Past deals Controversial sales

Middlesbrough Council has also been involved in controversial deals in the past.

In 2015, when Ray Mallon was mayor, a deal was done to sell a local site to his former election agent, Nasser Din, for £150,000 below its £600,000 market valuation, a figure obtained independently for the council.

Mr Din made a bid of £400,000 for the TAD Centre but said the council negotiated an eventual price of £450,000. The occupying tenant, a children’s nursery, offered £500,000, but it came in after the deadline for tenders and was rejected.

Following the sale, which was completed three months after Mr Mallon left office, seven councillors called for a review, claiming “the process was flawed”. A review was rejected.

Mr Mallon had declared Mr Din as a potential conflict of interest to the council’s chief executive because the developer had previously acted as his election agent. He received no payment or benefit from the deal. In another sell-off by the council in 2016, an independent review of its sale of a listed mansion found the sale price was less than half the £2m initially agreed. Acklam Hall in the town was sold to developers for housing and a medical centre for £907,000 in 2014. An investigation was conducted into the sale and there were no findings of wrongdoing by the then mayor. A council spokesman said: “The council’s priority was to protect Acklam Hall for future generations, but the cost of its restoration far outweighed any potential income from its sale. “The joint disposal enabled major refurbishment… into a thriving restaurant and event space, new hospital and high quality housing.”