Before this week’s edition, I wanted to let you know I’ll be taking part in a Q&A at the Stockton ARC on Saturday after a showing of ‘All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea’. It’s the new documentary feature film from Jeanie Finlay, and it looks at the 2021 crustacean mass die-off and the political battle against Ben Houchen that’s taken on by Hartlepool fisherman Stan Rennie to get answers and justice.
I appear in the film for about 5 minutes, but don’t let that put you off. It gets a general release in the UK on Friday, and it’s Finlay’s 10th feature. She grew up in Eaglescliffe and is apparently the person with most appearances as a guest on Mark Kermode’s podcast, if you were concerned about her credentials.
You can watch the trailer here, and get tickets for the screening and Q&A in Stockton here.
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Until next time, thanks for reading.
Leigh
Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) is set to foot the bill for its own government inspection, and it could easily reach hundreds of thousands of pounds.
This week the government announced an inspection of TVCA will take place because of concerns it has in relation to the authority’s “financial sustainability”, with minister Jim McMahon saying “there are signs of potential Best Value failure”.
TVCA, which is lead by Conservative mayor Ben Houchen, was issued a Best Value Notice in April 2025, and the government acknowledges improvements have been made since then, but historic issues, for instance more than £500m in loans being given to South Tees Development Corporation (STDC) without any paperwork have left the combined authority vulnerable financially.
An accounting error in 2022/23 where more than £50m of cash reserves were miscalculated in relation to the lease agreement for the SeAH Wind site at Teesworks have been carried over into subsequent accounting years, meaning the books haven’t been signed off by auditors for a number of years.
In December last year, EY identified “material misstatements” in TVCA’s accounts for 2024-25, which they said were evident simply from reading the document.
The government has appointed former West Midlands Combined Authority chief executive Laura Shoaf as lead inspector, and asked her to report to secretary of state Angela Rayner by March 2027 about TVCA’s compliance with its legal duty to assure Best Value for taxpayers.
Among a number of documents published by the government this week was the letter sent to Shoaf appointing her to the task.
As well as setting out the parameters for the inspection, as well as the legal basis for it, the letter says Shoaf will be paid £1,200 per day plus expenses for undertaking this work. There are roughly 80 working days between the beginning of November and March next year, meaning TVCA could easily end up paying the lead inspector more than £90,000 to inspect their own books.
Ms Shoaf has been tasked to appoint three other inspectors to help her conduct her work, and while they may not work for the full 80 days nor get the same day rate as her, it’s easy to see how TVCA could end up footing a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
TVCA did not respond to The Teesside Lead when approached for comment, although they’ve publicly indicated they “welcome” the scrutiny. The government was unable to provide a response in time for publication.
The best case scenario for TVCA is that they have to pay a huge amount just to prove everything is fine, while worse options for them include having to pay that amount to prove everything is not fine.
Earlier this year The Teesside Lead reported how TVCA was already spending tens of thousands of pounds on specialist financial consultants as it tries to unpick the mess of previous sloppy accounting.
In a report in December last year, auditors EY said there was an “inability to locate key accounting records” at the authority.
