Teesside Airport company makes £13.4m loss
Plus: A comms expert analyses Ben Houchen's response to loss of HyGreen
I hope you’ve been enjoying the first glimmer of Spring this weekend. I spent the first lovely Saturday of the year on Companies House’s website putting together this, the 38th edition of The Teesside Lead.
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Anyway, I’m off to get an ice cream and enjoy what’s left of this gorgeous weekend!
Get in touch at teesside@thelead.uk or via Bluesky.
Thanks as always for reading!
Leigh
Teesside Airport’s parent company, Goosepool 2019 Ltd, has published its most recent accounts this week which show a loss in the year-ending 2024 of £13.4m, up from £10.8m the previous year.
Goosepool is the holding company of Teesside International Airport Ltd (TIAL) which operates the airport. It’s 75% owned by Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA).
The increase in losses for Goosepool is largely down to interest charges on loans it has. In December I did a deep dive on loans TVCA lends, and showed Goosepool has a loan of £64.4m which it pays back at an interest rate of 5.09%.
Goosepool also has a separate loan from TVCA worth £23.1m for development of the business park on the south side of the airport - a joint venture with Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney which pre-dates the original Teesworks joint venture deal.
Although both loans have been taken, the director’s notes in the published accounts say more will be drawn down from these to meet operational costs over the next 2-3 years.
Another interesting note to take from Goosepool’s accounts is plans for a solar farm on the site, which it hopes to use to provide energy for the airport, and to sell electricity to the National Grid.
Outgoing TVCA chief executive Julie Gilhespie signed off on the accounts on the day Private Eye published a story which raised alarm bells over the airport’s future finances.
The Eye reported on a briefing note it says was given to Ben Houchen which said the airport “has cash until approx. June - if we continue without action we will run out at this point.”
TVCA denied the authenticity of the briefing note, despite its author being Houchen’s chief of staff, Joe Gratton. TVCA’s offices are housed in the airport, and Private Eye also claimed the airport planned to charge the authority over £140,000 a year for allowing its staff to park there.
Goosepool’s accounts address the note by confirming its “going concern” status for the next 12 months thanks to “funding from its ultimate parent, Tees Valley Combined Authority.”
In August last year, TIAL and Ben Houchen claimed the airport had reached a profit for the first time, although its accounts - published over the festive period - show its losses had increased by £2.1m to £6.6m for the year.
Goosepool’s sales revenue are identical to those of TIAL at £14.9m (down from £15.6m). Which only raises questions about the corporate structure. Since Goosepool isn’t 100% owned by a public body - the remainder is owned by a charity which has very little activity - it isn’t liable to freedom of information requests.
This week, the seven local authorities which own 51% of Newcastle Airport are due to vote on approving the sale of the remaining 49% of shares to an unnamed buyer, thought to be the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
With no such investor waiting in the wings on Teesside, is the airport reaching the end of the runway?
Carbon capture job losses
Earlier this week my former Yorkshire Post colleague Chris Burn reported on mass redundancies at a Yorkshire carbon capture project.
Despite investment from Drax and bp, C-Capture failed in its bid to find a buyer for the business, which was hoping to develop carbon capture technology which it could scale up.
While the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) carbon capture project at Teesworks (and beyond) secured billions in government funding at the end of last year, it looks like any faith the private sector has in the possibility of developing this sort of technology has waned.
With bp cutting back on green investment in the medium term, and government expenditure on a tight leash for the foreseeable future, what could happen to NEP if the scheme needs a cash injection to push forward in a few years time?
Could Teesside be left with a gas-fired power station without the promised carbon capture technology which justified its development in the first place?
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Houchen re-affirms invitation to Trump
On Wednesday an article appeared on The Northern Echo under the headline: “Ben Houchen issues update on Trump visit to Teesside”.
The Tees Valley mayor invited then-President elect Trump to Teesside in a publicly-shared letter in November last year.
Following last week’s monumental shift in the global geopolitical order, whereby Trump appeared to support Putin and denounce Ukrainian efforts to secure their borders, it would be a valid question to ask whether or not that invitation still stood.
Before Trump’s public humiliation of President Zelensky in the Oval Office, Houchen had previously said to Laura Kuenssberg that he’d welcome anybody who could bring investment to the Tees Valley.
This week a spokesperson for the mayor was quoted as saying Ben Houchen, “like the Prime Minister, values the extraordinary relationship between the US and Britain.
“Though he doesn’t agree on all policy matters, the mayor looks forward to the President’s visit and for any opportunity to strengthen our region’s ties with our strongest ally.”
Europe has shifted its priorities and is re-arming, no longer believing in the credibility of American support to secure the relative peace the continent has seen since 1945. So it’s interesting to see the US described as our “strongest ally.”
For expert analysis of the situation, I recommend following Leigh Turner. He’s a former UK ambassador to Ukraine, understands the situation (as well as the nuances of diplomacy) and frequently writes about the subject on his blog.
That Northern Echo article appeared the day after I posted to Bluesky: “Someone (eg a journalist not blacklisted by him) should really push Ben Houchen on whether his invitation to bring Donald Trump to Teesside still stands.”
So if anybody from the Echo is reading this, thanks for asking!
Maybe next you can ask TVCA about where the new money for the airport has come from.
Analysing Ben Houchen’s response to the cancellation of HyGreen
Earlier this week, I broke the news that BP had pulled the plug on its flagship green hydrogen project at Teesworks.
When I asked TVCA for a comment I got no response. Mayor Ben Houchen’s official response, when it came, was published by The Northern Echo. I thought it was quite interesting, because the 150 or so words didn’t seem to say anything about the loss of the project (and the associated 700 planned jobs).
I asked Arlen Pettitt, a comms and policy consultant based in the North East (who writes the excellent weekly Wor Room newsletter) to break it down.
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