Tees Valley Combined Authority mayor, Ben Houchen

Scott Hunter

18 December 2025

The Financial Times reports - ft.com/content/ - that the official auditors, Ernst and Young, have, once again refused to sign off on 2024 – 25 accounts for the Tees Valley Combined Authority.  The reasons given are that the accounts contain “material misstatements” that were evident from simply reading the document as well as “material inconsistencies” in the accounts.

Meanwhile the FT’s own investigation reveals that the South Tees Development Corporation and Teesside Airport have , between them, been awarded over £500 million in loans from the TVCA without proper loan agreements being in place. 

Teesside Airport, in receipt of a total of £128 million since it was returned to public ownership in 2019, has never repaid any of that debt.  According to the FT, the Interim Finance Director, Jo Moore, recently reported to the TVCA Audit and Governance Committee that £28 million in interest from loans to the airport is unlikely to be repaid and is to written of as ‘bad debt’.

That Interim Finance Director was appointed after the sudden departure of her predecessor, Gary McDonald in July of this year, (per LDRS reporter  Daniel Hodgson) along with the Monitoring Officer, Emma Simson.  So, a spokesperson for the TVCA observed to the FT that the irregularities do not cover the period since new statutory management team has been in place at the Authority.

That is fair comment, but only up to a point.  The TVCA has three statutory officers and lost two of them one day in July.  That’s quite an upheaval.  And the third, Tom Bryant, took over as CEO only after the departure of his predecessor, Julie Gilhespie, in January. 

Bryant himself, however, is a problematic appointment.  He took over as interim CEO in March, made permanent in June (according to Tees Business).  But Bryant was previously TVCA director of infrastructure, during which he time he served for three years both as a director of Teesside Airport, and also of its holding company, Goosepool 2019.  To hold such a position in both of these companies simultaneously constitutes a conflict of interest.  And the issue of conflicts of interest at the TVCA were a matter of concern for the authors of the 2024 Tees Valley Review.

The TVCA spokesperson also asserted to the FT that “there were £40mn of business rates forecast in future years from the Teesworks project that would underpin the long-term servicing of STDC’s loans.”  What the spokesperson failed to communicate is that Redcar and Cleveland Council, in whose boundaries Teesworks lies, recently downgraded its forecast for business rates revenue from the site by £30 million (Teesside Live, 3 December 2025).  It is therefore unclear whether the TVCA spokesperson’s declared revenue figures take account of this fact. 

There remain two groups who now have to respond to this latest body blow to the TVCA’s reputation.  One of these is the TVCA cabinet, which has consistently failed to hold the mayor to account for his actions.  Time for them to start making demands for transparency from the mayor and his entourage (of statutory officers).

The other is the Best Value Notice panel, which operates behind closed doors.  With evidence like this now in the public domain, it’s time for the panel to come out of the cupboard.  Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being directed to the Tees Valley ostensibly to bring about economic regeneration that simply isn’t happening. The people of Teesside need that regeneration funding rather more than the developers, Corney and Musgrave.  Time for the mayor to be held properly to account.