Evidence of gross underfunding of South-East Northumberland by Morpeth centred Tories.

           Letter to residents? ‘We are only going to build you half a car park’.

On the day Zoe Billingham, a director of the IPPR North think tank wrote for the Guardian on the importance of transport for levelling up England's regions saying “those living and working in the north of England, it has become achingly clear that our transport system is broken”. Residents living near the North's only new rail line development, the reopening to passenger travel of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line have received letters raising fears of being treated like second class citizens by Northumberland County Council.

The letter, reproduced on social media, explains that the project team have decided, at the first station being built in Newsham near Blyth, they are only going to build half a car park.

Coincidently today is also the first day that Northumberland Conservatives have allowed the officers of their ‘secret council’ to explain the budget and its medium term financial plan to Labour and independent opposition Councillors and they expect to ram that budget through Council in two weeks time with the backing of some of their well funded LibDem allies to carry the vote over the line. No timely public engagement expected at a series of meetings in November took place and an unsuspecting public will simply have to carry the burden of costs laid before them by Morpeth’s finest.

Building half size car parks on a reopening rail line running through an area where over 50% of Northumberland residents live will be catastrophic for residents as its reopening aligned with Newcastle and Gateshead rolling out their clean air zone scheme. 

Our research shows that in the West Midlands, residents near stations and fast bus routes into Birmingham who implemented their CAZ’s two years ago are plagued by indiscriminate parking in any space available within walking distance of a fast bus stop, tram, metro or rail line miles away from the city centre. Residents have placed enormous pressure on Councils to provide multi story out of town car parks across the West Midlands to take this burden from their doors. 

Messages from residents of homes at South Newsham and South Blyth on social media show how concerned they are with this latest cutback from the Tory led County Council and that's without the public knowing what the latest budget has nailed into it.

Although comments including ‘inflation must have forced the cost of Morpeth’s new Leisure Centre up and we are going to have to bear the costs and burden’ and the ‘secrecy surrounding the true cost of glamorising the Tory flagship county hall in Morpeth’ seemed to attract the greatest numbers of likes.

What will their cutbacks bring residents next?