Plot twisters
Teesside, Issue 1682 THERE are dysfunctional public bodies and then there’s Lord (Ben) Houchen’s Tees Valley (TVCA) Authority and its wholly owned South Tees Development Corporation (STDC).

The latter has recently put out its 2025/26 accounts (the combined authority itself is overdue with its report), providing a timely object lesson in financial chaos, including unpaid bills, undocumented debts from business partners and major accounting errors. In short, how not to do devolution.

Regeneration aim
As Eye readers will know, STDC’s task is to regenerate the roughly 2,000-acre former steelworks site that closed in 2015 and lease it piecemeal to newer industry. More than £600m of public money has been poured into the project.

But when particular plots of land are taken up by industrial companies, businessmen led by Dubai-based Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney buy that land, via their company Teesworks Ltd, for £1 an acre and make a quick killing.

In this way, in 2022 they acquired a large plot for £96.79 plus VAT (total £116.15) and immediately flipped it on for use by Korean wind turbine company SeAH – making a £65m profit, part of around £140m pre-tax profit for the men so far.

A recent inspection by an Eye hack of the 2025/26 accounts under local audit laws reveals that, three years after it was invoiced, even that £116.15 has not been paid yet!

What an indulgence
Trivial the amount may be, but it reflects a greater indulgence of Corney and Musgrave. For subsequent land deals, when they exercise the option and a big payday is guaranteed, they are supposed to refund STDC’s costs of remediating the specific patch, which is generally about 10 percent of the value of what they acquire.

Last year there were two significant land deals: one for 106 acres used for the Net Zero Teesside gas plant and carbon-capture initiative led by BP and Equinor; and another for 35 acres for Danish turbine maker Ørsted to use for marshalling gear for its Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm.

The £1 option on these areas was exercised in April and September respectively, giving rise to obligations for Teesworks Ltd to pay £15.5m in respect of the NZT site and £4.4m in respect of the Ørsted plot.

By 31 March, almost a year later in the case of the NZT site, the amounts had still not been paid. What’s more, the Eye established, there are no agreements or contracts covering the debts, giving the opportunistic businessmen yet more leverage over the public body. The amounts weren’t invoiced until May.

Irrational numbers
STDC’s accounting for its relationship with Teesworks Ltd is, to use a technical term, all over the place. Its accounts show that it supposedly received £14.9m from the company and paid it £14.3m.

Asked for details of this, STDC “updated” the amounts to £6.3m and £6.9m. These too were wildly off. STDC then said the figures should be £6.03m and £79,000. So just errors running to £23m, then.

Remarkably, this is all after supposed improvements under the less than watchful eye of an independent advisory board chaired by Rob Whiteman – the former head of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy, no less – who was brought in by the government last year at the same time that it served an evidently ineffectual “best value notice” on Houchen’s organisation.