A COUNCIL has defended spending £24,000 of public money on 1,000 coronavirus testing kits it cannot use.

Middlesbrough Mayor Andy Preston has been criticised for disregarding advice from his director of public health by ordering the pinprick antibody tests.

An investigation found Mr Preston signed off the purchase of Vaxeal Lyher Combo Test Kits, which were not approved as home tests.

It is understood the kits are now in storage while the council works out what it should do with them.

The Guardian reported that a Freedom of Information request revealed emails between officials, including Mr Preston and Tony Parkinson, the chief executive of Middlesbrough council, as well as South Tees director of public health Mark Adams.

Mr Adams reportedly wrote: “I’m uncomfortable with this. It’s unlikely that we would be able to link any local testing into the test and trace programme (not easily anyway).”

Mr Adams said the test would be unable to identify people within the first ten days of infection,

He said: “This test fails at the key area. We could end up spending a huge amount of money to achieve very little.”

The tests have a CE certificate by the EU, but are yet to receive approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates medicines and medical devices in the UK.

Speaking to the Guardian, Labour MP for Middlesbrough, Andy McDonald, said: “I’m absolutely staggered that you’ve got a professional DPH, who has expressed great caution about proceeding with this. Not only that, there is no approval from the MHRA. Quite frankly, you shouldn’t spend £24,000 of public money until you’ve got the green light. You can’t make important decisions in local government on a whim.”

A Middlesbrough council spokesman said: “At all times throughout the pandemic we’ve had to act quickly and decisively. Using funding provided by the government, the test kits were purchased in good faith with the intention of raising awareness of Covid and establishing an indicative level of infection in the area. The purchase was made before national testing was commonplace.

“We’ve been unable to use the test kits so far, but discussions are ongoing with PHE and others as to how they might be used in future.”