AN MP has stepped into the row surrounding plans for Redcar's Coatham Enclosure.

The town's MP, Vera Baird, criticised Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council for not turning up to a meeting to address the issues surrounding a £55m scheme for leisure and housing on the enclosure.

More than 100 residents left the meeting at Christ Church, Redcar, disappointed when the council failed to send a representative to answer their questions.

Ms Baird said she had asked several times for a council representative to attend the public meeting.

She said: "I have had a very large number of complaints about the lack of information that people feel is coming from the council.

"Because of that, I have asked the council to have a public meeting but they have declined."

She told Friday's meeting, which started with a minute's silence in memory of former Redcar MP Mo Mowlam, that she was neither for nor against the council's plans, but claimed the council was alienating people.

The MP, who is also a barrister, promised to question the authority on whether or not the swimming pool and leisure facility part of the regeneration scheme could be built without funding from the proposed housing development.

She also wanted to know why the council was not making public the legal advice relating to a covenant, which could halt the project.

However, Councillor Vera Moody, the council's cabinet member for regeneration, said she believed the meeting was a political stunt.

She said: "Vera Baird has been fully briefed on our plans. She gave private assurances she would support the scheme - an assurance she has now broken. She is giving out incomplete information.

"As a barrister, she should know better than to raise the question of counsel's opinion being made public. If she has knowledge that we are acting contrary to the law, she should report it to the authorities, and if she does not, she should withdraw the assertion."

She said the council would not take part in "any political stunt" after a previous meeting was disrupted by protestors.

But Ms Baird said Coun Moody's statement was the words of a person who should have been there herself.