Notwithstanding Houchens corruption in the form of cronyism and land grabbing, is anybody conflicted on the actual dredging of the port?
On one side of the argument we have the dredging company who insist that they will keep and store any harmful material and only allow the harmless stuff to wash out to sea, and the agency which was called in to investigate the cause of death of the sea life washing up on our beaches stating that in their opinion the culprit is most likely algae.
On the other side we have those who have seen with their own eyes the dead sea creatures and correlate that with the dredging operations and so apportion blame to that operation. Without further evidence it is possible to find both arguments believable.
Then we have the reasons for dredging. Firstly there is the new dock being built to accommodate the new wind farm piling manufacturing plant - reportedly the biggest of its kind in the world. Secondly, the Tees is one of the biggest ports in the UK and has a capacity for greater expansion. This could encourage more manufacturing companies to build a presence on Teesside and increase the number of well paid jobs in the area by thousands, in manufacturing, on the docks and in cutting edge industries like Green Hydrogen production.
So the worst case scenario is that the dredging is unleashing pollutants and that these are causing the deaths in sea life.
However, we know (because they have given us reasurances) that the dredgers will put great effort into storing the harmful materials.
We know also that if the pollutants below the river bed are to blame, that one day they will dissipate and that the coastal waters around Teesside will return to normal along with the numbers of crustaceans .
So the questions are:-
a. Do we halt the dredging and protect a handful of underpaid fishing jobs through a period of temporary hardship and possibly forfeit our chance of maintaining our place at the cutting edge of new industries and increasing the number of jobs in more traditional industries, by losing out to other parts of the country?
b. Do we crack on and try to maintain and increase the industries that the majority of us have earned our living in?
In short, do we want to be an area of modern heavy industry, or a fishing port?