Have Paper Picking Tories Blown Prudhoe’s Chance for Town Centre Growth.

Way back in the dark ages of 2016 an amazing growth plan was put forward by the Labour Party to help maintain and grow its retail offer in the Town Centre and then once the new offer and peoples travel choice to shop became well developed a new mixed use retail and commercial development would be opened up at Low Prudhoe to capture the huge passing trade between Newcastle/Gateshead and the West of the County and on to Cumbria, trade that has missed Prudhoe since its bypass was opened and its once famous traffic problems eased.

Labour Party gurus worked closely with Northumberland Estates and the Northumberland CountyCouncil Development Company ARCH to form a joint venture organisation to drive up jobs and increase the GDP of Prudhoe which included many new jobs in the two retail offers they were jointly engaged with.

On arrival into office at Northumberland County Council the Tories who are run by a mob from the former Castle Morpeth Borough Council and their chequered history can be found through google decided that they would fulfill their very dodgy manifesto promise and scrap the development company ARCH. 

The Tories work took them into the legal minefield of company scrappage, with the debt coverage and tax problems breaking up a Council owned company would bring, so they decided to slow its growth to a snail's pace and at huge expense to the Council Tax payer change its name to Advance Northumberland.

With the accused of corruption Castle Morpeth team fawned upon by Councillors Ken Stow and the paper picking facebook photo model Gordon Stewart, Prudhoe was forced into the passenger seat. The retail improvement scheme to bring a brighter and stronger shopping offer into the Town Centre on its redundant allotment site was moved back with the Councillors and the JV Company Prudhoe Estates concentrating on hooking in retails big boys and developing its potentially cash rich site at Low Prudhoe on the bypass.

 We have noticed that the new member of the ‘Secret Cabinet’ at County Hall in Morpeth, Gordon Stewart did take some time out to have his photo taken professionally on the Low Prudhoe site and revel in the thought that  the discounter Aldi was projected to join KFC and develop their out of town offer to the detriment of commerce on Prudhoe’s high street.