Councillors call Ben Houchen development corporation appointments "unlawful"
Plus: Surprise objections to Teesworks blue hydrogen plant
It’s edition number 59 of The Teesside Lead, and it’s a whopper!
Scrutiny Committee members appear to be taking their jobs seriously for the first time in TVCA’s history, and for paid subs I’ve been digging through the Planning Inspectorate’s website and discovered an incredibly puzzling objection to bp’s H2Teesside project at the Teesworks site.
Meanwhile, I’m incredibly proud to say The Teesside Lead, as part of The Lead North, has been nominated for an award at PressGazette’s Future of Media Awards.
We’ve been shortlisted in the Best Specialist/Regional newsletter category.
The fact we can be nominated for an award is because of support from readers. Whether it’s financial or just a case of engaging with posts, or sharing articles online. If people pay attention to our work as journalists, it means we’re making a difference instead of howling into the online void.
If you want to support beyond shouting about The Teesside Lead (here comes the tin-rattler), you can pay £4.99 a month, or £49.99 for a year. It makes a huge difference, and I’m truly grateful for it.
Thanks for reading, and thanks to all who get in touch with story tips. Discretion assured, as always! Get in touch at teesside@thelead.uk or via Bluesky.
Enjoy your week,
Leigh
The Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) has requested to formally review Ben Houchen’s appointments of new heads of the region’s three mayoral development corporations, as well as changes to their constitutions.
A letter co-signed by seven members of the committee has been sent to the authority’s monitoring officer, claiming the decisions were made “in direct conflict with the Combined Authority’s Constitution”.
The seven members are from the five council areas of the Combined Authority, and are all Labour councillors.
The decisions were made at last month’s TVCA AGM, where Hartlepool Council leader Brenda Harrison queried the lawfulness of the new appointees.
In the meeting, Cabinet members were asked to “note” the appointments which had been made by mayor Ben Houchen, rather than to vote on them.
Cllr Harrison wrote to the combined authority’s legal head before the meeting, outlining her concerns, arguing it went against what the Combined Authority was trying to achieve in creating collaborative ways of working.
At the meeting, Lord Houchen said interviews with candidates for the new chairs of the development corporations had been held with chief executives of the constituent councils.
Despite this, members of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee have written to TVCA’s legal head. They wrote: “These decisions were taken without formal Cabinet votes on the appointments, and without treating the constitutional amendments as strategic decisions requiring unanimous approval, in direct conflict with the Combined Authority’s Constitution.”
They cite TVCA’s constitution, which states: “The Mayor shall make proposals to the Cabinet to appoint the Chair and Members of the Mayoral Development Corporation”. Because the meeting only requested the Cabinet to “note” the appointment, rather than to formally make the decision via unanimous vote, the councillors argue the constitution has not been followed.
The paragraph they quote is from the old version of TVCA’s constitution, but doesn’t appear in the latest version which was published after amendments were made during the meeting. The latest version says the Mayor has the power to appoint the Chair of the development corporations, but that he “is required to produce a skills matrix to support their recommendations to Cabinet”.
Further to this, the councillors say those amendments to the constitution, which would allow the mayor to appoint new chairs without approval, weren’t made lawfully.
The councillors have asked for the ability to review “the legality, procedural correctness, and governance impact of the Cabinet’s decisions across all three Development Corporations”. They then ask for Cabinet to formally vote on the decisions, as opposed to nodding them through.
Lord Houchen confirmed in April that he would stand down as chair of the South Tees, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool Development Corporations, following government advice to do so.
TVCA repeatedly refused to respond to a request for comment throughout this week.
Teesside stories you may have missed…
👮🏻 A police officer has been sacked after biting a woman’s breast
🏛️ A former councillor has made a complaint about Redcar Council’s leader after a Facebook spat
🔥 Darlington Council has been criticised for being part of the TVERF Teesworks incinerator
⚖️ The trial of Bella Culley, charged with trafficking drugs to Georgia, has been delayed
Reform wins Hartlepool by-election
In what was probably a surprise to absolutely nobody, Reform won a seat on Hartlepool Council this week in a by-election for the Throston ward.
The seat was vacated when independent councillor Steve Wallace resigned. He was due to stand trial at York Crown Court in January charged with sexual assault, which he denied. He pleaded guilty instead to a charge of assault by beating, instead.
The only surprise, perhaps, was that it wasn’t a complete landslide for Reform, who won 595 votes compared to Labour’s 475.
Ed Doyle won the seat, becoming the party’s second member on the council, after Amanda Knapper won a separate by-election in the same ward earlier this year.
Objections made against Teesside blue hydrogen project
With infrastructure projects which are deemed to be “of national significance”, the planning rules are a little different. Instead of the usual permissions being granted through local councils, they go to the government’s Planning Inspectorate, instead.
One of those projects currently going through that process is bp’s H2Teesside project at the Teesworks site. It’s planned to be one of the largest blue hydrogen facilities in the UK.
Blue hydrogen is made by breaking down natural gas, which is largely made of methane (four atoms of hydrogen bound to one of carbon), and capturing the gases produced.
The process of jumping through the Planning Inspectorate’s hoops is usually quite dry and drawn out, with different stakeholders voicing minor gripes in order to legally protect themselves further down the line in case of any unforeseen complications.
It’s usually a case of “I agree to the proposal, but only if x or y is addressed…”
So imagine my surprise to find objections from certain local stakeholders which outright do not want H2Teesside to proceed, especially when you see which job-creating entities they are.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Teesside Lead to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.