In the third of a series of profiles of candidates for Tees Valley mayor, Chris Lloyd puts the spotlight on Conservative candidate Ben Houchen

"YOU’VE got to be bloody stubborn to be a Conservative in the North-East, but we are making big inroads," says Ben Houchen. "Teesside isn’t the stronghold Labour thinks it is."

Mr Houchen is carrying the Tory torch in the Tees Valley mayoral election with an energetic, headline-grabbing campaign that includes potentially abolishing Cleveland Police, building a new town, and buying back the local airport from its owners, Peel.

Aged 30, he is the youngest candidate in the race, but already has a long political track record – he campaigned successfully with James Wharton to win the Stockton South seat in the 2010 General Election; he was elected to represent Yarm on Stockton council in 2011 and in 2012 he contested the Middlesbrough by-election caused by the death of Sir Stuart Bell.

“We were at a hustings in a church hall in Linthorpe Road just after the 2012 Budget which tried to introduce the caravan and pasty taxes, and I was getting shouted and heckled,” he remembers. “I remember thinking that the hustings wasn’t going to make a difference to how people would vote, so I could just sit there and take it easy.

“But then I thought whether they like it or now, I am here to say what I think. So I did. I still got it in the neck, but if you are a Conservative candidate and come into Middlesbrough town centre with 200 Labour Party members baying for blood, and you come out of that with your principles intact, then you know that politics is for you.”

He grew up in one of the first 100 houses in Ingelby Barwick and attended Conyers School, Yarm, where his wife Rachel is head of languages. His father is a Cleveland police officer who gave a running commentary on TV programmes from the news to the soaps – “he was a keyboard warrior before keyboards were invented, but he instilled in me a sense of justice and morality”.

From an early age, he knew he wanted to study law – “I’m overconfident and talk a lot so I wanted to be a barrister” – and after graduating from Northumbria University became a corporate solicitor on Teesside. One of his clients introduced him to the Australian sportswear manufacturer, BLK, and a year ago, he became the chief executive of its northern hemisphere operation.

BLK, which stands for Beyond Limits Known, manufactures kit mainly for rugby clubs, including Saracens and the England rugby league team, but with Hartlepool is moving into football and has just signed a three-year deal with the West Indies cricket team.

“We started with three employees, now have 24,” he says. “We had a £2.5m turnover last year, £7m this year and £20m next. There’s no reason why we can’t be up there with the very big brands within ten years.”

He’s not afraid to tackle Nike and Adidas on its home turf and so does not shun taking on Labour in its backyard.

“What has Labour delivered for this region?” he asks. “If you go back to the 1980s and 1990s, the Teesside Development Corporation was created by a Conservative government, and this Conservative government has already delivered on devolution.”

With Labour unelectable, he believes Theresa May is in power for the foreseeable future. “If you have a Conservative mayor with a Conservative government, I will be pushing at open doors,” he says. “And what is the point in having a Labour mayor: it’ll just be another layer on top of the Labour hierarchy? It’ll just be the same plans and the same tired faces.

“Why do things always have to be the same? I’m a contrarian, and we need something different.”