Empty Councillor Mindset Has to pull its socks up, change and deliver.

 

Northumberland, the most sparsely populated County in England has had its meager local plan questioned by Labours deputy leader Angela Rayner.

She has been given the opportunity to improve the number of available homes outside London to meet the needs of the nation and deliver a mix of private, social and affordable homes, creating jobs for life in a now static building trade and grow the nation’s economy from within.

Northumberland County Council is famous among local authorities through the view of its Conservative team leader Councillor Richard Dodd who during the formation of its Core Strategy spoke about affordable homes when he pointed out the ‘homes in Darras Hall (central to the north-East’s millionaire belt) are affordable for some’. That attitude has continued ever since. 

Those same conservatives removed the Council's core strategy from inspection by Government in 2017 pulling the plug on its own government and prince of Wales garden village scheme into the bargain then three years later replaced it with the now questionable local plan.

The Council, which under the last Labour administration delivered 100 council houses each year, hasn't delivered any since the Tories took over this Council in 2017.

It also has a massive second home problem and over 2600 void properties that could be brought back into use but it seems housing need isn’t a priority for the Tories in Northumberland having let its list of families in greatest need grow to over 14,000. An absolute disgrace for a county so sparsely populated. Northumberland is home to a real housing crisis indeed, please mind the pun.

With the Councils plan seemingly so weak that it is allowing villages to die and schools close due to lack of both families in residence and massively lower populations during autumn and winter due to the out of kilter number of second homes it’s a good thing to have Angela Rayner pressurise this Council into ensuring development is paramount to council thinking and policy decisions help people get a roof over their heads with sofa surfing outnumbering water sports persons in a county with Britains third longest coastline.

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/24499755.possible-rise-northumberlands-housing-targets-criticised/