Tees Valley Combined Authority

Tees Valley Combined Authority
The Tees Valley within England
Type
Type	Combined authority of Tees Valley
Houses	Unicameral
Term limits	None
History
Founded	1 April 2016
Leadership
Chair	Dave Budd
Vice-chair	Sue Jeffrey
Seats	5 constituent members
Elections
Voting system	Indirect election, directly elected mayor from 2017
Meeting place
Cavendish House, Teesdale Business Park
Website
www.teesvalley-ca.gov.uk

The Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) is the combined authority for the Tees Valley urban area in England consisting of the following five unitary authorities: Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and . It was proposed that a combined authority is established by statutory instrument under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. It will be a strategic authority with powers over transport, economic development and regeneration.

The Combined Authority was established on 1 April 2016 (20 years to the day since the abolition of Cleveland County Council) after Local Government Minister James Wharton MP signed the necessary Order. It was announced in October 2015 that the Authority would elect a Mayor in 2017.

The abolition of the non-metropolitan county of Cleveland in 1996 left the Tees Valley without a single authority covering the whole area, although some council functions continued to be provided jointly through Cleveland Police and the Cleveland Fire Service.

A combined authority was proposed in 2014 and sixty-five per cent of more than 1,900 responses received during a seven-week long public consultation were in favour of a combined authority.

A shadow combined authority was formed and chaired by Sue Jeffrey, Leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

The authority consists of the five local authorities of Tees Valley as constituent members and the Tees Valley local enterprise partnership as a non-constituent member.

The membership of the combined authority is expected to be as follows: