Teesworks report: There are things we can do better, says Houchen

Lord Houchen said his team were already working on the report's recommendations

The Tees Valley Mayor has denied the Teesworks project has been damaged by excessive secrecy, but said things could be done better in future.

Conservative Mayor Lord Houchen was responding to the independent report on the redevelopment of the former Redcar steelworks site.

The review found no evidence of alleged "industrial-scale corruption".

But it did identify issues around transparency, governance and value for money for taxpayers.

Public trust

The review, commissioned by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, cleared the agency behind the redevelopment of the area, the South Tees Development Corporation, its head, Lord Houchen, and private sector property developers, of corruption claims.

Speaking on BBC One's Politics North, Lord Houchen said: "If you are asking me could we do things better? Absolutely, and as I've already said since the report came out we're accepting all of the recommendations.

"There are things that we can absolutely do better, we can improve our governance, all of those things."

Asked if that included not being excessively secretive, he said: "Wherever we can be right, but if I'm going to attract major investors I'm not going to expose their financial information to the public.

"Where we are able to share information that doesn't damage the effort to bring jobs and investment to Teesside, of course we'll share it.

"But in the same way any council would keep confidential information that's commercially sensitive then that's what we'll do."

• 'No evidence of corruption' at Teesworks - inquiry

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Lord Houchen added: "The only thing that's damaged public trust in this site is Andy McDonald (independent MP for Middlesbrough) for making the accusations that he made.

"The only reason we're having this report and this investigation is because he stood up in Parliament and he said that there was 'industrial-scale corruption'. That's not a mild accusation to make.

"For over a year the BBC, along with all of the media outlets, have been running that one line constantly - and you're doing your job, right - you're holding me to account. Well the report explicitly found that that wasn't true at all in any way, shape or form."

'Secretive'

Labour's Chris McDonald said the Teesworks project was "poor value for money"

But Labour's parliamentary candidate for Stockton North Chris McDonald (no relation of Andy McDonald), said Teesworks was badly run and secretive.

Mr McDonald said: "It is an incredibly important project for Teesside and we all want it to be successful.

"But what the report found was that the Teesworks operation is badly run, it's secretive, and it's poor value for money and that's what the recommendation said.

"Now I've been working in business for the last 20 years, I've been a company director and worked with boards and if an auditor came back to a board that I sat on and said that the organisation was badly run, secretive, and poor value I would expect directors to resign."

Politics North is on BBC One on Sunday at 10:00 GMT and on iPlayer.