Tees authority causes confusion around number of freeport tenants

The authority refused to reveal the answer citing grounds of “commercial sensitivity”, but when their press team was asked they said that three tenants had been secured.

After being asked to review their original response, TVCA once again refused to answer thow many tenants have completed paperwork for plots on land that is being remediated at the former Redcar steelworks site which closed in 2015.

In response to the request for review, TVCA said that they were unable to reveal the number of tenants because “it would likely cause harm to Teesworks Limited’s commercial interests should the number of confirmed or prospective tenants be disclosed.

“In this instance, revealing the number of tenants (prospective or otherwise) of the Teesworks site would be likely to prejudice the bidding process, as revealing the number of tenants would affect private sector confidence in the availability of the site. This remains true regardless of the level of interest that the site has generated in terms of private tenants.”

The original FOI response was challenged on the grounds that Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen repeatedly claims in public that SeAH - a company that intends to produce monopiles for offshore wind turbines - intends to invest in a plot of land in the freeport zone.

“We’ve signed SeAH Wind… who are building their facility,” was the claim made by Houchen on BBC’s Newsnight this week. He also described getting a deal with BP for a power plant and carbon capture facility “across the line” in the same interview.

Taken at face value these statements should inspire confidence in the potential success of the Teesworks project, despite the lack of transparency around the transfer of shares from the public to private business that has raised alarm bells in recent weeks.

It is unclear why the response to the original FOI refused to confirm Houchen’s statements when his press team re-affirmed statements he had previously made. Questions around transparency at the site will, and indeed must, continue to be asked.

As part of the same FOI, TVCA was asked what targets for occupying the site had been set - a key metric of success for any large capital project reliant on public money.

In response to the review, TVCA wrote that revealing targets “would prejudice the interests of Teesworks Limited and the ongoing relationships between them and their private stakeholders.

“Similarly as with revealing occupancy, revealing targets would affect private sector confidence and the perceived success of the site in terms of its availability.”

When asked about the refusal of this FOI, a TVCA spokesperson said that tenancy paperwork had been completed by “Three nationally significant businesses worth more than £2bn creating more than 3,000 long-term jobs.”

They said that the companies were SeAH Wind, the BP-backed Net Zero Teesside, and a third company which had completed paperwork this week with an announcement due over the next few weeks.