TEES REGENERATION
Gold diggers
MORE great financial news from
Teesside. Not for taxpayers, alas, but for the families of the businessmen who are trousering fortunes from the taxpayer-funded regeneration of the former steelworks under regional mayor Lord (Ben) Houchen.
As Eye readers will know, local developers Martin Corney and Chris Musgrave have been handed effective control of the development through a joint venture, Teesworks Ltd, that they 90 percent control. The deal comes with the option to buy parcels of land for £1 per acre, plus rights over scrap, which they are busy cashing in for profits that this time last year ran to almost £140m.
No sooner had Corney and Musgrave become Houchen’s South Tees Development Corporation’s (STDC) joint venture partner five years ago than the former’s then 23-year-old son, Chester Corney, and 25-year-old son-inlaw Thomas Carr, set up a company, TCC Plant Ltd, to hire out diggers and other plant to the contractors Corney Sr had helped bring on site. And, surprise surprise, this company has done extremely well. In fact, it’s doing better than any other plant hire company that can be found.