. On 4 February 2025, Houchen gave a press conference on trackless trams. They’re yet another techno-optimist fantasy that will never happen, but I digress. According to the TVCA Press Pack which accompanied the photo opportunity, you’ll drive from home to the P+R, then make your way to the autonomous pod station.
Road block
Autonomous vehicles are unlikely to be authorized on public roads for at least another ten years, but for the sake of argument let’s assume that this minor difficulty has been resolved. If you work at SeAH in South Bank you’ll take a six-mile pod drive to and from the factory. Then you’ll be able to walk from the pod station to work. You’ve just added five extra unpaid hours to your working week by not driving directly between home and work. In the event of poor weather, make sure that you’ve packed a coat and/or umbrella for when you make your way to and from the autonomous pods stations.
A visit to the seaside
I decided to pay the P+R site a visit on 6 February 2025, starting with Steel House, which can be seen through the trees from the Trunk Road.
Earth movers were busy levelling a strip of land to prepare the access road
But work has not commenced on the access road itself. This will be built opposite the entrance to Ennis Road in Dormanstown. However, if you look at the planned eventual road outlay, vehicles travelling along the Trunk Road from the Middlesbrough direction will no longer be able to take a right turn here. Instead they’ll have to gain access to Dormanstown Industrial Estate via Broadway. Occupants of the estate won’t be aware of this permanent future inconvenience because they don’t read planning applications. Here’s a map:
King Charles III England Coast Footpath
Just along from Steel House, a gap in the fence shows where the King Charles III England Coast Footpath used to enter Coatham Marsh.
The entrance has been temporarily relocated about 300 metres to the east. It’s not clear how long this diversion will remain in place. The access gate for construction vehicles can be found between the former and existing footpath entrances:
When will this madness ever end?
What will have been gained at the end of all of this? Steel House, right next door to the P+R, had 800 car park spaces. What’s worse is that they’re still there, you can even see them on the P+R planning application map. Or even Google Maps. Teesworks will never need more parking spaces than Steel House has already got. So the eco-terrorism, and the waste of £7mn in public money, is all in vain. If we don’t restrain them, Ben Houchen and his property developer cronies won’t be happy until they’ve covered the entire Tees Valley in concrete and tarmac.
Further Reading
Planning Application, 9 September 2022
Public Questions, 27 September 2024
Report to TVCA Cabinet, 20 December 2024
Application Variation, 29 January 2025
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