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/
