Race to the bottom between Tories and Reform easily seen in Northumberland Councillors attitudes

 

With recent you tube videos showing top Tories singing racist songs, Musk and Farage nose to nose over how far to the right Reform must slide, we note we have the managers of financial ruin, top Tory Councillors in Northumberland denying the acceptance of diversity through their attempts to slash down newly proposed housing numbers.

The fear that newcomers may bring their habits with them if they settle in an area has been hardened in through the losing Tory in the recent Conservative leadership fight, Robert Jennrick, stating that refugees and asylum seekers from nations with archaic attitudes towards women should not be allowed to settle in Britain. With social media pilots asking who he is referring to with Ireland, Poland, Romania, India and Pakistan leading the numbers of migrants entering the UK. With both right wing parties vying to become the ‘New Nasties’ following the support shown by the worlds richest man Elon Musk for Tommy Robinson.

 Reform who have ran out stories that Northumberland will have to accept migrants in numbers so high that a new town larger than Ashington will have to be build to house them and that the Tory led County Council has designed policy to in Reform’s words “Cram them in” has led to further claims and counterclaims.

 The outturn is that Northumberland Tories who have allowed almost 1,600 homes built each and every year since 2017 mostly huge executive homes leaving many of its younger residents behind. They have now decided to slash their planned housing numbers down to 549 a figure professional planners indicate will not maintain housing losses leading to an ever diminishing population.

 This shameful Council has over 435 Council homes unlet awaiting repairs with over 650 families needing social housing through the low wage culture developed over the last 14 years of successive Tory Governments and their failed Brexit.

 Housing needs are now the responsibility of the North-east Mayor who will have to cope with the constant whining from Northumberland Conservatives whose prime interest appears to be to drive workers out of their County in order that ever more holiday lets can be developed from the skeleton villages they tell all they love and cherish.

 The Conservatives constant message of ‘Labour is concreting over your County’ is fallacy and needs to be investigated by the North-east Mayor as Northumberland is the least populated County in England with absentee holiday let owners complaining they can’t hire cleaners to maintain their businesses as there’s no social housing in the villages they are investing in.

 
The new housing numbers from Government need to be grabbed by the Council and an honest survey (not a council consultation) by an independent body such as the Kings Trust to correctly determine if people would like to live in ‘living communities’ or whether they would like to live in film sets without schools, without essential services and live in fear after dark? developing a xenophobic society in our countryside instead of neighbourly societies.

 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/freedom_of_information_request_i_308#incoming-2810461

 

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/councillor-calls-on-mayor-to-stand-up-for-northumberland-on-housing-targets-4934182

Blyth Drivers lose £13m per year Yet the conservative County Council sits back on bypass roads and expects drivers to absorb greater costs.

Hiding behind failed bids to their own Government since 2017 to attempt to deliver two bypass roads for the town of Blyth which has  44,000 vehicles accessing and egressing the Town every day has become a major issue across South East Northumberland.

During 2019 the Conservative regional chairperson at the time, Councillor Wearmouth joined by Councillor Riddle the Council’s highways guru allegedly said that their ‘Council had £18m available to develop the required roads and their bid to help ease the pressure from Blyth drivers through Highways England was to save ratepayers costs if they could’.

The bid which contained the numbers of 20,000 vehicles per day on each of the two access roads, Laverock Road and Cowpen Road was not accepted by the then Government as major highways work on the A66 was announced and austerity formula’s landed on the doorstep of County Hall in Morpeth.

That situation rolled on and a further bid was clagged together in 2023 using similar figures along with some safety features which were immediately challenged by the former deputy leader of Northumberland Conservatives, Councillor Daley. His campaign won the day at County hall but led to the bid for cash from the state failing due to the ‘lack of vision and it being less safe’.

Traffic has increased greatly on Cowpen Road whilst Laverock Hall Road has remained ‘full’ with a similar 20,000 vehicles per day using the road. 

This has been a costly exercise for Blyth drivers with sitting time each day adding up using minimum wage as a measure and the new figures of 44,000 vehicles each day  reaching a staggering £13m each year in lost time.

That standing time is about to be increased further with an active travel plan to extend Blyth’s already huge active travel network by reducing the width of Cowpen Road by a third, removing all right turn pockets, setting back all junctions many behind the sight line so that cyclists can have a right of passage at all junctions. 

It's a scheme that may benefit Deliveroo employees but which has been condemned by cycling clubs who know too well how dangerous this type of scheme has developed in other areas and failed to increase active users due to the danger it causes when drivers become impatient. But Northumberland County Council wants to build this new dangerous route before they develop the long designed bypass road and its tested for success for Cowpen Road. A plan that has also been opposed by Blyth Town Councillors who are worried that this active travel route will kill off their town for good.

Exacerbating the traffic flow on Cowpen Road will endanger the viability of commerce sited along this highway and as the shopping precinct in Blyth has been recently destroyed in order to build an apprentice training facility instead of shops in the Town in the name of levelling up, people from across Blyth, Northumberland’s largest town have come to rely on the shopping experience Cowpen Road can currently offer.

With the extreme amount of time lost in travelling into and out of Blyth there has to be a better way of managing traffic flow and still retain commerce and employment in the Town, it's time Northumberland’s Morpeth based Conservatives came up with a better offer than ‘ON YER BIKE’ if you live, work or want to play in Northumberland’s largest enclave.

2015 Sustrans plan for Blyth, illustrating that the ‘academies cycleway’ would alleviate the need to narrow Cowpen Road, for cross Town travellers to access the new footbridge to Bebside Station and that the current Cowpen Road cycle path is adequate for local cyclists.

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Roads-streets-and-transport/cycling/Blyth_Sustainable_Travel_Audit_SUMMARY.pdf

The Cowpen Road narrowing scheme

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Economy-and-Regeneration/Energising%20Blyth/Bebside-to-Town-Centre-Cycle-Corridor.pdf

The Cramlington argument

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/blyth-relief-road-closure-fear-28056781