At 3pm on the day before Building was due to take the train to Teesside to interview Ben Houchen, the region’s 34-year-old Conservative mayor, his team cancelled because an “urgent ministerial meeting” had come up. It was unfortunate, but these things happen and politics can be unpredictable. 

A new date was arranged and a second set of train tickets were booked. So on a grey autumn day two weeks later, your reporter found himself exploring a dreary business park in Stockton-on-Tees in search of the Tees Valley Combined Authority headquarters. The empty room prepared for the interview did not look promising and indeed, 30 minutes later, there was still no sign of the mayor.