Ashinton, the Northumberland town with the best prospects for an outstanding future is being hampered by the lack of vision at County Hall.
Sitting at the railhead of the newly reopened to passenger transport Northumberland Line, Ashington has a chance to harvest opportunities most Towns would love to grasp and its local Town Council have been first in the queue to push the life chances that can be brought to fruition with a vision that supersedes the hatred shown regularly from Morpeth based Councillors who run the Counties unitary all purpose council, a Morpeth centric debacle.
During 2016 that hatred overflowed when a progressive Labour Party ran Northumberland and wished to sell off Morpeth’s County Hall site for a huge sum of money that would have benefited the Council Taxpayers and construct a much lower cost to build and run office block in Ashington. The site for that office has sat empty since 2017 and became known as ‘the Ashington Hole’ synonymous with Northumberland Conservatives' wish to slow down Ashington’s future whilst building hundreds of new homes around Morpeth and investing millions towards the lost cause of keeping County Hall from falling down, and eight years on that building is still eating cash yet its only half modernised.
Something they couldn’t stop in Ashington was the reopening to passenger transport of the former Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Line although they did manage to change its historic name to the Northumberland Line.
Luckily other organisations have seen the opportunities this Labour begun reformation has brought to the Town with Northumberland Group of Colleges opting to build a new huge facility within a few hundred yards of the station which is situated right in the centre of town
But in Northumberland, there's a significant gap between the demand for social housing and the available supply, with over 14,000 residents on the waiting list for social housing. While the council reports meeting targets for affordable housing, opposition councillors argue that this doesn't address the broader need for social housing and points to a housing crisis. The situation is further complicated by factors like rising private rents, limited housing stock in rural areas, and the impact of short-term lets.
Portland Burn was to be a large site of mixed housing, some private developments and some social housing. The Conservatives in 2017 tasked Advance Northumberland to do preparatory work placing the site in their newly formed planning document the ‘local plan’.
This new move by those same Conservative Councillors announced by Councillor Nick Oliver from Corbridge, whose main vision for the area he represents is a Cycle Path from Corbridge to shops in Hexham to let the more athletic of his flock tear the heart out of businesses in his own village is to ‘Sell the environmental credits developers must buy or invest in and create what's already being described as both ‘Bunny Town’ and the ‘new Ashington Hole’ at Potland Burn.
It's an abysmal move from a regularly shocking Local Authority, this Authority already has masses of environmental projects that need to be invested in, A large-scale nature recovery project is underway near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. The project, called Hadrian's Wall Wetlands Landscape Recovery project, will transform 4,400 hectares of farmland and forestry into a more biodiverse and climate-resilient landscape. This initiative is part of the broader Hadrian's Wall: Recovering Nature project, launched in 2023, and aims to enhance the area's natural and cultural heritage while tackling climate change and biodiversity loss.
As an all-purpose Unitary Council Northumberland is actively engaged in restorative farming practices and countryside management, with a focus on integrating farming with nature recovery, climate change mitigation, and public enjoyment of the landscape. The region leverages initiatives like the Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) programme and agri-environment schemes to support farmers in adopting nature-friendly farming methods and enhancing biodiversity. Also several initiatives are underway to restore and protect Northumberland's coastline, including dune restoration, river habitat improvements, and coastal clean-up projects. These efforts aim to enhance biodiversity, improve water quality, and manage coastal erosion.
These are the projects that deserve to be bolstered by Environmental Credits from developers but using land where a huge drainage project was commenced in in 2019 for building to be used to fill the coffers of the County Council who may cut a few walking swathes in this land and get volunteers to plant a few trees needs to be investigated both by the Council’s external auditor and the Government when 15% of the Councils families sit on the waiting list for council owned social housing with progress on any development working out at three per year and hundreds of homes which could be brought back into use being described negatively in Council minutes.
Notes:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqle55kg6xwo
https://lifewader.co.uk/life-wader-project-to-bring-bamburgh-dunes-back-to-life
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/northumberland-nature-planned-stranded-asset-151702756.html
https://ascent-homes.co.uk/news/enabling-works-start-on-potland-burn
https://www.ashingtontowncouncil.gov.uk/widescope/resources/agreed-fgs130224.pdf
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