Teesside Airport: Labour MPs and Ben Houchen in new clash

New accounts out today revealed that Teesside Airport made an £11.8m loss last year, a £2m improvement on the year before.

Mr Houchen also announced a new £20m investment in the airport this year to cover the losses, create new jobs and bring in more airlines and flights.

Read more: Teesside Airport: Accounts reveal £11.8m loss

But Labour MPs on Teesside have described Mr Houchen's pledge to plough more money into the loss-making airport as ‘delusional wasteful and reckless’.

Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough, told The Northern Echo: “This is outrageous. More and more millions of pounds are to be poured into the airport with Ben Houchen promising good times just around the corner. That’s not a business plan it is just wishful thinking.  

“All the while, as the bill for the airport soars, many of the 660,000 people back on the ground across Tees Valley lack access to an affordable and effective public transport system that would really improve people’s lives and deliver meaningful economic engagement and growth. 

“Compare and contrast how Andy Burnham is using his resources to provide better and cheaper buses that people in Greater Manchester use every day.

Read more: £46.3m funding for Teesside, Darlington, and Hartlepool

“This obsession with funding the airport at any cost whatsoever is as delusional as it is wasteful and reckless and it has to stop.”

Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)

Stockton MP Alex Cunningham also called for increased transparency around where the public money being invested in the airport is going.

Mr Cunningham said: “We all desperately want the airport to succeed but time and again we've been told it will come good yet the huge losses keep on coming. 

“Just last year the Tees Mayor who paid tens of millions for it in the first place poured in £10 million of public money to prop it up blaming covid.

“He now plans to double that this year - yet the lack of transparency means no-one knows where the bulk of this money is going.

Read more: Grangetown councillor switches allegiance to Labour

“It's high time the Mayor came clean and opened all the books to scrutiny so we know what he's doing with public money.

“The full bill for the airport since the Mayor took it over could now be in the region of £100 million - and yet he can't find the money to provide my constituents with a decent bus service.

“Enough is enough. The public needs answers.”

Teesside International Airport. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT

But hitting back, Mr Houchen said the comments from the Labour MPs showed they "actively want the airport it close" and accused them of "absurd smears" over scruitny claims.

Read more: Government accused of 'cover up' over Teesside mass crab deaths

He said: “I will not engage anymore with these two local MPs that continue to try and trash Teesside Airport and actively want it close.

“They seem oblivious to the fact that we've just come through a two-year global pandemic that shut down the aviation industry and it's because they want nothing more than for the airport to fail.

“Their smears and suggestions of a lack of scrutiny is absurd, we follow the same process as every other airport in the country and file accounts on Companies House.

“The Airport Board which includes representatives from the local councils have seen everything.”

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