Matt Vickers and the

Property Developers, part 2:

Shutting the Stable Door …

Stockton South MP Matt Vickers with Housing Minister Michael Gove

Scott Hunter

7 January 2021

Matt Vickers means business. The planning inspectorate’s approval of a scheme for 300 houses in Yarm is ‘a disgrace,’ and he is determined to do something about it. It may be that the Tees Valley Monitor article of 4 January spurred him on. But we can’t be certain.

While our article, indicating that he was effectively shutting the door after the horse had bolted, was published at midday, in the early evening he put out a statement on Facebook that simply restated what he had already published on 18 December.



This new statement, unfortunately failed to answer any of the questions we had put to him in the email we sent him on 3 January. Here is his 4 January statement:

And here are the (as yet unanswered) questions we put to him on 3 January:

Things to note: 1. If the planning system is deeply unfair, it is the work of the Conservative government. 2. As with his post on 18 December, He gives no indication of what he plans to say to ‘the Minister’. 3.  He does not state if he intends to try to get the decision reversed. 4. He makes no mention of judicial review which is the only means now available by which this might be achieved, even though we’d specifically asked him about it.

The other thing that has to be called into question is Vicker’s timing. Both  the Northern Echo and  the Gazette reported on 25 August 2021 that Theakston Estates were going to lodge an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate. This was the point at which Vickers might usefully have intervened and appealed to the Minister – Michael Gove – to hear the appeal himself instead of allowing it to be led by a planning inspector. Of course, MPs are on holiday in August, so that was not ideal. 



A good day for Vickers to have had a quiet word with Gove, on the other hand, would have been 24 September, when he visited his constituency:

But he seems to have had other things on his mind that day, and if he mentioned it to Gove, he failed to pass on details of that conversation to his constituents. And of course, within days of this, he was busy dealing with the pressing issue of lobbying the chef at the House of Commons canteen to put parmos on the menu:

So, now that a decision has been made by the planning inspectorate, the only available recourse is judicial review, and that must be instigated by Stockton Council, the responsible planning authority, not by Vickers.

As for the Council’s Local Plan taking too long to make, the 2019 parliamentary research briefing that we referred to in our earlier article states that one of the issues around Local Plans is that they have, until now, taken an inordinately long to time to produce. And with regard to its being ‘not fit for purpose’? He hasn’t cleared that one up yet either.

So, within the space of three weeks, Vickers has made the same statement about Theakston Estates’ appeal twice, but apparently done nothing. TVM have now written to him to ask if he intends to publish a statement about the outcome of his meeting with the minister for the benefit of his constituents.

Also, we couldn’t help but notice that on 16 December he posted the following on his Facebook page:

It seems that for the hanging basketeers of the levelling up fund, the plan is that you give out the cash first and think about how to spend it afterwards. Would £20 million cover the cost of a couple of schools, a GP surgery and a bypass, we wonder?

And finally, for those Yarm residents who think it is some consolation that you can at least now get a parmo in the House of Commons canteen, actually you can’t. The parmo lasted for only a short time before being abandoned by the canteen’s powers that be.



Matt Vickers MP has been approached for comment