Ponteland Green Belt Planning Inquiry decision - the story of the campaign and background info

The green belt is an important protection against urban sprawl, providing a green lung around towns and cities. The national planning policy framework delivers the coalition government's agreement to safeguard the green belt. Inappropriate development should not be approved in the green belt, and boundaries should be altered only in exceptional circumstances.

The area of greenbelt land between Newcastle, which is encroaching ever closer to Northumberland and Ponteland / Darras Hall in Northumberland, is particularly important because this area stands as a barrier between the two areas; once it starts to go, and we lose the green belt, we would have a genuine urban sprawl with the expanding Newcastle and the built up green belt becoming the classic urban sprawl. 

Lugano wanted to build on the green belt. They say their plan for 280 houses on 82 hectares is an exceptional development. 
The only problem is that no one agrees with this assertion:
-         not the County Council’s Planning Committee,
-         the Neighbourhood Plan group,
-         the County Council’s existing planning policies
-         the County Council’s Local Plan
-         or the 4300 local objectors identifies Birney Hill as such a site
And that is why I maintained my strong objection.


The Blog from the Planning Inquiry this spring is here:
http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/my-submission-to-ponteland-greenbelt.html


My campaign in parliament is here:
http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/greenbelt-gets-voice-in-parliament.html


The background to this and the approach of the local and national Labour Party is here:
http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-weekend-read-labours-greenbelt.html


The land we are talking about:
http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/a-long-walk-around-ponteland-green-belt.html

Green Belt Coverage and the Ponteland Green Belt AGM 16th May,7pm at the Memorial Hall

Good coverage of the Green Belt Campaign in this weeks Journal: http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-greenbelt-fight-d-day-housing-7080651
The AGM is next Friday at the Pont Memorial Hall.

Sale of Ponteland Police site undermines developers claims to need green belt

I am pleased to hear that land is being made available on a brown field site on the outskirts of Ponteland for housing. This can only undermine further the arguments of the developers who wish to build on the Ponteland Green Belt. Put simply we are addressing any housing need by brown field provision. Full story here from yesterdays paper, and in todays Journal, as well:
http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumbria-police-confirms-plans-sell-6699154

Should Newcastle Council be allowed to build on the Ponteland Greenbelt?

“The green belt is a Labour achievement, and we intend to build on it,” is one of the great John  Prescottisms of all time.

Ed Miliband has adopted the same approach: in December, in a speech he gave on Monday December 16 in Stevenage, he said that the neighbouring North Hertfordshire Council’s objection to building on the green belt should be brushed aside. This is like Newcastle Council saying we want to build on Northumberland's green belt. In where? I don't know, Ponteland perhaps? But I believe he is wrong: these are decisions that should be made in Northumberland or N Hertfordshire, not by Mr Miliband, or by the neighbouring town.

In response, the very robust Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said:
“Under Labour, housebuilding fell to its lowest peacetime rate since the 1920s. Their top-down Regional Strategies and eco-towns failed hardworking families who aspired to own their own home, building nothing but resentment.

“That’s why we have worked with local communities to help build more homes, scrapping Regional Strategies and rewarding construction via the New Homes Bonus. We are helping hardworking people up the housing ladder through Help to Buy and the reinvigorated Right to Buy. Both first time buyers and housing construction have risen to their highest level since 2007, whilst repossessions have plummeted thanks to the lower interest rates from our long term economic plan.

Labour’s policy shows this is the same old Labour party. They would allow Labour councils to forcibly rip up Green Belt protection in neighbouring councils. While their new tax on planning permission would reduce housebuilding and discourage regeneration schemes. We know there is more to do to help build homes. But this must be done by working with hardworking families in
communities across Britain, allowing councils to shape where development should and shouldn’t go via Local Plans, and safeguarding important environmental protections.”

It’s not just Mr Pickles attacking Labour on housing. The Labour MP, and former Housing Minister, John Healey is joining in. He says Labour is “preoccupied elsewhere” when it comes to making housing more affordable.

My only comment is that it is bad enough that Northumberland County Council is trying to build on our green belt. At least we have a democractic say, and a chance to influence the local authority. Under Miliband's plan, released in Stevenage before Christmas, it would be the neighbouring council that decided if we had building on our green belt. Of course, this means that my residents inNorthumberland would have no chance to object or disagree if this is what Newcastle or Miliband wants to happen. This is not socialism: it's borderline madness!

Proud to support ISOS Housing development - Grand Designs in action

In a week when we have successfully opposed the wrong sort of housing project [Birney Hill Green Belt] I wanted to write about a local housing project I was delighted to back.
If you go to Trinity Court in Corbridge you will see this beautiful building, built on a brown field site, providing everyhtoing that local people could possibly want. I opened it 3 weeks ago and the full report is here: http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk/news/corbridge-trinity-court-is-a-grand-design-for-the-elderly-says-mp-1.1093029

It cost £2.1million and the three-storey scheme has 16 flats, with 10 for rent and six available to buy on a shared equity basis.I said at the ime and I will make the point again: the design was superb. Indeed I expected Kevin McCloud, of Grand Designs, to pop out at any moment.
The new building has been specifically designed to keep residents’ living costs down. I spoke to many of the residents and it is a special building, sensitively done, by good local architects.
Everyone involved should feel very proud, and I have made the point to ISOS that we want to see more of such projects locally.

Our Green Lungs are not for sale! Peter Jacksons statement to the Community Meeting tonight

I was stuck in the Commons - and still am at 9.15, but I hear the meeting went well tonight.
This is the draft statement that Peter Jackson gave to the meeting in Ponteland. He may have paraphrased a bit, as he was on his feet, but this was his draft he prepared.

“I would like to read out a short statement on behalf of myself as the local County Councillor, and Guy Opperman, our local MP, who has been a passionate supporter of our local community but can not be here tonight as he is required in the Houses of Parliament.
I want to stress from the outset that we are fundamentally opposed to building on our greenbelt.

The greenbelt is not some obscure planning hurdle for developers to jump - but a living breathing reminder of why so many people choose to make Ponteland their home in the first place. It is the green lungs that help us breathe. This first development here at Birney Hill - and let us not forget – it will only be the first of many if it gets the go ahead - is a clear encroachment into our precious greenbelt.
This development would open the floodgates to building on the Ponteland greenbelt and would see the beginning of the end of Ponteland and Darras Hall as we know it.

If given the go ahead, this development, built on slick PR promises of cash tomorrow would see protection for the greenbelt effectively torn up. It is not wanted by 99% of our residents. The money men and big developers would have their foot in the door if this went ahead.

We must stay united as a community and not let that happen.

Fundamentally this development is not going to be Darras Hall. Nor is it going to be like Darras Hall. It proposes a hugely increased density of housing and is simply a shot across the bows for whatever Lugano have planned next.
I am sure Lugano want us to believe that this development, which they must have already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on - if not millions - is the sum total of their ambitions.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd like to remind the meeting they have already bought up another 2,500 acres of land in the area and are also acting for other landowners interested in developing their holdings in and around Ponteland and Darras Hall. This Birney Hill development is their key in the door; it would be disastrous for our greenbelt if it got the go ahead. That is why we have fought it so passionately and will continue to do so. More than 4000 local residents have raised objections. I have been a local Councillor now for many years now and been involved in more campaigns that I care to remember; and I can truly say the strength of support that Guy and I have received on the doorstep to fight these developers has been overwhelming.
As I said thousands of local residents have already submitted detailed objections, based on planning grounds, outlining why this development should be rejected. I will not repeat those arguments now as they could not be clearer. Nor do I need to tell the Committee just how valuable our greenbelt is to local people.
I want to finish by paying tribute to the local people who have come together as a community and fought for what makes our area so special.

Where other communities may have baulked at the fight, or given in, when a corporation is throwing around promises of millions, hiring a slick PR firm, and a team of expensive planning advisers...

- Our Community stood tall and refused to surrender our greenbelt simply to line the pockets of others. Lugano will need to learn that as much as they might try - Ponteland Darras Hall cannot be bought”

Well done to Alma and all the team. If you want to know more go their brilliant web site:
http://www.pontelandgreenbelt.co.uk/

A long walk around the Ponteland Green Belt

Today I spent 4 hours walking the countryside that makes up the Green Belt around Ponteland, studying what you can only see on foot. The stormy weather that had hit us so hard during the day abated to produce a sunlit windswept autumnal day; hikers, dog walkers, parents with kids and cyclists shrugged at each other as if to say - this is what we like when autumn comes. Aside from the green lungs that is the wonder of Ponteland Park it was a delight to wander the footpaths and bridleways that surround this community. I met many locals: like the Ponteland man, who works as a headteacher in a school in Newcastle. We walked the footpath back into town between the High School and the proposed site of the Banks developement. He described to me how when he returns from work in Newcastle every day the sight of the green fields on the outskits of his home town fills him with comfort and a sense of peace. It is this desire to prevent an urban sprawl, and an acknowledgement of the need to protect the green spaces around our town, that motivates the local campaigners who oppose the Banks and Lugano developments. In barely a month we will know our fate when Northumberland County Council produces its local developmeent plan, which includes the review of the green belt around Ponteland. It is our fervent wish that this green belt is protected. This is not to say that we, or I, am against development of appropriate housing. I have backed wholeheartedly the housing plans at the old Ponteland Pollice Headquarters site, which will provide hundreds of homes, and again campaigned for the several hundred more homes being built to a very high standard by Bellway, as we speak, at the Stannington Hospital site. This will more than adequately accomodate local needs. Every councillor, member of parliamnent and community activist knows that you only discover a place by walking the ground. By seeing things that are not there when we whizz by in a car. I discovered a lot today. Taking in the delights of the footpaths and cycleways, of byways like Fox Covert Lane and the old Railway you are seeing things that are not possible after overdevelopment. As I walked the hedgerows abundant with rosehips, wildflowers, and ageing blackberries I and my fellow travellers were in no doubt that the green belt is worth the struggle, worth the contest with the big beasts that are the huge developers at Lugano and Banks, and fervent in our hope that the Northumberland County Council see things the same way when the decision is made in October. My thanks to all the team of locals who have given up their time to help at http://www.pontelandgreenbelt.co.uk/ponteland-greenbelt-group/ and to all the locals who have put up their signs in their gardens and hedgerows. There has never been a local campaign like this - or not for four years at least - when we last pulled out all the stops to beat O2 mobile phone Company, who wanted to put a phone mast by the Darras Hall First School. They said that campaign was impossible to win as well!

Ponteland Green Belt campaign update

Over 2500 objections were handed in recently to County Hall objecting to green belt development. Congratulations to Alma Dunigan and her team of locals, who with the support of their four local Conservative Councillors, are fighting to protect the Ponteland Green Belt. Alma and others featured in Saturday's Journal making their case that there is minimal new housing need in the area, given the developments already going ahead at St Mary's, on the old Police Station site, and other local smaller schemes, her expression:

"Any housing develoment should be based on housing need and not developer's greed"
was quoted back to me by a local, almost word for word, over the weekend.

The company behind this are very slick, with a team of very expensive PR merchants fronting them. They spin their campaign to argue that their motives are altruistic, when it is clear that their overriding motive is profit. If this development goes ahead it will set the trend potentially for even more building on their bank of local green belt land.

The reality is that the company chose not to work with local people. They should not be surprised when we object and seek to combat the spin. I have been, and remain, fully supportive of Alma and her team.

Full details of the campaign being run and the help we are giving them visit: http://www.pontelandgreenbelt.co.uk/