Middlesbrough 15-20 years behind Leeds on regeneration

Sam Gilmore, Middlesbrough Council’s head of economic growth, made the comments during a visit to Leeds for the UK’s Real Estate Infrastructure and Investment Forum (UKREiiF) on Tuesday May 20. Richard Horniman, the council’s Director of Regeneration explained that the council had been criticised within the recent peer review process for not looking outwards enough and so it was important to attend. The latter also discussed the potential future of the Cleveland Centre.

Middlesbrough Council’s delegation shared the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) pitch alongside other constituent authorities, such as Stockton, who had given a presentation earlier in the day about their work in the town centre.

Speaking at the major property and investment event Sam Gilmore said: “I think it’s absolutely critical that we show a united front to investors, that it’s not only the mayoral combined authority, but the constituent local authorities that form part of it that have a very similar mindset and a common vision and a common approach to dealing with those things.”

When asked about Middlesbrough’s ambitions in relation to Stockton and the fact that Middlesbrough has a development corporation, he said: “We’re not diminished by one another’s success”, citing Stockton’s focus on health and wellbeing, while Middlesbrough has an emphasis on tech. He also mentioned Teesworks, located in the Redcar and Cleveland Council area.

When it comes to jobs, Mr Gilmore added: “The general public doesn’t see a boundary on a map, they will go to work wherever they need to work and they don’t care which constituent area they’re in to do that and we have to reflect what our residents’ needs are, rather than more parochial local authority needs.”

Mr Gilmore is from Redcar originally, attending university in Leeds before returning to Teesside. On Middlesbrough’s trajectory, he said  “We’re stood in Leeds docks where it was a bit of a dump if I’m completely frank when I was at university. And I see that we’re sort of 15 or 20 years behind the likes of Leeds or Manchester”, he pointed out that these locations had mills, as well as vacant and derelict properties that were a “burden” to the local authorities at the time. Yet now, these serve as the basis of the regeneration plans, when it’s done “correctly”.

When asked why Middlesbrough Council had brought a contingent to UKREiiF, Director of Regeneration Richard Horniman explained that they hadn’t done it in recent years and the council was criticised within the peer review process for not looking “outwards” enough. “This is probably the easiest opportunity to see what other councils are doing.”

He added: “Most of the people that we need to see about things are here anyway. So it’s local to us, it’s not an expensive thing for us to attend.” He explained how the Tees Valley stand is where Middlesbrough were based for the three-day event and added: “We’ve got lots of meetings lined up with various different people around projects that we are looking at.” When pressed for more details, Mr Horniman said that “generally” their Wednesday meetings would be with “retailers”. 

Mr Horniman thought that parties interested in Middlesbrough were likely to give more details away at an event like UKREiiF compared to a meeting in an office in the Teesside town.  He also explained how conversations were different in Leeds compared to when investors come to Middlesbrough, describing a roundtable discussion held that morning with a company called Evolve, who own shopping centres around the country. 

Rather than having to focus on antisocial behaviour in the discussion, as Mr Horniman spoke about at a scrutiny panel meeting, “we talked much more about funding, about commercial deals, and about are the council the right people to do certain roles in the economy?” He said they could pick the brains of investors and also learnt from councils as far away as Plymouth.

On the theme of shopping centres, Middlesbrough town centre has four, which is “too many for a town of our size in this day and age” and Mr Horniman said going forward, it is “about finding a role for them and if there isn’t a role for them, doing something different in its place”. He added that it was “surprising” how many local authorities are in the same position that Middlesbrough are.

He explained that different local authorities have bought shopping centres as “they’ve needed to but don’t know what to do with them”, adding: “I think the overwhelming feeling from that is local authorities are not the right people to run them, but we might have to be a short term owner, and get it to the next stage where the private sector are bought back.” 

He gave the Cleveland Centre as an example, which the council bought back in 2022, as they didn’t want the good bits picked off and “the rest of it left to rack and ruin”. And while the council have “protected” it, “realistically, do we want to be owning it in five/10 years, we’re probably not the right people to do that, but the people who are the right people to do that are all here”, he said.