The Government must act with utmost urgency over Teesworks

The new instalment is the release of a list of property in Hartlepool, including a town hall and leisure centre, which is going to be transferred to Mr Houchen’s new development corporation in the hope that its regeneration is speeded up. The creation of the corporation has been passed by board meetings and full council meetings, on which councillors of all political persuasions have sat and voted, and yet Labour is now claiming a lack of transparency – a claim which appears to be supported by the fact that the public only became aware of the list of buildings to be transferred when the council was pressed by the Financial Times.

Surely the people of Hartlepool had a right to know about the future of their public assets when that process was started.

The failings here may be Mr Houchen’s, but it also seems that councillors who were supposed to be scrutinising both the Hartlepool and Teesworks deals have failed to winkle out, on behalf of the public, the most important details.

But are these serious failings? Well, it was noticeable that Mr Houchen’s sternest critic, Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald, refused to take the opportunity to repeat on the BBC’s national airwaves his claim, made in Parliament where he has legal protection, of “industrial scale corruption” at Teesworks. Instead, the furthest he would go was to accuse Mr Houchen of “failure of governance”, which is a sin of a much lesser magnitude.

So once again, the Tees Valley is in the spotlight over claims something is not right. This is harming the region’s reputation; it is harming the chances of regeneration.

Last week, the Government announced an inquiry to clear the air, but a week on, we don’t know the name of its chairman or details of its remit letalone when it will actually start work. The Government must get it moving with utmost urgency to prevent the region being dragged deeper into the mire.