Seal hospital set up in old lifeboat station along the Tees Estuary to help pups and their parents

The return of harbour seals to the area in the 1980s was once hailed as a great success story, but today many are blighted by a disease known as mouth rot.

There are around 200 seals known to be in the area, with 36 pups born in 2022, all monitored by conservation charities.

Now PD Ports has signed over a 30-year lease for the old lifeboat station at South Gare, with a token rent of £100 a year, to help with their rehabilitation and rescue.

A new charity has been created called the Teesmouth Seal Conservation Trust (TSCT), to create the Teesmouth Seal Rescue and Coastal Conservation Centre.

Members expect to care for as many 30 local seals a year.

Charity chairman David Newell said healthy seals, once rescued, can be released back into the Tees Estuary.

He also moved to reassure the Tees fishing industry amid concerns the seal population may grow so large they will eat local stocks.

“Both the local fishermen and our charity want the same thing: a coastline rich in fish for both seals and fishermen to enjoy," he said.

"Marine ecology works in such a way that top predators like seals cannot remove an entire fish stock as they would of course, starve to death if they did.

“Healthy populations of seals can only live alongside healthy populations of fish."

Seals are marine animals at the top of the coastal food chains, and their presence can serve as an indicator of the good health of coastal waters.

That they returned here, in the 1980s, is "heartening news", planners have said.

Frans Calje, chief executive officer of PD Ports, said: “It is very pleasing to see the disused lifeboat station being repurposed to focus on seal and coastal conservation.

“It seems fitting to us at PD Ports that a building with such a history of coastal rescue should now have a future in rescuing marine animals."

The new charity was created with help from Teesside Environmental Trust (TET).