A PROTEST leader is being challenged to submit his ideas on Redcar seafront's future to detailed financial analysis.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is backing preferred developer Persimmon Homes to produce a £55m development on the 35-acre Coatham Enclosure site, a mix of homes and top quality leisure.

But local comedian Chris McGlade, who led a protest march against the scheme at the weekend, says the council can afford to improve leisure facilities without selling land for housing.

Coun Vera Moody, the council's cabinet member for economic development, said she would like to see Mr McGlade's financial breakdown.

She said: "This money must be on elastic.

"We have spent months talking to a host of different funding agencies and there's no way this scheme - or anything close to it - can be achieved without big money from outside the council.

"We need private money to help us to lever public funds from other agencies. Without that combination, it simply won't work."

The only alternative would be a big increase in council tax to pay for leisure improvements, she said.

Mr McGlade said: "We are only too happy to meet with the council and to put forward our ideas and costings, but let's have a full public, open meeting, not a meeting behind closed doors.

"We will go through our costings and explain what the people of Redcar themselves want. She should stop trying to frighten people with the old chestnut of council tax going up."

He added: "She knows we will be able to afford what the people of Redcar want, like a new swimming pool and the tidying up of the golf course. We have costed it out."