A FORMER council leader has assured people there is ‘no Da Vinci Code’ or ‘secret handshake’ behind the 2003 sale of Durham Tees Valley Airport.

The statement was made after an independent member of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council called for ‘full disclosure’ of legal papers outlining the details of the deal between Peel and the six Tees Valley councils involved in the sale.

The move comes after legal experts ruled Hartlepool Borough Council should make documents from the deal for the 951-acre site in Darlington and Stockton boroughs public.

Councillor Wayne Davies table a motion at the authority’s full council meeting calling for the documents to be published.

And Cllr David Walsh, the Labour leader of the authority at the time, believed the airport does have a future but wanted to dismiss the rumours surrounding the sale of the airport.

He said: “There is no secret hidden at the bottom of this, it was a very simple issue faced by the local authorities at that time that would not alter one iota, if it was happening now we would have to take the same decision.

“There’s no Da Vinci code in the middle of it, there is no hidden horde of gold, there is no strange Masonic handshakes between Peel and the local authorities – people want to believe that sort of thing and that is what motivates quite a lot of this.

“Nevertheless, I believe in openness and the more we can actually make it open, to actually bring the disinfectant and the rays of sunshine into the business of local authorities the better. At the end of the day you are not going to find the secret they think is there, as it simply does not exist.”

However, Cllr Davies said: "I'm not 100 per cent that the information released for into the public domain would be anything that is not already out there in the first place.

"I think it's about time the truth comes out about everything to do with Peel Holdings since their acquisition of the airport and I can't wait for that day."

Earlier this month a Peel spokesman said it was committed to working with the councils to ensure the airport “continues to make a major contribution to the area’s economic progress”.