Andy Cooper’s brilliant article in the north east bylines only scratches the surface of Northumberlands ‘Local Plan’ problems

May 2017 the Tory lothario & fall guy Councillor Peter Jackson, famous for two of things he did whilst toxifying the County Council was to state that County Hall “only needed a lick of paint” with the extremely expensive remodeling of that building running into its sixth year of abusive waste of public cash and his signing of the International Agreement with Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust a happening he and his Tory mob mates from Morpeth have openly denied ever since.

Unfortunately the regular writers who point out Britain's only secretive council’s failings may have missed the biggest failings of all, the removal of the Council’s core strategy from inspection by Government, the issuing of arguably the worst legal advice in local government history over its reinstatement and the Core Strategies replacement with a divisive local plan which Andy Copper’s article exposes in Hexham. ‘The complete and utter lack of social housing in all of Northumberlands market towns as the Local Plan dumps the national housing numbers into the South-East and Amble areas to cover off the Government’s ridiculous wishes.

Social and affordable housing relies on the profit level which developers can scoop up. The dumping of huge estates of cheap by National and County price standards four bed detached young executive homes into urban Northumberland denies the Council access to funds to build or even buy up homes to redevelop for affordable rent levels.

After six years of housing manipulation by the Tories in office at the palatial and almost void County Hall in Morpeth the effects of a dodgy local plan is beginning to hit home hard with ultra right-wing rural Tories complaining about the closure of schools,the rundown of high streets and trade disappearing out of the tourist season as the missing social housing and the inability to build through nimby fear of Tory councillors has led to a disfunctional future for Conservatives who reside outside of Castle Morpeth and some within those bounds who don’t cow tow to the mob in charge.

https://northeastbylines.co.uk/no-housing-justice-in-picturesque-hexham/