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/

Hexham Annual General Meeting

Annual General Meetings are a good barometer of the state an association is in: tonight's meeting in the Beaumont Hotel was well attended by a broad cross section of the community, from Bellingham to Ponteland, featuring young and not so young - from all walks of life. The great thing about this association is the way it is so united.

After the formal business of the election of the officers and the Chairmans report the head of the Unitary Council Conservative Group, Peter Jackson, gave an update on what the Councillors are doing in the brave new world of Unitary. Putting it simply they are making the best of a bad job. Then Peter Atkinson MP gave a speech outlining the view from Westminster and the efforts David Cameron and the team are making to combat Brown and the slow slide into a ever bigger morass of debt. He also explained with relish how he was looking forward to taking me on the Summer Tour - with all the trips up byways and dead ends that it so wonderfully features!
After that it was my turn to explain what we are doing locally, the campaigns we are running in West Prudhoe, Hexham, Ponteland and Corbridge, the extensive details of our 3 1/2 week plan for the Euro Election campaign and the increased activity in the association - with supper clubs, a new conservative future, and a sense of optimism and going forward.

James McCardle had found a wonderful quote from the minutes of the 1950 address by the then new prospective parliamentary candidate Rupert Spier, which described how upon standing he was received with "rapturous applause and acclamation". I told this story and indicated that I accepted that times had changed and that I did not expect such a reception...

After the formal business we all went to the bar and put the world to rights ... a good evening all round