THE report into the flying circus that was the airshow at Teesside airport is very clear in the way it lays out all the failings that led up to the fiasco.

Yet it is not clear at all as to who takes any responsibility for a shambles which has damaged the region’s reputation.

The report tells of how planning meetings were poorly attended and poorly minuted, and how action points were allowed to lie, but it does not say who was in overall command and supposed to be drawing all those strings together.

It tells of how the traffic management plan was based on a 2016 report, which was drawn up before Teesside relaunched itself as a major passenger airport. Yet no authority seems to have questioned that, although we should be grateful that one brave spark piped up to point out that the arrows appeared to be going the wrong way on the plans.

And it tells how the traffic management company didn’t see the need to share the fact that it would take four hours to process all the cars attending – so for a 12 o’clock start, people needed to be queuing by 8am. Was this ever likely to happen?

No one is able to explain why when the traffic management report called for 12 staff to be on duty, there were only five – with some of them apparently sitting in their cars as the chaos engulfed them. Who made that decision to have half the required number of staff, and who was in charge on the day?

The report lays bare that this was a fiasco waiting to happen and yet no one took any responsibility in trying to prevent it. No one from the Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen down through the councils on the advisory board to the police, who seem to have been content to be absent, to the private companies running the show.

This should not have happened. Practically every weekend in our area, there are events that attract crowds of 20,000: football matches, pop concerts, race meetings, agricultural shows…

It could have been so much more serious: what if the emergency services had been caught up in the traffic chaos when called to a life threatening situation?

It is such a shame – there was a great aerial programme on offer so this could have been a hugely memorable event.

And it is important. Our area wants a reputation for putting on top notch events that can attract a global crowd, but will anyone be enticed along by this?

Two scenarios now lie ahead. Firstly, the report will just be put down to experience and forgotten about because its author, the airport managing director Phil Forster, seems adamant that there will not be another airshow in the foreseeable future.

Or secondly, someone will take responsibility. Someone will say it was not good enough. Someone will say that the report exposes real shortcomings in how the authorities in our region work together. Someone will say we will should, can and will do better in the future so that our area’s reputation is enhanced by hosting successful and innovative events.

And we guess that that has to be the ultimate owner of the airport and cheerleader for the airshow, the Tees Valley Combined Authority.