THE skyline over Teesside is to change forever next summer after the first of five sculptures was given the go-ahead by planners.

Temenos, costing £2.7m, is the first part of the £15m Teesside Giants project. It was approved by all but one of Middlesbrough Council’s planning committee yesterday.

Temenos is likely to be in position on the Middlehaven site on Teesside by next summer, between Middlesbrough Football Club’s Riverside Stadium and the Transporter Bridge.

Standing 50 metres high and 110 metres wide, the steel structure will dominate the Teesside skyline and promises to attract tourists and visitors from across the globe.

Already labelled as one of the most distinctive pieces of public art in the country, it is expected to prove as great a draw as the Angel of the North, in Gateshead.

After the project was given the go-ahead, project director of the Middlehaven regeneration scheme, Sean Egan, said he was delighted.

“I believe the sculpture will be a massive asset for the Tees Valley,”

he said.

“It should be installed by next summer. All of the money has been secured from a range of funds and backers. It’s money specifically for public art, so it is already there.

“It’s going to be part of the Middlehaven mix, but is also part of promoting a new Tees Valley. International and national coverage has been phenomenal already, and that’s before we have dug a single hole.”

Temenos is the first of five sculptures planned for the Tees Valley in the next ten years, with others destined to take up position in Redcar, Hartlepool, Darlington and Stockton.

The design of the next sculpture, or where it will be, has not yet been decided.

Temenos, which consists of two circular rings held together by a cat’s cradle of steel wire, is the work of Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor and one of the world’s leading structural engineers, Cecil Balmond.

Independent Councillor Peter Cox, who represents the Beckfield Ward in Middlesbrough, said that, no matter how much he liked the sculpture, he could not give it his backing.

He said: “I voted against it because I wasn’t allowed to ask questions about the maintenance costs.”

Members of the planning committee were not allowed to discuss the cost of the maintenance, as it was not a factor in their decisionmaking.

Work on the sculpture is expected to begin before the end of the year