Tory mayor demands £100m in budget to honour promises to Tees Valley

The Conservative mayor of Tees Valley is demanding £100m in Philip Hammond’s budget in what he described as a testof the government’s commitment to the region.

Ben Houchen, one of the most powerful Tory politicians outside London, said the public money would help transform the former SSI steelworks site in Redcar where 3,000 jobs were lost when it closed two years ago.

Houchen said: “We have private sector investors lining up to plough money into this site, but we need to get the land cleared up and ready so we can start to see some new jobs for local people. I have held months’ worth of meetings with ministers and have received strong support for my proposals – but now I want the government to put its money where its mouth is.”

Houchen was elected in May as mayor of the Tees Valley, which includes Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Darlington, in what was described as a political earthquake in Labour’s heartlands. His intervention is significant as he is one of the most influential Tories outside London, alongside the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, and has not been as publicly demanding of central government as the Labour mayors of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool city region.

The Tees Valley mayor has drawn up a blueprint to regenerate 4,500 acres of land that includes the former steelworks site in a project that aims to create 20,000 jobs and add £1bn to the local economy over the next 25 years.

Houchen said he had received more than 60 investment inquiries from businesses around the world. “I’m urging the chancellor to use the budget on Wednesday to make this announcement. There would be no clearer sign of the government’s commitment to Teesside,” he said. “This is the single biggest development opportunity in the UK and I want the government to cough up so we can stop talking about jobs, and start delivering them.”

The demand came as Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, called for the English regions to be given a permanent seat at the table of Brexit discussions to guard against the government’s “London-centric” approach.

Burnham said Westminster had failed the north of England and he feared ministers were prioritising the City of London above other industries in their Brexit strategy.

The former Labour MP has expressed anger that the Cayman Islands, with a population smaller than Bury and an area smaller than the Isle of Wight, has “more of a say” over the Brexit negotiations than Greater Manchester, which has a population of 2.8 million.

Speaking on Sunday with Niall Paterson on Sky News, Burnham said: “There’s a committee with the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, but no permanent seat for the English regions. Quite frankly, that’s not good enough. I am worried we will get the same old story with a London-centric approach to Brexit where the government protects the City of London above other industries and that’s our fear. To guard against that, we need a seat at the table.”

The devolved nations of the UK, as well as its overseas territories, have regular, formal meetings with the government, but no such arrangements are in place for the English regions. In July, Burnham wrote to David Davis to ask the Brexit secretary to establish a monthly cabinet committee of metro mayors and other leaders from the English regions.

Speaking on Sunday, he said: “Westminster, in my view, has failed the north of England. It’s given us a second-class transport system, housing and homeless crisis, an education system that obsesses on the university route and neglects those with technical skills and in the past it’s focused on service industries and sold manufacturing down the river.”