The election is a looming and I would like to know what Labour offers Prudhoe

An open letter sent directly to my county councillor

Dear Eileen

You are my county councillor. About 70 days hence is the election. I googled “Councillor Eileen Burt” and this is the result. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22Councillor+Eileen+Burt&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=oerqVPuCIpf3aoP_gbAJ#q=%22Councillor+Eileen+Burt%22 . Going forward the Labour party has the opportunity to persuade folk to vote. I am interested in knowing your vision of what Prudhoe might expect to gain from a Labour party win and if this was repeated, what policies there are say over a 12 year period to change the town. Specifically will the Labour party be supporting the creation of a Neighbourhood Plan as other communities in Tynedale now have? What is the Labour party policy towards the electrification of the Tyne Valley Railway line and will this be the means to remove the Pacer trains?  As a local councillor what further improvements are visualised at our railway station and with our road network? I believe the expansion of Prudhoe calls for a new B road from Ebchester in the Derwent Valley to the Horsley interchange on the A69 with a new bridge crossing of the Tyne starting from the east end of Princess Way. This will not happen quickly but unless it features in policy it will never happen. The railway station this year missed out on better waiting shelter replacements (instead like for like). Just as the Northern refranchise cannot be another stand still franchise, it would have been far more effective if the Labour party had campaigned for the real improvements needed locally. In the event it was left to people like Peter Nevin and myself and Network Rail have run rings around us. The lack of a Town Council Transport Working Group shows this up (and quite humanly there are real limits to what I can do voluntarily).  Many more issues are down there, the expansion of car parking (although I believe this is in hand from the county?). The better shelters for an expanding town are a necessity, so is a new footbridge. Proper integration with bus services and fares is another.

I would welcome both a new town centre and the redevelopment of Prudhoe hospital. But in each instance I want to know how electing a Labour government will ensure these become “excellent” projects, not will do. By this I mean for instance the thought that is given into community structures and employment opportunities at the hospital site and how some of the buildings there can be reused. To simply flatten and build nigh on 500 homes with no new transport infrastructure and employment provision to me stacks up problems. At the Town Centre I have long argued that the site demands the best solution, a Hanging Gardens of Prudhoe development with car parking hidden in the hillside. A result that meant the site’s many neighbours were wowed and not antagonised. Much of this is about planning. I am aware of many pressures in regard to the Green Belt. Prudhoe is within the Land of Oak and Iron heritage landscape project. The reason people will want to live in Prudhoe in part is because of its high quality landscape surround. How will electing a Labour government ensure that Prudhoe’s woodlands remain a gem? And how will Prudhoe benefit from the Land of Oak and Iron?

Over a whole range of issues, to my experience including transport spend, arts spend, heritage lottery spend the comparison per head between the North East Region and London is grossly disproportionate. If the Labour party form the next government I want to form an idea as to how a change in that policy will change Prudhoe for the better.

For my interests, these are the sorts of matters that I think need debate and I will be very keen that you locally as a leading Labour politician set out the stall. In that spirit I regard this as an open letter and any reply should be in a similar vein.

Yours Sincerely

Robert Forsythe

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I am grateful for a reply to this letter received from Liam Carr, prospective Parliamentary Candidate of the Labour party in the Hexham Constituency.

Dear Robert,

Your raises a few issues, I will address each theme.

Rail Services.

Privatisation was a disaster for the railways. The whole franchising system has been a failure and passengers are paying more for a worse service, the Pacer trains are going but they will be replaced by cast off underground trains from London that may not be suited the Northumberland weather.

The next Labour government will allow the public sector to compete with private companies for rail franchises when they expire, this will result in public sector running sections of our rail network as soon as possible, in the same sort of way as East Coast did. 

We aren't saying we want to go back to some sort of 1980s British Rail, but we have to acknowledge that privatisation was a mistake and its one that we must rectify.

The next Labour Government will be different from the one elected in 1997, it is OK to say that some things like Health, Education and Transport, are too important to be left to market forces.

With profits coming back to the treasury, this will allow investment in the Tyne Valley line.

Roads and other infrastructure.

Labour will devolve power away from Whitehall, so instead of having to beg for real investment in the and ending up with a feasibility study, decisions will be made closer to home.

Labour has a strong track record of devolving power.  We passed the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act and we are now committed to an English Devolution Act, which will reverse the centralisation which has occurred under successive governments in the recent (and not so recent) past.

We will transfer £30 billion of funding over five years, passing on power and resource not only for transport, which you mention, but also skills, employment support, housing and business support.

What difference will a Labour Government make in Prudhoe?

I have listened to many residents in Prudhoe who have been hit by the bedroom tax, this is an unfair tax particularly so in Prudhoe, where there are very few one bedroom properties to move into. Labour will repeal the bedroom tax.

We will also reverse the privatisation of our NHS by repealing the Heath and Social care act, the effects of which are being felt locally services at Hexham hospital are under threat. I want to be your next MP so I can defend our NHS.

There is still some concern about Education in our High school, Much of the discussion we hear is about structures; politicians on all sides have been guilty of arguing about if schools should be free schools, high schools, supported by the LEA or be an academy. However, when listening to concerns from parents, I hear that they are less concerned about structures  - most simply want a great local school, staffed by committed, well-qualified teachers, which provides good outcomes for all young people. If elected I will refocus the debate away from structures and back on what matters most; the students.

In this election we have a choice to make, about the kind of society we want to live in. I believe in a fair  society with a recovery that benefits the working people and not just the very wealthy and an economy that works for all and not just a few at the top.

I hope this reply is helpful, if you have any other policy queries please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Liam Carr

Liam (like Guy Opperman) has a blog which is at http://liamrcarr.blogspot.co.uk/  

Prudhoe Hospital redevelopment planning application

My blog over the years has chronicled the poor quality of planning in Prudhoe (although I will remark that this year past has shown a marked effort to address one of the regular concerns in respect of drainage). After a long time in gestation, the Prudhoe Hospital planning application from the developer Gentoo and the owner The Homes and Communities Agency (remember the c word) is now made. It is here.

Paul Revill the previous Baptist minister of Stocksfield and himself a Prudhoe resident asked me "What do think Robert?". And remarked that flatting Prudhoe Hall might be a lost opportunity. This is what I said on Facebook.

"At one level Prudhoe Hall is the least of this. I do value Prudhoe Hall and also the Walled Garden (for which the plan if it happens is sensible, some sheltered homes outside to generate revenue for a publicly accessible garden operation). BUT what is needed here is a community, there are many excellent buildings here (like the pavilion) and some of the blocks which could be retained, adapted and re-used, to create along with many new houses variety and opportunity with continuity. The developer simply does not have the vision, the knowledge, the drive or the desire to do any more than knock down and build lots of houses with apparently no thought about where people work and how they get there? How does this impact on Blaydon roundabout? Why is it not matched to new road links across the Tyne to the A69 and south to the Derwent Valley (hardly very difficult that)? What is being provided as a social hub for the self employed with public Wifi (notably something Prudhoe's newest public building does not have)? Will there be a pub or a church? Many people, senior leaders, have said Prudhoe must not repeat Castlefields. In what respect does this development differ? Correlate what the developer proposes to http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/prudhoe-historic-characterisation/prudhoehistoriccharacterisation.pdf . However after many years I have realised that Prudhoe's own ability with but two county councillors to cease being done unto and to take control of itself is very limited. The HCA could have offered the whole site to Prudhoe through the Community Partnership and the Town Council and said "now determine, your own destiny"."

On transport provision worm your way into this. It includes the offer of a minibus service for the development. How long will that last? Think 111. It is not a link to Newcastle or anywhere else. The "positive" step of offering such for 392+12+80 (Humbles Wood) so 484 homes tells me a lot. That anticipating people do anything other than drive hardly figures. It is a palliative sop.

 

One of the buildings slated for demolition. Why not flatted?

Prudhoe faces yet another development crisis?

How many people work full time for Prudhoe? Is the Homes and Communities Agency really the Homes Agency? What is 21st century development?

Work back through my blog and over several years around 2010 there were many blog posts over the Town Centre. Prudhoe should have a new town centre fit for purpose in a mushrooming town. An area was zoned in the 1960s. It remains undeveloped to this day. At great effort its landowner in summer 2012 finally got planning permission only for his prime partner to walk away. The result on a site surrounded by neighbours is long term planning blight. It is a very unfortunate outcome. In my view the project failed because its landlord totally lacked the vision to deliver an excellent proposal respecting all his neighbours and their many concerns as well as the geography of the site. Not everyone can be kept happy all the time but unless most people are kept happy most of the time things do not work. The project that was offered to Prudhoe was simply second rate, 1960s rather than 21st century, "good" should not  be good enough.

That is a preamble to saying "it is all about to happen again". Move a mile and more from the town centre and you reach the valley of the Stanley Burn. An area largely of woodland, defined Green Belt and as it happens wholly inside the Derwent Valley Heritage Landscape and subject to a very large upcoming HLF project. Within it lies Prudhoe Hospital, the link is to an English Heritage and English Partnerships report from 2008 which makes sound reading. That explains the historic context and at 1.1 says:

1.1

Context of the Prudhoe historic characterisation

In 2005 English Heritage (EH) and English Partnerships (EP) began jointly to explore the use of Historic Characterisation (HC) in preliminary regeneration planning. Three experimental pilot projects were carried out to test various methods using former hospital sites - Graylingwell in Chichester, Hanham Hall near Bristol, and the present study, Prudhoe, in the Tyne Valley. EH and EP intend to use the results of the pilots to produce generic guidance for the use of HC on sites of similar scale and levels of complexity. 

EH and EP believe that conducting HC at the pre-masterplanning stage can make a positive contribution to the planning and regeneration process. Such early characterisation is not intended to replace archaeological evaluations or the traditional detailed surveys of architectural fabric that might be needed at later stages to inform detailed design or as mitigation. Instead, HC offers something new for planning and design teams: a forward-looking and contextual understanding of a site’s historic development and present day historically-derived character that can be drawn upon to inform the masterplan for a site.
 

That sounds splendid. It is only since last summer that the outcome by what is now the Homes and Communities Agency has become clearer with the notion that outline planning permission will be sought soon.

This is the result:

There is a new hospital: tick. There is one new development called Humbles Wood, ongoing now. Okay. Alarm bells begin. Two major new developments have happened, Moor Road has received no attention and no access beyond the car and the foot is provided.

And so we reach the last few weeks and the appearance of this diagram. For all this effort from EP and EH what have we got? A project to build not a community, let alone one respecting its context, but a plan to knock as much down as is possible and build 375 homes? Where will these people work? How will they get to where they work? Where are the employment opportunities on site? How are the homeworkers and self employed going to be faciliated?

The point of the Characterisation was to start a debate! It was to lead to something like the Crichton solution. But it appears wholly derailed. Why?

Because as this visualisation appeared, people have started to ask questions. There are two listed properties which the developers HAVE to respect. The Hall and the Walled Garden. They will respect them. The developer knows that. That does not mean Community benefit will follow and in a narrow sense that does not have to be. However there are people in the community who want a crack at the walled garden and I would think it incumbent on the developer to talk closely with them. There is a reasonable chance that this will happen.

But what about the rest of this huge site and this:

or

The top picture shows the 1930s recreation pavilion and figure 17:5 in the EH report shows it in all its new glory. Find that.  The bottom picture is one of the resident blocks which could be adapted in various ways into outstanding housing of character. A character to retain the Garden Village character of the original location and which justified EH's initial interest.

Only a development which creates a community and offers workspace in a special and characterful context will do. That means respecting, some, not all, of what there is.

That is not what the HCA Gentoo proposal currently does. It does the BARE MINIMUM to respect legal obligation. Its primary aim appears to be the short term gain of as much profit as possible and leaving Prudhoe to pick up the pieces. And what are those pieces, 375 new homes, no public transport and a massive traffic jam at Blaydon Roundabout or Ovingham Bridge. There is no contextual planning. There is no notion that a B road from Horsley over the Tyne and through this environment to Ebchester would be a good idea. There is just nothing apart from we want to demolish everything we can and build 375 homes and walk away. That is not community building!!! Gentoo - the Sunderland social housing organisation say of themselves "Our vision is to improve the Art of Living beyond imagination".

I am saying this now because Prudhoe has a Community Arts Project looking for a home. I approached HCA asking that we might be allowed to look inside the Recreation Pavilion. I was sent away with a flea in my ear (by email) and told the building will be demolished. It has no protection and because even EH could not find its original architect's name unlikely to get any. It should have a considerate owner. It does not. It is Prudhoe's De La Warr pavilion. No kidding, it is what it can be.

It all sounds as if  the "Prudhoe is there to be done unto by its landlords" complex is alive and well again. Urgent action by the Town Council, our two County Councillors, the Community Partnership (which is certainly alive to all this) and our MP is needed.  There is a difference this time around, we have another MP and he is well briefed on the issues:

Saturday 25th January 2014.