Former Teesside Airport Security Contractor Plunges Into Administration...
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Security Firm Once Celebrated By Tees Valley Leaders Now In Administration..
11th May 2026
A Teesside private security firm which once provided security services linked to Teesside International Airport has formally entered administration the Teesside & Durham Post Understands. .
Close Protection Security Ltd, based in Middlesbrough, was formally placed into administration on the 28th of April 2026, according to an official notice published in The London Gazette. The company’s registered office has since been changed to the offices of FRP Advisory Trading Ltd at Falcon Court, Preston Farm Business Park, Stockton-on-Tees.
The development marks a significant turn for a firm which had previously been promoted as a local success story when it was set up back in 2017, with the firm describing itself as an industry-leading North East security company, offering services including security guards, key holding, alarm response, CCTV monitoring, event security, mobile patrols and close protection officers.
In 2019, the then Durham Tees Valley Airport announced that it had extended its partnership with Close Protection Security Limited, engaging the firm to provide additional patrols around the landside area of the airport. The airport said at the time that the company already provided security for the St George Hotel on the airport site and services to high-profile clients using the airport. Financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed on the basis that they were “commercially sensitive”, but the airport said the agreement would work on a rolling basis.
Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen also welcomed the arrangement at the time, saying that with the airport returning to public ownership he wanted local businesses “at the front of the queue” for new contracts.
However, the firm later became the subject of wider local attention after reporting by a local newspaper around the airport’s decision to controversially cancel the security contract. The Mayor reportedly defending the decision, which came during a period when airport security arrangements and public questions around contracts were being sounded..
The company’s most recent filed unaudited accounts may give some indication as to the financial pressures it was facing before entering administration. Where its been found that for the year ending 31 March 2025 show Close Protection Security Ltd had just £694 cash at bank and in hand, while creditors falling due within one year had risen sharply to £649,268, up from £375,865 the previous year. The accounts also show net current liabilities of £414,439 and overall net liabilities of £311,944, compared with net assets of £2,345 in 2024. Trade creditors more than doubled from £54,021 to £123,416, while VAT owed increased significantly from £256,042 to £447,483, with a business seemingly running on very limited cash reserves, rising short-term debts and a substantial negative balance sheet position in the year before administrators were appointed.
Close Protection Security had previously been highlighted as a growing Teesside business. In 2020, the Tees Valley Mayor opened the firm’s new facility at TeesAMP, with the Combined Authority stating the company had grown from two staff in 2017 to more than 70 personnel, and had secured major contracts with organisations including Middlesbrough FC, AV Dawson and Teesside International Airport.
The case is likely to draw considerable interest because of the company’s previous association with Teesside airport, its public promotion as a regional success story, and earlier local reporting around the cancellation of airport security arrangements, however its likely also to be looked upon as yet more evidence of the regions failing local economy, as the national economic picture looks to be ever more gloomier amidst the possibility of the UK falling into recession in the coming months.
