Watchdog forces Ben Houchen authority to answer Yorkshire Post question after seven-month battle

In January, Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen released a statement saying: “Jobs are being created here and now on vast projects like SeAH Wind’s offshore wind monopile facility, with thousands more to come through Net Zero Teesside and other exciting green energy projects.”

Following the announcement in February of Circular Fuels’ plans to locate their new fuel-from-waste facility at Teesworks - the former steelworks site near Redcar - the Yorkshire Post submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to TVCA to confirm the number of companies that had already completed paperwork to become tenants on the 4,500 acre site.

One question asked was: “How many businesses have completed all necessary paperwork to become tenants on the Teesworks site as of February 13 2023?”.

Having been forced to finally answer the question this week after twice refusing, TVCA confirmed only one tenant had been secured at that time.

Initially, the authority had refused to answer according to Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act which makes exemptions for information that is likely to “prejudice the commercial interests” of parties involved.

The newspaper requested an internal review in April on the grounds that “Ben Houchen is very vocal about the number of businesses that have already signed up. The public interest in confirming what he says must outweigh non-disclosure.”

This request was refused by TVCA, who said revealing the number of companies that had signed up as tenants at Teesworks “would likely cause harm to Teesworks Limited’s commercial interests should the number of confirmed or prospective tenants be disclosed to the public.”

An investigation into the governance, finances and transparency of TVCA and its subsidiaries was ordered in June following allegations of corruption and cronyism. The independent panel is expected to deliver its findings to the Government this autumn.

The ICO is still to determine two other questions in The Yorkshire Post’s original FOI which ask how many companies were in the process of becoming tenants at Teesworks on February 13, and what targets have been set for occupation of the Teesworks site in order to fairly evaluate progress of the publicly-funded remediation project.

TVCA’s press team was sent follow-up questions in the wake of the ICO’s decision. Amongst other questions, they were asked for an up-to-date figure for the number of companies who have completed paperwork to become tenants at Teesworks, as well as how many are expected to complete tenancy paperwork by the end of 2023.

In response, the combined authority’s press team referred the questions to their Governance department who have raised a new FOI request to determine whether or not to provide the answers.

The statutory deadline for TVCA’s response is October 5.