Table of Contents
Update 3rd March 2026
To Protect the Tees – We Challenged the Licence - We Won
Thank you to everyone who has supported this legal action.
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) have agreed to quash the licence for the 10 year maintenance dredging of the Port of Tees and Hartlepool, so we have won the legal case. The MMO only accepted that the licence was illegal due to the excluded areas not being properly specified but did not accept the other 6 reasons. They also require 12 rather than 9 month deferral in order to be able to carry out the legal redetermination of the licence.
What does this mean?
- The licence remains valid for 12 months so dredging of the navigation channel will continue.
- During the 12 months the MMO will need to carry out a redetermination of the licence and take account of any evidence which was not considered during the granting of the current licence.
- The seal evidence is one piece of evidence which the MMO has accepted they did not consider and as such will need to consider this time.
- The Tees will not be cleaner because of this win, but this is a significant step to getting proper scrutiny of dredging of the Port of Tees and Hartlepool.
- There is now time to make sure that other parties also submit evidence as part of the representation to the licence.
- The MMO will pay a fixed £35,000 towards the cost of my legal support, this combined with the donations from NEFC and others will cover the reduced fees that I am being charged.
From my viewpoint there are several areas where the licence was deficient:
- Harbour seal pup mortality - MMO have already accepted that this should be considered in the redetermination.
- Role of resuspended contaminated fine sediment particles - already in discussion with MMO so hopefully a correct assessment will be included as part of the licence redetermination.
- 90% of sediment removed from the port exceeds the level of contamination where it is known to be detrimental to the marine environment - UK wide issue due to lack of Action Level 2 (level at disposal at sea is illegal) for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
- Lack of sampling - MMO do not accept this.
- Lack of correct environment assessments - MMO do not accept this.
What do you think should be considered when the licence is redetermined?
The MMO licence is specifically for the disposal of sediment at sea, so I am now going to contact PD Ports to understand how they ensure that the environmental laws are adhered to in the dredging operations themselves.
Once again thank you very much for your support for the judicial review, hopefully the redetermination of the licence will properly protect the sea, and I won't be back in touch next year for your support for another judicial review.
I will update with further details in the next few days.
Update 10th January 2026
The MMO responded to our PAP letter on Chritmas Eve, stating that they would defend our legal challenge fully and that our central ground was “unduly legalistic”. Since then we have been working to make the grounds of the case as strong as possible and expect to file a request for Judicial Review soon.
In the meantime, any donations to help the legal costs (https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/protect-the-tees/) or to pay for the analysis of the samples taken from some of the Tees harbour seal pups who died in 2025 (https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/tees-seal-pups) would both be very helpful.
Stop Press - 30th November 2025
I have been looking into the pollution of the River Tees for over 4 years and made numerous recommendations to the MMO to modify licences to improve the environment to little success. However, having found what I believe are legal flaws in the way in which the MMO follows the OSPAR Convention, I have instructed solicitors to look into whether there is a case which requires judicial review, I hope to know by 3rd December (update 3rd December there is a case, so my legal team drafting the PAP letter) and will then issue a pre-action protocol (PAP) letter to inform MMO of my intention to ask for a judicial review of the granting of the latest River Tees Maintenance Dredge licence.
Please have a look here for more details and if you able make a donation to support legal costs - https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/protect-the-tees/
I am being supported by the North East Fishing Collective who are also raising money to support my legal action: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/nefc2025
Thanks, Dr Simon Gibbon - simonrg@northeastfc.uk
This Website
Developments are necessary to provide homes, facilities and jobs for us and so are to be welcomed. The companies involved make sure that developments deliver what they should for owners, buyers and customers. The various different regulators make sure that our commons are protected. They can only do their job if they know what going on. So if you feel something is wrong with a development or spot something that isn't being done as it should be or an incident - environmental, nature, safety, pollution, then report it. If you spot a company or a public department going above and beyond to help the environment, then tell your local media, post on social media and tell your representatives that this is how it should be done.
Development and Environment
This site was developed to bring together information around the die-offs in the marine environment around the River Tees.
It turned out the River Tees is not necessarily unique, as many of the challenges to the environment that are experienced on the River Tees happen at other places around the UK and even around the world.
In order to understand what the challenges to the environment are and how they occur it has been necessary to understand how a port like the River Tees work, how the navigation channels are maintained (River Tees - Maintenance Dredging), how material is disposed of at sea, what marine licenses are necessary.
However, the challenges come not just from the activities on the river, but also from the development alongside the river (An analysis of the crab die off and the environmental risks of Teesworks). So it is also necessary to understand the planning process and specifically all about ground contamination.
Helping the Environment
Lots needs doing here are good causes that are helping nature around the River Tees:
The Tees Estuary Seal Survey needs funds for this year to fund the analysis of blubber samples from some of the seals which have stranded this year read about the project, and then make a donation on the Tees Seal Pups Just Giving page.
The Whitby Lobster Hatchery is doing a great job having already introduced over 40,000 benthic lobsters back into the water off North Yorkshire and are making great strides on a unique crab hatchery. You can find out about their work and make a donation on https://whitbylobsterhatchery.co.uk/.
2025 November Version - The Lower Tees and Its Coast - The Risks that Industry, Dredging and Development Pose to Crabs & Seals
A talk by Dr Simon Gibbon to Great Ayton Wildlife Association on 19th November 2025.
This talk presented the context for concern about pollution within the River Tees, by outlining the 2021 crab die-off and the ongoing seal pup mortality situation, and then described the historical and ongoing pollution risks that exist within the lower Tees.
Presentation Slides plus Extras with links to supporting information
2025 February Version - The Lower Tees and Its Coast - The Risks that Industry, Dredging and Development Pose to Crabs & Seals
A talk by Dr Simon Gibbon to Climate Action Stokesley and Villages monthly meeting on 18th February 2025.
Simon Gibbon started looking at the Tees after the mass crab die-off in autumn 2021, as a retired industrial chemist he has had to learn about how the river works in all senses (industry/nature) in order to be able to start to understand the challenges which the environment and industry face. From an environmental viewpoint his talk will tell us about what goes on in the lower Tees and along its banks, talk about recent studies into the high seal mortality and explain why perhaps the official explanation of the crab die-off needs further investigation.The river Tees as an industrial / post-industrial river is not unique to the UK, Europe and even globally, so these parallels will be highlighted as well.
Presentation Slides plus Extras with links to supporting information
Draft Articles
Crab Die-off
Mass Marine Mortality Events - Summary
An analysis of the crab die off and the environmental risks of Teesworks
Dredging
River Tees - Maintenance Dredging
River Tees - Tees Maintenance Dredging Annual Reports
River Tees - Sediment Sample Spreadsheets
Teesworks - Capital Dredging the Tees
Sediment Disposal Around the UK
Best Practice Dredging for the River Tees
Cefas thoughts about the River Tees over Time
Contamination
Teesworks
Teesworks - Ignoring Pipes Kills Crabs
Teesworks - Changing South Bank
Teesworks - Did Ignoring Advice Kill Crabs
Teesworks - Conceptual Site Model
Teesworks - Environmental - Conceptual Site Models
Teesworks - Contamination Measurement Limitations
Teesworks - Capital Dredging The Tees
Teesworks - 200 Tonnes Oil Spill
Teesworks - Timeline of Groundworks Including Prior to October 2021
Teesworks - This is When it all Went Wrong
Teesworks - Teesside Free Port Proposal
Teesworks - South Tees Site - Freeport
Teesworks - Questions you might want to ask
Teesworks - SimonRG - Teesside Sold Short
Teesworks - Recorded contamination of Tees by closed bucket dredging
Teesworks - Planning Officers Reports by Chronology
Teesworks - Planning Officer Reports by Geography
Around UK
Topics
Autumn 2021 Crab Die-off
River Tees Die-off Chronology
Dredging
Teesworks
North East Marine Research Group
An analysis of the crab die off and the environmental risks of Teesworks
Reclaim our Sea Facebook Group
North East Fishing Collective Facebook Group
Mystery of the Teesside Crab Deaths: Algal bloom or preventable cover up? - Webinar November 30 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm - Details
The Developments
Teesworks - South Tees Site - Freeport
Teesworks - South Tees Planning Applications
Teesworks - Timeline of groundworks including prior to October 2021
Teesside Infrastructure Planning Inspectorate
N.B. many documents are large either due to the amount of information within or because they have been produced for publicity containing high resolution photography.
The Environment
Mass Marine Mortality Events - Summary
1999 - Tees Estuary Present & Future - Environment Agency Report
The North East File Collection
This website is designed to provide open access to information around major developments happening in the North of England, so that people are able to engage with what is happening in our neighbourhood, to our environment and often with our money.
The site is not designed to be pretty, but to make the information accessible in a form it is not currently, as such the site will soon provide Google search access, which is not possible on the original sites as the documents are held within a variety of document management systems. In order to aid accessibility in some cases hyperlinks between documents or to other content has been inserted - if you have any problems then please refer to original source to check issues.
Please respect the copyright of all documents on this site, this site can take no responsibility for any use outside that legally required of the copyright holder to allow public oversight of major developments. Please refer to the original site for definitive and potentially updated versions.
Please email simonrg@northeastfc.uk if you spot any areas where newer documents are now available.
The documents should only be used for your oversight of the developments which they document and for which they were originally made available.
Why Does This Matter To You
Find the facts so you can ask the right questions to be able to answer the questions that matter and campaign to enhance our world:
30th September 2022 Channel 4 - What's killing marine life in the North East of England?
27th July 2023 - Mass Marine Die-offs: Searching for the Cause of These Events in Northeast England - Dr Gary Caldwell