North East File Collection - NEFC

Update 1st September 2026

260705 EIR Request to MMO About Progress on Licence Redetermination

Update 20th March 2026

Great coverage on BBC on Thursday 19th March, on Look North, BBC Radio Tees and BBC News Article.

While this legal action has been won, we are now working to make sure that the next licence has better environmental protection. If we don't achieve this in a year's time I may have to mount another judicial review, so watch this space.

In the meantime, please think about supporting:

The North East Fishing Collective who raised money to support my legal action and need to keep a reserve of money to be able to react quickly if further die-off incidents occur: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/nefc2025

The Tees Estuary Seal Survey are raising money to pay for the analysis of the samples taken from some of the Tees harbour seal pups who die (https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/tees-seal-pups) while samples from 2025 have now been analysed, sadly there will more seal mortality in 2026 and so will need further funds to cover analysis.

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

Genesis

I started to investigate the chemical state of the River Tees in 2022 prompted by the crustacean mortality event and consistent official reports which all excluded chemical causes having any role in the die-off.

My investigations of contamination data held within marine licence applications and Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council planning application reinforced my concern that it was likely that chemical contamination had played a role in causing the crustacean die-off. However, evidence of a direct causal link is missing as so little routine data is measured in the environmental space - monthly water quality measurement will miss any short lived contamination event, the 10s of sediment samples measured over the 1,600 football pitch area of the river does not give a full picture of the chemical state of the river sediments, lack of any biassays, …. Insufficient measurements are only taken when an environmental incident occurs and without a baseline it is difficult to draw any conclusions.