Hartlepool: A battleground for Teesside's assets

Hartlepool is Teesside by proximity to the Tees rather than by connection to the culture and people on the south side of the river. Its unique history and geography have shaped it and turned it into a world and a people that are separate, apart, and very different to the Smoggies a mere stone’s throw across the deep water of the Tees’ shipping channel.

It’s lazy to call Hartlepool a “typical Red Wall” place, because if you scratch the surface it’s much more complicated than London journalists are willing to admit.

The town’s last Labour MP, Mike Hill, triggered a by-election when he resigned in 2021 following a sexual harassment scandal that saw him paying his victim nearly half a million pounds in compensation. The by-election could not have come at a worse time for local party members, who were mired by the sort of in-fighting and factionalism that was common across constituency Labour parties everywhere at the time.

Jill Mortimer became the first Tory to win the seat, doing so with an impressive majority of nearly 7,000.

Labour have since rebuilt their base in the area, and in this month’s local elections won nine of the available 12 seats. They were only two votes away from winning a seat that would have given them a majority on the council. They are the largest party, with 18 of the 36 seats on Hartlepool Council.

However, the council is now run by a minority Tory administration in coalition with independent councillors, including one – Gordon Cranney – who was initially elected as a Conservative in May 2022 days after pleading guilty to assaulting a woman.

He was suspended by the Conservatives, having not told colleagues about his conviction, and subsequently resigned his party membership. He was censured in the strongest terms by the council, with some accusing him of bringing the council into disrepute. He was also encouraged to resign by the council’s scrutiny committee.

Cranney remains in post.

This year Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has established Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) on either side of the Tees – one to regenerate Middlesbrough, and the other for Hartlepool.

Middlesbrough councillors’ running battles with recently-departed mayor Andy Preston drew attention to the establishment of the MDC on that side of the Tees. At an extraordinary meeting in February, councillors voted against the establishment of the MDC in an indicative vote.

At the heart of the argument was the transfer of council assets to the unelected MDC. One councillor described it as a “smash and grab on Middlesbrough Council’s assets”. Mayor Preston was later accused of a conflict of interest when a report by the Financial Times revealed that he owned eight properties in the area due to be redeveloped by £18m of public money.

Hartlepool’s new MDC board, chosen by Mr Houchen, met last week and approved the new masterplan for redeveloping the town.

One councillor, who didn’t want to be named, told me: “The general sense by many business people is that those chosen [for the board] are mates and not representative of the business community.”

In response to the allegations of cosiness on the board, a Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) spokesperson said that “the appointments were approved by all five local authority leaders at TVCA cabinet in October 2022”.

The TVCA cabinet was radically changed last week as the councils in the area voted in their new leaders. Four of the five council leaders who sit on the cabinet are now Labour members – when the appointments were originally made, only one cabinet member was from the party.

Hartlepool Borough Council’s representative on the MDC is Shane Moore, who is there despite standing down as council leader last month. TVCA say that Moore remains the council’s representative on the board as “there has been no request from Hartlepool Borough Council for its representative to be changed”.

Moore was originally a local activist for the Tories, but switched to Ukip in 2015 before his election. After falling out with Ukip, he set up a new party in 2019 – the Independent Union (IU) – before switching again. He led Hartlepool Council as amember of the Brexit Party for sixmonths before returning to the IU in early 2020.

He also acquired a conviction while in office, having been found guilty of drink driving in 2017.

The MDC’s meeting last week was not without incident. Labour’s leader on the council, Brenda Harrison, attended in the public gallery and when she attempted to ask questions she claims to have been dismissed by Mr Houchen in a way that was “rude” and “dismissive”.

TVCA’s spokesperson said that Coun Harrison had failed to submit her question in writing 48 hours before the meeting, as per their rules.

Like in Middlesbrough, there are plans to transfer council assets, including the Civic Centre, to the ownership of the MDC for the sake of redeveloping the town. These were only publicly revealed at last week’s meeting.

Labour councillor Jonathan Brash has been selected as the party’s candidate for MP at the next election, hoping to re-secure the seat that was once held by Peter Mandelson. He says: “Labour promised a number of safeguards for the MDC, designed to ensure that public assets stay public and don’t end up in the hands of private developers. Given what we know about projects elsewhere in the Tees Valley, this seemed very sensible.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Conservative party, along with their ‘independent’ colleagues, chose to reject every single one of these protections. One is forced to ask why they wouldn’t want to protect public assets?”

TVCA says that the MDC’s constitution “guarantees that, in the event of the dissolution of the corporation, all sites and rights held will revert to the council unless the Secretary of State for Levelling Up deems otherwise”.