GE Renewables Crisis:

Houchen’s Complex

Relationship with the Truth

Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen

Scott Hunter

21 December 2021



Last week we wrote to Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, to ask for comment on the news that GE Renewables were hesitating over signing the lease for a site at Teesworks where they were to build a turbine blade factory.



Houchen did not respond directly to our inquiry, but the following day the Northern Echo obtained confirmation of the move from GE Renewables itself, quoting a spokesperson as saying, “GE Renewable Energy’s LM Wind Power business is currently facing delays in the finalisation of the leasing agreement and design to open its new blade manufacturing plant in Teesside, England.”

The Echo does not make clear who they approached first – Houchen or GE. But Houchen’s response appears to contradict the GE statement:

“I can confirm that GE are completely committed to coming to Teesside and we continue to work with them to finalise legal agreements and factory building specifications. Preparation of the site is almost ready and construction of the factory will start early next year.” 

No mention of delays to signing the leasing agreement, then. And confirmation that building work will start, as planned, next year. Or, as  the Gazette put it “with the plan still to “stick a spade in the ground early next year”.”

That day could turn out to be a lonely photo opportunity for the mayor.

While he claimed, in his statement to the Echo that “Unfortunately, the usual suspects were out in force spreading rumours around the progress of the GE facility on Teesside,” it turns out that one of the suspects was the highly unusual trade edition of renewables industry magazine, reNEWS. And the reNEWS article provides an amount of detail that helps to eradicate the ambiguity in what the mayor told the Echo.

One of those contradictions is over his claim (in the Echo), that “GE has won contracts to build offshore wind blades on the basis that they make them in Teesside, as has also been confirmed by Equinor who gave GE the contract for the blades.”

Is it contracts plural, or contract singular?

It turns out that it’s contract singular, wherein lies the problem. ReNEWS reports that in the current rounds of bidding, the majority of the contracts have been won by Siemens Gamesa, while GE has only one. Two contracts have not yet been awarded in the current round but reNEWS reports that the larger of the two is expected to be won by Siemens. It believes that, even if GE wins the other, that is not sufficient to put the Teesworks factory back on track.

The next round of bidding for contracts will take place in 2023, and it appears that GE is relying on winning a large enough share of contracts at that point to warrant starting work on its factory.

That Siemens has outperformed GE in recent contract bidding is no fault of Houchen’s. Making overblown claims about the progress of the Teesworks scheme, on the other hand, is entirely his. And his attempts to dismiss the reports as rumour put out by the Labour Party serves only to further erode his credibility.

The economic regeneration that should be provided by the South Tees Development Corporation matters to everyone in this region. No one should imagine that this will be easy or straightforward. But clumsy efforts to politicise it help no one. The public deserves the truth.