Council leader vows to restore safety after nine deaths in Redcar area within a week
Alec Brown, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, has called an urgent meeting with police and housing providers after nine people, including two police officers, died in a car crash and a house fire in the space of a week.
The leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council has said that people in the community “deserve to feel safe in their own homes” after nine lives were lost in a car crash and a house fire within the space of a week. Alec Brown told Radio 4’s Today programme that he had called an urgent meeting on Friday among councillors, police and social housing providers, following the deaths that have shaken the Teesside area.
On Saturday, seven people died in a car crash at South Bank, near Middlesbrough. Two police officers, PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough, were killed when a Volkswagen Passat travelling the wrong way on the A66 struck their vehicle. The five young men in the Volkswagen also died. Police have since arrested 17 people, aged between 18 and 61, across Teesside as part of an investigation into the lead-up to the crash; they have been held on offences including possession of a firearm and being part of an organised crime group.
On Wednesday, a house fire in nearby Grangetown claimed the lives of Natalie McDonald, 34, and her seven-year-old niece, Valentina Foster. A 48-year-old woman remains in a critical condition in hospital, while three others suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Two men, aged 23 and 31, have been arrested on suspicion of murder and are in police custody. Cleveland Police said it was “keeping an open mind” about the fire and could not “rule out any links to wider organised crime at this time”.
Brown acknowledged that people from parts of Middlesbrough and Redcar might feel “left behind”. Speaking from personal experience, he said: “I’m from an estate, from the same ilk. You live around people that may be suffering poverty or other social issues, it can be that uniform sort of consciousness that ‘we’re left behind’. But I can assure the people of Grangetown and South Bank – they’re as important to me as a people from any other state in the borough and we’re working tirelessly to ensure that they do feel safe in their own houses.” The council leader’s comments underscored the deep unease gripping the community, as residents confront a week of unprecedented tragedy and police continue their inquiries into possible links between the incidents.