More Than £3.6m Borrowed By Local Councils For Tees Valley Incinerator Scheme..
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Council Loans For £2.4bn Pound Grangetown Incinerator Raising Fresh Transparency Questions...
5th May 2026
Five Tees Valley councils have reportedly borrowed more than £3.6 million pounds from the Tees Valley Combined Authority to support the controversial Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility, according to figures uncovered by local campaigner Joseph Layton.
The project, commonly referred to by some as the Grangetown incinerator, is officially known as the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility or TVERF & is poised to be built on the Teesworks site in Redcar on a 22-acre plot of land known as Grangetown Prairie 2.
According to the response, the amounts borrowed from TVCA are:
Council | Amount borrowed |
Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council | £1,236,863.22 |
Middlesbrough Council | £763,994.93 |
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council | £727,566.60 |
Hartlepool Borough Council | £509,296.62 |
Darlington Borough Council | £400,161.63 |
Durham County Council | £0 |
Newcastle City Council | £0 |
In total, the five Tees Valley councils listed have borrowed a combined total of £3,637,883 million pounds.
Durham County Council and Newcastle City Council are also named as partner authorities in the wider TVERF project, but TVCA stated that it doesn't cover those authorities as they fall outside the Tees Valley area, adding that the information may instead be held by the North East Combined Authority.
The figures are likely to raise further questions about public money, transparency and scrutiny around the major waste project which will reportedly tie several councils into 'costly' long-term arrangements.
The TVERF project is being delivered by seven councils — Hartlepool, Darlington, Stockton-on-Tees, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Durham and Newcastle — with waste management firm Viridor selected to build and operate the facility. Viridor describes the scheme as a 29-year public-private partnership, expected to become operational from 2030, with the capacity to process around 450,000 tonnes of non-recycled waste each year.
However, The procurement process itself has also raised questions, when its claimed Green Recovery Projects Ltd had previously been one of the shortlisted bidders alongside Viridor & was later disqualified from the process after reportedly losing its construction partner.
Official TVERF documents confirm that by February 2025 only Viridor remained in the competition, with the councils moving forward under a “sole tenderer” process. The issue did not end there, however, with reports later stating that Green Recovery Projects had threatened legal action before the matter was settled without payment to either party only adding to wider concerns about competition, transparency and whether councillors and residents were given the full picture behind one of the region’s biggest public-sector waste contracts
Supporters of the project say it will provide a long-term alternative to landfill by treating residual waste — the rubbish left after recycling — and generating electricity. The Environment Agency granted Viridor an environmental permit for the Teesside energy-from-waste facility in July 2025 following a public consultation. However, opponents argue it leaves local councils financially locked into a decades-long incineration contract at a time when waste policy, recycling expectations and public finances are all said to be 'under pressure'.
Others have also criticised the arrangement, arguing that local councils are borrowing money through a Combined Authority which is itself under significant financial and governance scrutiny, with the Government issuing the Tees Valley Combined with a Best Value Notice back in April 2025. That notice was then updated in April 2026 to remain in place for the foreseeable future amid concerns over the pace of improvements made in relation to financial management & governance and remains part of the wider backdrop to questions over how public money is being managed.
Claims Councillors are being left in the dark over the Project
There's also questions over just how much information councillors and members of the public are being allowed to see in relation to the TVERF deal, particularly where parts of the major commercial arrangements are being treated as 'confidential' & kept away from public scrutiny. The response also reveals the TVCA does not hold information on whether the chairman of TVERF is in a paid position, or whether the role may become paid in future adding another layer of mystery.
The disclosed figures show local councils such as Hartlepool, whilst claiming to be suffering unmanageable budget deficits has borrowed just over half a million pounds from the TVCA towards the project. Whilst that figure is lower than Stockton, Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland councils, it remains a substantial sum of public-sector borrowing linked to a scheme many people may still know very little about.
No allegation of any unlawful conduct is made by the response itself. But the figures will inevitably fuel calls for greater transparency over the Grangetown incinerator, especially as local councils across the region continue to warn of financial pressures, service demands and claims of 'difficult budget choices' whilst continuing to take out loans which inevitably will be left to the local tax payer to foot in their council tax bills.
