Low taxes and levelling up: the great freeport experiment comes to Teesside

The Tories set great store by the special economic zone, but will it create thousands of jobs, or just be the economic damp squib experts predict?

There is demolition work at every turn on Teesside, from the increasingly regular explosions heard across Redcar, as the old steelworks is blasted to pieces, to the cranes taking down nearby Wilton International's coal-fired power plant.

The site has seen better days," said Andy Koss of Sembcorp Industries, which manages the Wilton International complex. For the region as a whole it has been a tough time, with the gradual erosion of industry at Wilton. And then the closure of the steelworks was a massive blow."