Tees Valley Mayor:

 Questions Raised

about

Misinformation



on Social Media

Scott Hunter

15 April 2025

Some would argue that the greatest success story of Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, is the propaganda machine he has built up. Anyone looking at his Facebook posts will find a long list of comments warmly congratulating him on his latest good news story. As many of our readers will know, however, he achieves this by blocking anyone who challenges him. Many of our readers, in fact, will have been on the receiving end of this, on X as well as on Facebook.

What has only recently been pointed out to us is that the same does not apply on Linked In, where the mayor also publishes his social media posts. Our attention has been drawn to a recent comment there about Teesside Airport, in response to the mayor’s claim to be behind the creation of 250 new jobs. So, here’s the mayor’s Linked In post:

And here’s the comment that appears on Linked In, that we think Houchen's media team would have been unlikely to  allow on Facebook or X:

Here, then, is anecdotal evidence of volatility in employment at a facility that has cost £150 million of public money in five years, and recent redundancies, while Houchen trumpets future jobs. Added to this is the complaint that the mayor does not respond to questions (we note that he does respond to some comments on Facebook). 

We were not prepared to take at face value the complaint here that the mayor and Teesworks never respond to questions on Linked In posts. So, we contacted the airport media enquiries team, to ask them to verify Gareth Thomas’ report and to provide more detail. It turns out, however, that they don’t want to talk about it. Either that, or, like the TVCA itself, they are not prepared to handle any requests for information or comment from us.

Whatever the reason, the upshot is that the mayor continues to be able to publish misleading or incomplete information on public interest issues with impunity. This freedom must now be curtailed, and an audit of his media activity undertaken.

Responsibility of Commercial Media

The need for an informed conversation about the mayor’s dubious claims of new jobs is not solely the responsibility of those overseeing the Best Value Notice, however. At present challenge to his claims about job creation exists almost entirely on social media. The local press appears to be happy to report his and others’ claims without questioning them. So, there are allegedly to be 750 jobs at SeAH, 1000 at Net Zero Teesside, 250 at businesses at the airport, all of these numbers, we believe, simply plucked out of thin air.

We have some standard for comparison, however, in relation to the 1000 jobs at Net Zero Teesside where a gas-powered power station is to be built. Pembroke Power Station advertises itself as one of the largest gas power stations in Europe.  Information from the company’s brochure states that the facility is staffed by five shift teams, each consisting of five operators and a Shift Team Leader:

By our calculation, that means that the day-to-day operation of the plant is undertaken by a total of thirty people. This raises the question in relation to Net Zero Teesside, if it is indeed a plant of similar capacity to Pembroke, as to exactly what the other 970 will be doing.



Refusal of Business Support

A second area of concern relates to business support. Another person commenting on Houchen’s airport post complains of a general lack of business support, despite the fact that this is a central part of TVCA activity:

That there are problems with securing business grants from TVCA has been reported to us on previous occasions, but for it to be addressed adequately, people who have been denied support need to come forward and describe their experience. Without that, the Local Government Panel will have no evidence with which to interrogate business support practices in the Authority. This would be an opportunity missed.



Again, media coverage is an issue. The government’s White Paper on Devolution proposes that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will undertake measures to reinvigorate local media, as it recognises the importance of the press in ensuring accountability of devolved authorities. In Ireland, a similar initiative has resulted in the strengthening of its equivalent of the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). While that service provides good quality reporting and supports an otherwise lacklustre local press in this region, it is nonetheless a news reporting service. It does not undertake the kind of investigation into business support practices at the TVCA that would expose its shortcomings. Houchen and his entourage have thrived in an environment where misinformation is rarely questioned. It will take more than a Best Value Notice to rectify that.