Eilleen Burt as a Labour candidate in Prudhoe West Ward

                            (one of our challenges, the delightful but antiquated 1883 access to the A69)



Here is an open letter sent to Prudhoe Town Councillor Eilleen Burt and now County Council candidate for Labour in our ward

Dear Eilleen

Firstly may I congratulate you on announcing your candidacy for the county council Prudhoe West Ward where I live.

I try not to take sides but respect all mainstream viewpoints and debate with them.


You will probably know I help to voluntarily admin
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Take-Pride-in-Prudhoe-2012/244877205624467>

We welcome Prudhoe's politicians engaging in debate there. All we try to do as admins is to keep it polite.

I wonder if you have found <http://robertatforsythe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/prudhoe-election-year-vision.html> and other things I have written about Prudhoe there.

If you succeed in your campaign. I very much hope you will be able to keep Prudhoe in the limelight and to make it a 21st century town.

For my money that phrase 21st century is so important. The last year has revealed much across Northumberland about how Northumberland Estates operate. Surely not an approach the Labour party condones? Landlordism at its worst?

What will you offer the local community by way of engagement with its landowner to review the town centre development whilst it appears in hiatus to change it to something meeting broader appreciation?

I passionately think the sites needs development but it needs a 21st century project and the one on offer is from the 1980s. Who would design a new supermarket that does NOTHING to get public transport to the front door? One of many many deficiencies.

Other subjects I take an interest in include public transport and the landscape. Prudhoe has a wealth of surrounds and history. It is a glorious place to live and it can be better. A vision for green infrastructure is being drawn to the PCP's attention on the 16 April. Will you speak up for that?

Only in the last few weeks have I been shown a hidden colliery landscape of the 1870s still in existence in Prudhoe and on county land. This should be an asset. It is a remarkable survival.

People like Peter Nevin have done a lot for Prudhoe's public transport. Despite which changes in March will mean that the south and west of the town are very poorly served. How could Ferndene appear with no public transport?

Peter wants to see the interchange completed with more parking and decent waiting areas. He knows how it can be done. I support him. Will you?

I should say I am a member of the Tyne Valley Line Rail Users Group (only a fiver payable by Pay Pal), a board member of Tyne Valley Line Community Rail Partnership and on the PCP Transport Working Group.

I hope before the election Prudhoe debates its future. Will you be making arrangements to set up a public debate or hustings in The Spetchells?

I always welcome converse and debate either on line or in person. And should you knock on our door you can come prepared with answers to my questions.

Principles for developing a new town centre in Prudhoe

About two years ago I first launched off into the subject of Prudhoe Town Centre floating the concept of The Hanging Gardens of Prudhoe. Perhaps that was open to mis-interpretation? A great deal has happened since then and a great deal had already happened by October 2010. Yet in November 2012 and despite the award of planning permission on June 20th 2012 to the Duke of Northumberland for a new town centre there is little imminent sense of anything about to happen, Two factors in the present hiatus are perhaps at work. One might be Spencer Court at Newburn. The other is not a might be but a certainty. All along through the present scheme, the people of Prudhoe believed Sainsbury was on board as the operator of the planned supermarket. But during late October 2012 (earlier in some people's minds) Sainsbury made it very clear from CEO level that they were having nothing to do with the Prudhoe scheme and had no present ambition to open a supermarket here.

What happens next? Potentially nothing which for those properties neighbouring and thereby blighted is a dismal thought. The Duke has his planning permission (or does he because "Section 106" is not yet signed off?). He can sell it on, he can find another supermarket (would any other chain going into the detail of this complex and controversial project make a different call to Sainsbury?). He could seek to vary the consent and perhaps just build houses. Or he could say the way this has gone on these last few years has not produced any winners, how else could things be made to work?

What follows is blue sky thinking on the assumption that either the landowner wishes to work with the community to deliver aspirations welcomed by both groups or the landowner has been persuaded to sell the land to a body like the Prudhoe Community Partnership and there is then the promise of a community led redevelopment.

What sort of principles in designing a new town centre in 2012 could be adopted?

Suggested watchwords: 21st century, respect for one's neighbours, work with not against the hillside, a new supermarket is desirable, provision for artizan/small town scale operations which draw the folk to the community, the new Legion building, something cutting edge for creatives/self employed/internet cafe/studio style business, build on the solid gardening traditions of the site, the Alnwick Garden and the Prudhoe Gardeners Association,  ensuring that the non-car owning public have ready access to the core of any new development (that is not so with what is on offer see here), ensuring a brand name or strap line exists from early in the project to give it life and suggest it is a destination, using the tools of 21st century social media to develop the concept and to maintain a FAQ during its implementation (e.g. Second Life visuals).

Who would lead? If the Prudhoe Community Partnerhip took a lead, they would need to retain "honest broker/mentor skills" from development experts. A range of such agencies local and national exist. In no particular order I suggest some:

http://www.theglasshouse.org.uk/ Glasshouse

http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm Building Living Neighbourhoods

http://www.northernarchitecture.com/home.html Northern Archictecture

http://www.xsitearchitecture.co.uk/ Xsite architecture and Tim Bailey

http://bardonmill-villagehall.co.uk/ Bardon Mill's 21st century partially underground village hall

http://www.designbykiosk.co.uk/about.aspx Christoph Oschatz and Design by Kiosk in Bensham

https://www.facebook.com/ArchDaily ArchDaily

Sainbury's have walked from Prudhoe

On the 1st of August 2012 I blogged about the degree of silence that followed the 20th June 2012 granting of planning permission by Northumberland County Council to Northumberland Estates for a new town centre in Prudhoe. News has come through this week that Sainsbury has walked from the Prudhoe project. Doubtless more will need to be said once it becomes clear how terminal this blow is.

Is the Prudhoe Town Centre redevelopment abandoned and if so Why?

A month ago the Prudhoe Town Centre redevelopment scheme looked all set to receive its planning permission after years of twists and turns. About a day beforehand, the meeting was cancelled. Since then something of a catch all about legal advice and the applicant being required to submit more information has sufficed by way of explanation. I have asked councillors, the chairman of the Prudhoe Community Partnership who is also the vicar, for explanations. Nothing in any detail is forthcoming. The Hexham Courant has hardly been able to expand the knowledge base. This week its publishes two letters from opposing sides of the spectrum: Peter Gallagher and Tony Williamson. Sometimes people wonder why I don't get more involved in the actual political structures. Read those letters for an answer. It is mudslinging and misunderstanding on both sides and that is not something I wish to take part in. Nonetheless this inability to communicate between the various parties may go far in explaining why this process has become so frustrating over many years. The process goes back some years before the original application for the current scheme was submitted in 2007. Now in bullet point form, I intend to list out some of the reasons why I suspect if the current scheme is dead, that is so. Tony Williamson's letter (pro) seemed to suggest it is dead although on what evidence I do not know. Perhaps the results of the Sainsbury consultation this September were so negative as to disincentivise them?

• At the outset the scheme should have had a vision and a name. One that encapsulated the excitement of what was on offer. I have several times in this blog referred to The Hanging Gardens of Prudhoe. This was not a random choice and only incidentally was meant to allude to a fate for the protagonists. The Hanging Gardens concept is one of antiquity and refers to the hillside. The space for the development is the last open space left within Prudhoe's centre. It sits on one of Prudhoe's greatest assets: its hillside. The development owner is famed for the Alnwick Garden. It is basic common sense that the two be combined and that above everything else encompassing the shops and the houses, there would be a Garden experience of such notability that it made Prudhoe a destination. A multi storey car park or a Supermarket facade could have become an exercise in hydroponics. People with memories in Prudhoe realise that the Co-Op development and its car park destroyed a very pleasant park.
• As such the scheme needed to be 21st century in nature. I often asked those for the scheme to outline for me its 21st century elements. They never have because it is'nt. It is a scheme from the 1980s. And it never really took cognisance of its hillside location. The hillside became a problem not an asset. And that is how we ended up with Berlin Walls, sound barriers and massive blocks of development overlooking houses.
• An element of a 21st century scheme would have been efficient communication to sell the project. A regularly maintained website with an updated FAQ responsive to questions could have worked wonders. The site is surrounded by houses and the proposed development literally looks down on many. Pleasing the neighbours should always have been paramount to remove objections. IT could have helped this, instead the developers seemed to stir up a hornet's nest amongst their intended neighbours.
• The information provision was always poor. Dumping huge arrays of files in the library and calling that consultation was anything but. Again a website could have had a 3d walkthrough, which, had the plan had inherent excitement, could have convinced the doubters. It simply did not seem that Northumberland Estates ever wanted to enthuse the community. It looked as if they took them for granted. It certainly did when as this blog shows the Estate has spent months claiming on its own website to have planning permission for the project when it had nothing of the sort. A public consulation inviting responses took place in August/September of this year and not a word about the results has yet been forthcoming.
• Four elements of detail (at least) excited consistent adverse comment (other commentators may suggest more). The big three for me were the multi storey car park, the restrictive covenants on the shops and the new junction on station bank. Each of these three it seemed to me was unwelcome and unworkable. Probably the one highest on my agenda and those I spoke to, were the restrictive covenants. It looked like swopping one supermarket monopoly for another. The knowledge that at the end of all the upheaval, a whole genre of shops would be excluded like a butchers, wholefood (Holland and Barratt), a Thorntons, a fishmonger was amazing. Just what sort of town centre was this going to be for the largest town in Tynedale?
• The fourth element really became evident this summer and perhaps it was this that pulled the meeting on the 19th October? The situation with the drains and the sewers. I have heard so many incompatible versions of this. One argument says that the development was actually going to solve the problem because it was to have a separate drainage system to the river. If so that was not made clear in Fairhurst's summary handed out in October 2010. Another argument says that the Estate maintained there was no springwater on the site when clearly there is. What appears to have driven the point home was the event of 6th August when it became manifestly clear that Prudhoe's current drainage system was not working. The simple point to me is that Prudhoe operates with a 600' hydraulic head and that unless development is exactingly married to that fact, some dramatic problems will arise.
• It is evident that the matter of leadership and trust comes into this. Whether in respect of the springwater or their claim to already have planning permission, the Estate lost the community's confidence. The Duke never once came the 3o miles to engage with the population. The whole affair of the Judicial Review articulated this. The proposal was rejected once by a judge and although it could be argued this was on a technicality, commentators like the Hexham Courant certainly interpreted this as a rebuff to the Estate's plan which had already then attracted thousands of objectors. I certainly thought that when the plans were represented at a consultation in St Mary's Parish Hall in October 2010, one would see a radically changed scheme taking account of the many concerns which by then were well known. I remember being amazed by what I saw and I remember the inescapable mood of those in that room. They were angry. More than anything else, this was the moment I decided to start quietly taking soundings amongst people as I met them. Gradually over several months, I became astonished at what I learnt. Very successful business people were explaining to me exactly why the proposed scheme would not work. Other people were expressing amazement that successful businesses like the existing snooker hall were going to be sacrificed with no arrangements for their replacement. I was very surprised to discover that this did not seem to concern the Prudhoe Community Partnership.
• A very sad consequence of all of this as the letters in the Courant have consistently shown is that the landowner's scheme has entirely divided the community. It is not difficult to find heated arguments developing over the affair. Neighbour can quite literally fall out with neighbour. Since the landowner in this instance is not some absent commercial entity but the feudal landlord, I judge that to be somewhat scandalous.
• As Tony Williamson's letter says, the land will be developed. It cannot be left. If indeed the Northumberland Estates/Sainsbury scheme is dead, how might I suggest going forward? The asset of the land and its view is so valuable to the community that the Prudhoe Community Partnership should raise funds to buy the land and find a new development partner. One who would really work with this community to develop a scheme which would enthuse the community. Perhaps the result will not be a Sainsbury? It might be a Morrisons or an Aldi. I don't mind. I never objected to a new supermarket. The Co-Op as I repeatedly say to myself when forced into it, has not made any friends by its pricing or stocking policy (Consett offers a vastly wider array of supermarkets and other food outlets all competitively priced). So by all means lets have a new supermarket, some more housing, shops that allow for a butchers, but in all that let us make sure that the development treats the hillside in such an exciting manner that it will become the positive talk for 50 miles around.

The Prudhoe Town Centre Meeting 5th September 2009

From my Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001912940850

Robert Forsythe

‎"But Mr Barnes told the meeting at Prudhoe High School: “It isn’t possible to have a new town centre, if that’s what Prudhoe wants, without some people being affected.”

Read More http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2011/09/06/we-ll-be-encased-in-a-concrete-wall-61634-29369219/#ixzz1X9WNu1A1"

‘We’ll be encased in a concrete wall’ - Today's News - News - JournalLive

www.journallive.co.uk

PLANS to redevelop the centre of a Northumberland town were last night slammed as “a disgrace” by angry residents.

· · Share · 6 minutes ago

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    Robert Forsythe If Mr Barnes listened to other architects and read my blog or Facebook he might understand that you could have a town centre redevelopment much more in harmony with both the 21st century and the hillside at Prudhoe than the one Northumberland Estates propose. His take it or leave it attitude, his cannot make an ommelete without breaking a few eggs approach is at the root of why so many people in Prudhoe find Northumberland Estate's treatment of this community deeply offensive. There are a few people within Prudhoe who suggest we should accept second or third best. They should reflect deeply on the concerns in the minds of hundreds of people last night.
    

    about a minute ago ·
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  I was not at the meeting last night. I did not need to be. There were hundreds of people wanting to put their point of view and be heard. My wife was one of them. The little clip I reproduce from this morning's Journal well sets the tone. Co-incidentally yesterday afternoon a new consultation brochure came through the post. It is uploaded along with some comment here. Not to point out that this is a multi storey car park or that the only food retail is Sainbury is to be economical with the actualite.

The Hanging Gardens of Prudhoe AKA Prudhoe Town centre Redevelopment

"Write me two paragraphs outlining the 21st century nature of the Duke of Northumberland's intended revelopment of Prudhoe town centre"

"We'll demolish one small monstrosity and replace it with a huge one"

"That looks like something out of the 1970s"

"Landlordism at its worst"

"Where's the hanging gardens of Prudhoe?"

"Is that a car park I see from 10 miles away?"

"That's a nice traffic jam on Station Bank and its not even snowing"

"Where's the butchers?"

"Is this a hard or soft development?"

"Do you travel from Prudhoe to shop in Blaydon shopping precinct?"

"A smaller town centre which thrives is better than a larger one that does not"

"At long last Prudhoe is going to get something Hexham has'nt: a multi storey car park"

For perhaps half of our 20 years in Prudhoe, the issue of Prudhoe town centre has bubbled on. Maybe it is longer. Because at heart I am not a controversalist, I have kept my head down on this issue. On Friday 22nd October 2010, something happened which broke that.

Myself, my wife and a good friend attended a presentation about the Duke's plans. This was in the light of a Judicial Review having quashed the County Council's granting of planning permission previously. What I saw at this presentation left me dumbstruck. I could not conceive that after so much process, a landowner could ignore so much complaint and offer a project that was so unimaginative and behind the times.

So now we try to explain. The one liners above are good debating points and we would defend each. It is sad if some sound negative and personal but my understanding is that the Duke, the landowner, has never personally put himself before the people of Prudhoe in an attempt to create a project that delivered across the spread of agendas. His solution has been consistently impositional rather than inspirational and consensual. And therein lies the Problem.

Some folk have thought our comparison with Blaydon a bit mean. Actually we do go to Blaydon, they sell some nice cheap vegetables there but we don't go for the destination experience. It is very clear that the shopping precinct there has drained life from the old Front Street whilst at the same time, the rate of unit turnover within shows it struggles with its own economies.

It ought to have been straightforward for a family with the wealth of the Duke of Northumberland and with the track record of Alnwick Garden to come up with the creativity, that when offered a prime hillside location in a beautiful valley, the resulting proposal wowed the mind and delighted the senses. A car park could have become a leading piece of vertical gardening or farming which brought people hundreds of miles to Prudhoe to see the result. A landmark which made every traveller on the A69 turn for the colour of the planting rising into the sky.

But throughout the whole torrid process that is the Prudhoe redevelopment, this connectivity between the talents that the Percy family evidently have and those charged with exciting the citizens of Prudhoe has been signally absent. Instead it looks as if the assumption is: that so long as there is a Sainsbury (which I would welcome), then that will please those who live in Prudhoe. We who live here are not people with aspirations, we will take what we are given and be grateful. Yet the reaction of the folk of Prudhoe has shown how wrong that assumption is.

Aside from the failure of the grand vision, it seems listening to the people at the presentation that there are plenty of serious everyday concerns. They have been heard before: how will Station Bank function. The paperwork handed out offered a bland assurance that there is no problem. There's the drains and the inhabitants of Castlefield. There are plenty of other issues but what personally gets me is the subtlety of the language of the information sheet I was handed. It offered a mix of non-food and food units. It did not make clear that THE food unit is Sainsbury and as I understand what I have read, if I asked to open a butcher in one of the other units, I would be shown the door.

The lack of a butcher in Prudhoe shows the tragedy of all this. We live in one of the most meaty counties in England. There are wonderful butchers in Hexham, Corbridge, Brampton and in farms not so far away from Prudhoe - if you have a car. Yet for about 18 years I think, the only butcher meat vended in a town of 12,000 has come from the Co-Op. We regularly buy our meat in Galloway, or from Wishart of Greenside, whose van we have persuaded to reach Lime Grove.

The Duke of Northumberland wields perhaps the balance of power in Prudhoe and above all else it is sad that there is such a disjunction between what the town really needs and what its owner thinks is good for it. What is the way forward?

A range of routes are possible. The Duke could recognise that his impositional solution to the Town Centre is extremely unpopular in this community. At the far extreme,the entire project could be withdrawn voluntarily and the land offered at market value to Prudhoe Community Partnership. The PCP would then fundraise to buy the land and then as a proper community venture the redevelopment should be planned to properly reflect the aspirations of those who live in the community.

Another solution would be for the Duke to withdraw wholly the present scheme and restart with something like these thoughts in mind. These start with Page 7 of Friday 22nd October 2010's Hexham Courant which should be looked at. Bardon Mill's planned village hall. How exciting, contemporary and how green can you go? And designed by a North East Architect. Why has not this been the style for a new development proposed for this hillside here? Why are we building up brick and concrete structures high on a hillside looking down on new estates and visible for miles? We have a sloping hillside so why are we not building into it. Why does'nt the facade of all the development look out to the north in a series of terraces? Why is'nt the car parking underground at the south side of the development?

Town centre developments have been done like this. Edinburgh Tourist Office is in one. Here's another
http://www.themall.co.uk/my-mall/norwich/index.aspx
http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Website/castlemalldevelopment.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/funstuff/360/castle_mall_360.shtml

Norwich Castle Mall put underground right beside Norwich Castle. It could hardly have been a more sensitive sight.

So let's entirely rethink the whole Town Centre proposal. Let's only have one storey max above ground, let's get the vehicles underground from an access/exit on Front Street (down one access, up the next), and let's have nothing on Station Bank. Let's excavate large holes (Thompson's would be good for that) and then backfill them to create the spaces. Let's have a small one storey building area where the car park, legion and old dairy buidings are. Let them be traditional in feel. There's a town square. Let there be escalator entrances leading underground from here, and perhaps a T shape on two levels is envisaged. The walkway is in the middle of the vertical element of the T and on the south inside face of the cross of the T. This T shaped development spreads down and across the hill. All you see from outside is glittering glass and vegetation. Each unit domestic, residential or offices faces east, west or north from the T. The whole is covered in grass or vegetation on top. It use solar panels and strives to be energy neutral. The storm drainage could be used to generate power. I wonder what the energy designs of the current project are?

There's the grand design for Prudhoe. And you call it the Hanging Gardens of Prudhoe and it puts Prudhoe on the map of Britain. The name is so important and another evidence regarding the failure of the current proposal. These have no grand vision despite the site and are entirely mediocre (cf Cramlington Towncentre from the same stable, but at least that is not visible for miles away presenting a car park jutting out of a hillside with side aspect brick facades reminscent of a jail). A key name for the project should have been there from the outset, controlling what was going to come, and exciting the community.
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The reality of course is that landowners wield a huge amount of power. I am not anti-landowner but would wish anyone in that position to reckon with being a steward for what they have under the judgement of God. Pragmaticism realises that the community of Prudhoe has fought this very hard and unless prepared for more bitter struggle may have to compromise. There follow a series of bullet points inspired from the Environmental Statement. They include specific references to how the present development could be greened with what is already proposed:

Bullet points to show this:

1 That car park North Facade should be intensively presented with a soft face. This could be something like the B&Q gardens at Scotswood. It could be a community orchard terraced up the side of the car park. There is plenty of expertise available locally to advise on community orchards. Their proponents were at Hexham Farmer's Market on Satuday. (As currently planned, there must be every likelihood that this car park will become notorious as one the coldest and windiest multi stories in the UK).

2 It seemed to me most if not all of the structural facings are in brick? Have I got that right? Where is the variety? Throughout the development a range of facings could be employed. Faience, terracotta, tilling (where is the tiled Tyneside pub in this?), local stone, art deco, 1930's streamlining like the Belvedere Whitley Bay or a Burtons. A whole range of motifs are out there which if you promised them to the citizens of Prudhoe would show that something original was happening. Prudhoe is in fact a mix at present and my hunch is that people like that variety and mix.

3 It is not just requiring a variety of facings, but the softening agenda could also be futuristic. There is case for looking closely at how much hydroponical gardening or farming could be worked into all this, both the buildings and the retaining walls and sound barriers. Soft vegetation absorbs sound.

I know that new thinking comes with risk but if the objective is that Prudhoe becomes a destination, you link Alnwick Garden, hydroponics and this hillside here and you offer something really different. Something potential office renters will say ,we want to be in Prudhoe to be part of this. Otherwise Viscount Allendale's farm conversions for offices in neighbouring parishes are far more attractive and contemporary.

If Hydroponics is fresh to the reader here are some more urls:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/29/vertical-farms-urban-food
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
http://www.valcent.eu/
http://www.simply-hydroponics.com/103/vertical-farming/
and more at Gardening and the visual
http://www.green-walls.co.uk/?gclid=CL7Eh_a57aQCFdv92Aod8H2c1g
http://www.1-hydroponics.co.uk/miscellaneous/hydroponic-vertical-garden.html
(these ones really show what I could enjoy)

There is a heading in the ES about Ecology and that should be utterly full of the above. It is empty in the statement. It should be boasting about how the new development contributes.

4 Transport is green. I am not satisfied with the comments in the summary under Traffic and Transportation. It fascinates me to know when the studies were done on Prudhoe Station Bank. Yes at time it is quite quiet, at other times it is a disgrace to what motor vehicles do to a community. I cannot begin to see how at school times and peak hours and in poor weather Station Bank will not be a nightmare with this proposal. There is absolutely no mention of the bus services. Are the existing stops to be used? Will bus users walk to the development? Are there route diversions and new stops planned? Have Go Ahead North East and the public transport team at County Hall been consulted?

5 Finally to engage the community and to be 21st century, there should be a website on which all the plans are visible. The idea that a few hard copies of intimidating documentation are deposited in a library and that this is consultation is not acceptable nowadays. A website showing exactly how the proposal will sit in the landscape and allowing the viewer to virtually walk through the development should have been practical at any point since 2000.