Ben Houchen 'put hold on funds' according to leaked emails

The roundabout on Smiths Dock Road was built in 2019 at the public’s expense to provide access to the western side of the South Bank Quay portion of Teesworks - the huge regeneration project currently being undertaken on the site of the former Redcar steelworks.

Roughly three square metres of the roundabout and surrounding pavement sits on land owned by PD Ports. It is understood the neighbouring port operator reached a verbal agreement with Lord Houchen’s South Tees Development Corporation (STDC), granting them the land for free in exchange for guaranteeing access rights across the former steelworks site.

In 2021, however, STDC instigated legal proceedings against PD Ports at the High Court, and a month-long trial will take place in October to determine if those rights of access - which have historically been exercised by the harbour authority - are legally sound.

Amongst a huge number of leaked emails seen by The Yorkshire Post are two from March of this year which suggest discussions of funding being withheld from Redcar Council were taking place at the same time as discussions about re-building the contentious roundabout off PD Ports’ land.

An email sent on March 6 by TVCA CEO Julie Gilhespie to Redcar Coun MD John Sampson refers to a conversation between the two that took place the previous Friday in which they discussed plans to reposition the roundabout.

“We are reluctant to submit a planning application because of the potential for [PD Ports] to object and make relationships worse,” she wrote.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Sampson wrote to two senior officers at RCBC where he describes the conversation that took place with Gilhespie. “She confirms that Ben H has put a hold on a range of funds coming to us,” he wrote.

“We talked about unlocking this logjam and Julie was going to have a conversation with Ben”, before expressing concerns about funding for the Redcar Town Deal to redevelop the Coatham area of the town.

TVCA told The Yorkshire Post: “TVCA does not have any direct involvement in town deal funding”, and that “It is categorically untrue that TVCA withheld money due to RCBC”.

Overall funding from TVCA to RCBC in the first half of 2023 was 90 percent lower than for the same period in 2022, with no capital funding at all being provided this year. The total sum paid to councils by TVCA in those two periods dropped by 11 percent from £29,324,971.64 to £26,112,422.79.

When asked about the “logjam” in funding, Redcar Council said there haven’t been any cuts in its funding from TVCA, and that the allocation of funding “isn’t at regular intervals each year, but comes at various times depending on the stage of delivery and, therefore, spend of each project.”