Teesworks will be almost full within 18 months - Houchen

Teesworks is claimed to be Europe's largest brownfield development site

Six companies have signed up to Teesworks and the development is expected to be almost full within 18 months, a committee has been told.

Conservative mayor Ben Houchen gave the progress update at a Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) meeting.

Korean firm SeAH Wind, Circular Fuels and Net Zero Teesside have already publicly declared for the Redcar site.

Mr Houchen added there was a "whole host" of deals in the pipeline, with legal issues still being sorted out.

"In the next 12 to 18 months we won't be far off having the site completely filled," the Tees Valley mayor said.

The statement was made at a session of TVCA's overview and scrutiny committee on Tuesday, where Mr Houchen was grilled by local councillors.

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An investigation into the scheme - which is Europe's largest brownfield development site - is under way after allegations of corruption by the Labour MP for Middlesbrough Andy McDonald.

The government previously stated it had seen no evidence of wrongdoing, and the review has been welcomed by Mr Houchen who said he wanted any concerns "nipped in the bud".

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Teesworks last July during his leadership campaign, where he met with Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, who was given a peerage by Boris Johnson

At the meeting, Redcar and Cleveland councillor Margaret O'Donoghue, Labour, sought confirmation of how much the Teesworks partners had spent on the scheme.

TVCA chief executive Julie Gilhespie told her: "It's just not within the role of this committee, it's a private business. I don't know off the top of my head."

Following a series of questions, Mr Houchen expressed his frustration that TVCA had been answering the same queries for six years, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Stockton councillor Steve Nelson, Labour, said: "It is our job to ask the questions the public are asking… the role of this committee is to ask questions.

"We keep being told we can't ask that or it has to be that - it's almost like the tail is wagging the dog.

"It's ultimately up to this committee what questions it asks and what the remit of the sub-committee is."

TVCA acting monitoring officer Emma Simson said any questions could be asked as long as they fell under the remit of the committee.

Councillor O'Donoghue also stated there had been a lack of transparency, which the mayor rejected.

"It's not my fault you don't understand something," the mayor replied.

"It's not my fault you don't take the time to understand what we have been doing for six years. My issue is that we do answer those questions and people choose to ignore the answers and say there is no transparency."

Mr Houchen said Ms O'Donoghue had received an answer to how much public money - £246m - had been spent on the scheme.

"It's just a circus, you are just not serious," he added.

The councillor asked again about how much Teesworks, as a company, had injected into the scheme but was not provided with a figure.