AN MP has voiced concerns about the lack of progress being made to clean up the former SSI site and the devastating impact the end of steelmaking is continuing to have on the area.

Almost 11 months since SSI was liquidated - a move which finally ended hopes that a rescue deal for Tees steelmaking could be agreed - the Redcar seafront site has stood empty, save for a small salvage team, safety workers, and security guards.

The Official Receiver, who was due to have left in December last year, is still in charge of the site.

Much of the famous works has been stripped and sold-off although the government is unwilling to reveal how much cash this has raised and when exactly the Insolvency Service will hand over responsibility of the site to a new management team overseen by the recently-formed South Tees Development Corporation.

The Corporation was the cornerstone of plans laid out earlier this year by Lord Heseltine who believes it will become the body that can spearhead regeneration of the area.

How this regeneration will be funded has never been made clear, however.

“The whole situation with the site, what is happening to the assets and the clean-up process are covered by a veil of secrecy,” Anna Turley, MP for Redcar told The Northern Echo.

Sources close to the Redcar site say that an ongoing wrangle around ownership of the UK assets, which involved Thai-based SSI and its financial backers, has been a major stumbling block to progress being made.

Ms Turley said she was aware of some of these issues, but she had become frustrated that a perceived lack of progress was holding back any potential recovery.

She added: “The rate of unemployment in Redcar is up 43 per cent since last September yet when lord Heseltine came up here he gave the impression that everything was fine - that just is not the case.”

There have been some positive signs of recovery.

The task force set up in the wake of the steel collapse say that 1,890 former SSI workers and people employed by its suppliers have moved off benefit, the majority of them are now in full-time work or training.

The task force does not report what type of jobs former workers have taken or the average salary they now earn and a government spokesperson told The Northern Echo this information would be very difficult to collate.

The task force reports that 754 new jobs created through the £50m fund set up to help former steel plant workers and their families and by the end of last month more than 400 former SSI workers had not made any benefit claim.

The latest figures came as SSI reported its half-year results which shows that the Thai company to the end of June 2016 recorded a net loss of 660m Thai Baht (about £14.6m).

A meeting of its creditors is due to take place on September 15 when an ongoing rehabilitation plan for the Bangkok-based business will be discussed.