Stantec lands Tees Valley spatial strategy in early devolution push

Stantec has won the commission to write the Tees Valley spatial development strategy, one of the first formal SDS contracts under the government's push to hand more planning power to regional authorities.

The 20-year framework will set the region's housing targets, coordinate strategic infrastructure, and map out economic growth zones. It also has to account for environmental goals and what the brief calls "climate resilience" – a requirement that is becoming standard in English spatial plans.

Stantec's team includes communications firm Camargue, urban planning and design specialist Prior + Partners, commercial property consultant Montagu Evans, and strategic planning adviser Richard Wood Associates. The group will run a public engagement programme and publish the outputs, an approach designed to make complex planning issues accessible to residents and businesses across the Tees Valley.

Regeneration of former industrial sites will be a central thread, alongside housing delivery and infrastructure needs. The Tees Valley has a concentration of brownfield land from its heavy-industry past, and the strategy will have to balance redevelopment of those sites with new housing on greenfield land – a tension that has tripped up other regional plans.