Tees with sweetners

[CurtainRaiser]

Or how the Tory corruption continues in the Freeports

 

"RATHER than levelling up, the government’s flagship “freeport” on Teesside is secretly doing more for the political ambitions of the region’s mayor and the financial enrichment of a small group of local businessmen.

 

The largest part of the freeport is the 4,500-acre site of the former Redcar steel plant on the south-east side of the Tees estuary. A large chunk of this was owned by Thai steel company SSI, which went bust in 2015 with the loss of 1,700 jobs. The area is critical to Teesside regional mayor Ben Houchen’s redevelopment plans and his freeport ambitions, and a contentious negotiation began for his South Tees Development Corporation, set up in 2017, to buy the land from the Thai bankers that then controlled it.

First chronicled by the Tees Valley Monitor website, this led to a compulsory purchase order (CPO) being made two years ago. This was shortly after a couple of local property developers, Christopher Musgrave and Martin Corney, put in a late bid for the site – where they already had an interest in a 70-acre plot – via a company they had just set up called DCS Industrial Ltd. This evidently wasn’t favoured, but Musgrave and Corney didn’t exit the scene.

 

Joint venture

Minutes of a Tees Valley Combined Authority meeting in March 2020, the month before the CPO was granted, show the approval of an unspecified joint venture to be entered into by the development corporation. There was no indication who it was with, but records filed at Companies House reveal that four months later the South Tees Development Corporation acquired a 50 percent share of a company called Teesworks Ltd, set up by Musgrave and Corney. Together with smaller interests held by businessmen Ian Waller, they held the other half.

 

Musgrave is well plugged-in to the local Tory scene, having hosted a 2019 mayoral campaign fundraiser for Houchen at his Wynyard Hall development, complete with helicoptered-in Boris Johnson. Waller donated £7,000 to Houchen and £2,500 to local MP Simon Clarke in 2018 and 2019. No public procurement exercise was conducted for the partnership and no contract published.

 

The task of Teesworks Ltd, whose directors are Musgrave, Corney and Tees Valley Combined Authority chief executive Julie Gilhespie, is to manage remediation of the land. The government has already paid £277m for the job, but Houchen estimates £206m more will be needed to make it “investment ready”. He says the private company will somehow fund this.

 

Multi-million pound payday

The Teesworks venture is already paying out, however. Its accounts to last March, covering less than a year of the arrangement, showed it sitting on £6.6m of profit already made from selling materials recovered from the site. The development corporation’s board papers show that by May 2021 it was receiving dividends of £5.7m from Teesworks Ltd. Since Musgrave, Corney & co owned the same value of shares in the company, they will have enjoyed a similar, quick multi-million-pound payday.

 

Better still may be to come. Four months ago, yet more of Teesworks Ltd was handed to the businessmen at no apparent cost. They now control 90 percent of the company. Again, no public process was applied to this giveaway, the combined authority’s board minutes merely recording that a confidential report was discussed and the board approved the secret matters within it.

 

A bullish Houchen insists all is above board, telling Teesside Live recently that the deal allows Teessiders to “have our cake and eat it” – just like Johnson’s resoundingly successful Brexit deal. Others disagree. Stockton North Labour MP Alex Cunningham used a recent parliamentary debate on tackling fraud to call the situation “appalling” and “no way to run a public administration”.

 

The affair could prove embarrassing for chancellor Rishi Sunak, who has waxed lyrical about his pet freeport site. “When I look to the future of Teesside,” he drooled in last year’s budget speech, “I see old industrial sites being used to capture and install carbon, vaccines being manufactured, offshore wind turbines creating clean energy for the rest of the country, all located within a freeport.” The carve-up with local Tory businessmen that lies behind it looks rather less progressive."

 

Latest Private Eye

 

 

[Guest pelmetman]

CurtainRaiser - 2022-04-06 3:17 PM

 

Or how the Tory corruption continues in the Freeports

 

"RATHER than levelling up, the government’s flagship “freeport” on Teesside is secretly doing more for the political ambitions of the region’s mayor and the financial enrichment of a small group of local businessmen.

 

The largest part of the freeport is the 4,500-acre site of the former Redcar steel plant on the south-east side of the Tees estuary. A large chunk of this was owned by Thai steel company SSI, which went bust in 2015 with the loss of 1,700 jobs. The area is critical to Teesside regional mayor Ben Houchen’s redevelopment plans and his freeport ambitions, and a contentious negotiation began for his South Tees Development Corporation, set up in 2017, to buy the land from the Thai bankers that then controlled it.

First chronicled by the Tees Valley Monitor website, this led to a compulsory purchase order (CPO) being made two years ago. This was shortly after a couple of local property developers, Christopher Musgrave and Martin Corney, put in a late bid for the site – where they already had an interest in a 70-acre plot – via a company they had just set up called DCS Industrial Ltd. This evidently wasn’t favoured, but Musgrave and Corney didn’t exit the scene.

 

Joint venture

Minutes of a Tees Valley Combined Authority meeting in March 2020, the month before the CPO was granted, show the approval of an unspecified joint venture to be entered into by the development corporation. There was no indication who it was with, but records filed at Companies House reveal that four months later the South Tees Development Corporation acquired a 50 percent share of a company called Teesworks Ltd, set up by Musgrave and Corney. Together with smaller interests held by businessmen Ian Waller, they held the other half.

 

Musgrave is well plugged-in to the local Tory scene, having hosted a 2019 mayoral campaign fundraiser for Houchen at his Wynyard Hall development, complete with helicoptered-in Boris Johnson. Waller donated £7,000 to Houchen and £2,500 to local MP Simon Clarke in 2018 and 2019. No public procurement exercise was conducted for the partnership and no contract published.

 

The task of Teesworks Ltd, whose directors are Musgrave, Corney and Tees Valley Combined Authority chief executive Julie Gilhespie, is to manage remediation of the land. The government has already paid £277m for the job, but Houchen estimates £206m more will be needed to make it “investment ready”. He says the private company will somehow fund this.

 

Multi-million pound payday

The Teesworks venture is already paying out, however. Its accounts to last March, covering less than a year of the arrangement, showed it sitting on £6.6m of profit already made from selling materials recovered from the site. The development corporation’s board papers show that by May 2021 it was receiving dividends of £5.7m from Teesworks Ltd. Since Musgrave, Corney & co owned the same value of shares in the company, they will have enjoyed a similar, quick multi-million-pound payday.

 

Better still may be to come. Four months ago, yet more of Teesworks Ltd was handed to the businessmen at no apparent cost. They now control 90 percent of the company. Again, no public process was applied to this giveaway, the combined authority’s board minutes merely recording that a confidential report was discussed and the board approved the secret matters within it.

 

 

 

How much were the public involved in the 4.1 million you got off the British taxpayer 25 years ago (?) .........

 

Just askin >:-) ............