Clarity call over 'number bingo' and 'very murky' Teesworks jobs figures

Councillors have called for greater insight into the number of jobs being created on the massive Teesworks industrial site near Redcar.

Councillor Steve Nelson, chairman of the overview and scrutiny committee at the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), said he wished to see a “deep dive” and described previous public statements on job creation as akin to “number bingo”. Another committee member, Councillor Rachel Creevy agreed and highlighted “lots of numbers being flung around” on Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen’s website and said figures quoted were “very murky”.

The authority’s infrastructure manager Tom Bryant had delivered a presentation in the context of a 10-year strategic economic plan agreed for the Tees Valley by local council leaders back in 2016. It included Office for National Statistics data which stated 10,000 additional jobs had been created in the region in the proceeding years up to 2022.

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Referencing Teesworks - the former Redcar steelworks site which has been reclaimed for industrial development - Cllr Nelson said in December 2020 the site was described as being on course to surpass a 20,000 jobs target previously set out in a published masterplan.

He said: “I was curious to know exactly how many jobs have been currently created on the Teesworks site. It is absolutely right to have a deep dive, just to bottom it out.”

Mr Bryant said: “If you want to get into Teesworks specifically and what the pipeline is and what jobs have already been created, I think that is another question, although it is perfectly valid.”

Cllr Creevy said: “On the mayor’s website there are lots of numbers around jobs being flung around. [At Teesside] airport there is talk about driving the creation of 7,600 jobs, then Teesworks there is talk about 20,000 jobs over 25 years and the freeport 18,000 jobs over the next five years.

“It is very murky. I am not convinced that the figures are justified.”

Councillor Margaret O’Donoghue said: “The mayor has suggested varying numbers of jobs on a number of occasions and none of them seem particularly specific. Obviously Teesworks will employ a large number of short-term contractors in putting up structures and buildings - how long will they be expected to last?

“How can we make jobs projections when we don’t know fully who is coming to the site.”

Mr Bryant said £2bn had been added to the Tees Valley economy since 2014 and referred to net zero carbon and green energy projects which had “huge potential to drive productivity”. He also said so-called gross value added (GVA) - a measure of the value of goods and services minus the cost to produce them - had grown by 9% in the Tees Valley between 2014 and 2022.

The presentation highlighted how the number of businesses registered in the Tees Valley had increased by 950 in the nine years from 2015. Meanwhile, the rate of growth of technology-based firms in Middlesbrough was said to be the highest in the country.

Mr Bryant said: “It is not just about Teesworks, there is the new Amazon in Stockton, which employs about 800 people, and I’m thinking about Airborne Colours [an aircraft paint facility], which has recently opened up on the airport site with 50 jobs.

“They are not in the official figures, but they do exist, national data takes a while to catch up. There are a whole host of projects with jobs created, some of which we have invested in and some we haven’t.”

Cllr Nelson said: “I have been raising this issue about jobs and I am particularly interested in the Teesworks site. It is like number salad or number bingo, past, present and future jobs, those in the pipeline, we just want to know exactly what and in detail.

“There may be a fantastic, good news story, but we just need to get through the lack of opaqueness of it all.”

He said a sub-committee could be set up to explore the matter with Cllr Creevy suggesting a review of adult education, employment and skills currently being undertaken, which was agreed by the scrutiny committee in July, be put on hold until next year.

However Councillor Lynn Hall said she could not agree with the shuffling of priorities. Cllr Hall described “moving the goalposts”. She said: “It is a vital piece of work we are doing [on education and skills] and we don’t want young people to miss out.

“That is what a majority of the committee agreed. We are getting these jobs, but not getting the people through with the skills to do them.”

Another councillor, Tony Riordan, acknowledged more data was needed on jobs, but said he wished to avoid a “political spat”, something Cllr Nelson denied was his intention.

Cllr Hall then left the meeting in protest resulting in the meeting being left inquorate, since a number of members were absent with no substitutes sent in their place. This meant legally it had no statutory basis and while the meeting continued informally, members of the public and media were asked to leave, TVCA officials having confirmed there were no more decision making items on the agenda.

Various options were put forward to accommodate the jobs “deep dive”, which was agreed, with Cllr Creevy suggesting Cllr Hall had overreacted to her suggestion. Earlier this year Cllr Nelson clashed with Mayor Houchen at a feisty TVCA committee meeting in which the latter gave an account of being abused in the street over allegations of corruption concerning the Teesworks project.

Confirmed developments at Teesworks include the SeAH wind turbine factory and Net Zero Teesside, a gas fired plant with carbon capture storage facilities which was recently granted final approval by the Government.

In September a report by commercial property firm Colliers likened Teesworks potential as the ‘Silicon Valley of Net Zero’ and said 10,378 jobs could be created in the next four years. The report was commissioned by Teesworks Limited - the privately-led venture in charge of the site - Colliers being engaged to secure tenants to lease the land available.

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