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.

When good is not good enough.

The Prudhoe redevelopment debate rumbles on. It has been previously explored at http://robertatforsythe.blogspot.com/2010/10/hanging-gardens-of-prudhoe-aka-prudhoe.html . Two things brought it back into view for me. I took this photo and the Hexham Courant appeared last Friday 13th May 2011. I think it was the previous one that contained a long anti letter. This time the first two letters at some prominent length reflected the views of one anti and one pro campaigner. Both are well known citizens of the town. As I read them a sense of profound disappointment passed over me. Here were the good citizens of Prudhoe washing their dirty linen in public and in best Glasgow Edinburgh fashion it was a Hexham organ that was able to delight in our discomfort. The quality of argument in the letters was not especially good and rather it felt as if in the exhaustion of the saga mud slinging had become the last resort.

This then is what our landlord has achieved. The total division and polarisation of the community. It is not me who judges it thus. Read these letters in the Courant and make your own minds up. But I will clearly say why I think this had happened and should the Duke of Northumberland read this, I hope he will be hot under the collar. One man wields for the 21st. century an unusual amount of power in this town of 12,000. He is answerable to not one of us but he is the person who can set the tone of the new town centre. Here then is where our heading phrase comes from. When good is not good enough. My wife tells a tale of the institution where once she ran library services. A new supreme manager arrived. A department head had to speak to a proposal. He started out by saying "this is a good proposal". Before he went any further the boss interjected "that is not my style, good is not good enough for me, take it away and come back when it is excellent". A lot of pain followed this person's arrival at this institution but years later both the institution and that individual continue to thrive and gain recognition.

This should have been the story at Prudhoe. The plot was simple. A growing hillside town in Northumberland surrounded by woodland and beautiful landscape. One last green space left in the centre of the town. It would clearly face developmental pressure. The person who owned it has come to national prominence with the Alnwick Garden. Expecting that a marriage of the two would equal excellence is natural. But what Prudhoe is having foisted on it is just good. Would you even award good to the people who will be remembered for having built the first multi storey car park in Tynedale? Yes, not dug underground into a hillside but sprouting out from it in as prominent a place as you might imagine. Is it any wonder that aside from the business mechanics of this, aside from the supermarket rivalries (we already have a Co-Op superstore), aside from my gripe that we still will not have an independent butcher, aside from this, that what looks like something from the 1970s or 1980s, (perhaps from the Duke's Cramlington development?) translated to this magnificent hillside has succeeded in dividing the community? At the last count the town council voted against 4/3. There are many 1000s of objections lodged from a community of 12,500. It is a very sad situation and it could and should have been avoided. What would have done that is inspired leadership from the top. A thorough going committment to the Hanging Gardens of Prudhoe which would have left the community itching to see it happening instead of preparing for a Friday public brawl.

Hexham Big Society Summit 11th February 2011

My previous blog entry highlighted that I would be attending the Hexham Big Society Summit 11th February 2011. Inevitably perhaps I have to say something. It is not easy. I gave it 0930-1400 although a later timetable change saw it starting at 1000. I had to omit the afternoon sessions in the interests of child care. Maybe a rabbit was pulled from the bag, but I rather doubt it. I have no doubts about the enormous good will that was represented in the meeting. Nor in the interest; mid week I was told 100 people were coming. In the event there were 145 delegates and some stretching of the organisation thereby. Guy Opperman as MP did an excellent job in making clear that he was present as a constituency MP determined to listen and represent all views. A series of snapshot showcases of good practise were given. As many people remarked the Big Society is already well recognised in Tynedale. Huge numbers of people already give generously of their time. Community groups from Wylam, Prudhoe, Allendale, Tarset, Humshaugh, Bellingham and Hexham all came forward with heart warming tales of progress. But over it all hung the cuts and no clarity about how that might be solved. Time and again people gave chapter and verse about how the key partners volunteers needed in order to be effective are shutting up shop. The concrete tales of this were the Forestry Commission redundancies in Kielder, the Tyne Rivers Trust worried about The Environment Agency. Housing trusts and health campaigners all had actual tales of how volunteering was being adversely effected. I don't know what to say. Hours later and David Cameron was billed as doing a U turn over the Forests and then immediately Ken Clark was telling the middle classes they had seen nothing yet by way of cuts and that the economic situation of the country is calamitious. What can one say? I think the Big Society will struggle to be more than a fig leave over the pain. We will be left holding onto the Victorian author Samuel Smiles' Self Help or about the Roman Empire's retreat from Britain when it told the soldiers left here to look to themselves. A common thread for some anger was the unimpressive start that the new unitary authority has made. Northumberland Council in West Northumberland is no match for the Tynedale Council which worked geographically and actually. In a wonderful piece of sublimeal advertising which a county hack swiftly denied when he overheard me, the wallpaper for the Powerpoint projector consistently showed a "Putting People First Tynedale Council" image nearly two years after the district's abolition. Now, not far down the road, Guy Opperman is going to have to do some convincing that the existing constituency is retained despite the rough arithmetic suggesting Northumberland's present four MPs will become three? Democracy in Northumberland has not been well served of late and it is probably not surprising that a Northumbria Party has appeared.

Of prisoners, pirates and society.

Three news items come together here. Today our MP will be voting over the prisoner vote issue. I sincerely hope his vote is cast with those who want no change. I passionately believe that those whose wrongdoing commits them to prison forfeit the democratic right. Of course as we all realise, the issue has become larger than itself. It is now about Europe and national sovereignty. I cannot think for one moment I want to be part of a union where such decisions are not left to national competence. It has become an eye opening example of the dangers of the European delusion. Hopefully the MPs will do the right thing and the government will persuade the court that this is not its affair. And if it cannot, then the jurisdiction of the court over our nation should be removed. I am not a fan of Europe, I studied Roman and Medieval History (when the Holy Roman Empire sought the same end). The nation state is the right scale for humans to work with. In our case the nation state that geography dictates is that of Britain, the British Isles. The four groups that make up Britain may of course rightfully have areas of devolution and even their own languages. But those who wish to destroy Britain are not those who have the interests of these islands as their priority. The proper appreciation of nationality comes when each of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish value their greater whole over their individuality. Yes, this means realising that English is the lingua franca of these islands and is also our greatest gift to the world. It means appreciating all our culture whether of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Burns or Yeats.

For me an essential component of being British is its religious heritage. Which is Christian and has been since the late Roman period. Arthur is a Christian hero and myth. Our Christianity may in part have come from Rome but even at the beginning it was mediated through the great Celtic tradition. A large element of Britishness is Celticness. We were always suspicious of Rome. Even the Irish once were. We made clear our national aspirations at the reformation. I often think of the Roman Catholic church and I weep. I know Christ commissioned Peter and gave him the keys. I know also Peter denied Christ thrice. Faith is nothing if not paradox. The paradox of the incarnate deity who is crucified and rises again. The paradox of the communion whereby at His instigation bread and wine become His body and blood. This is not cannibalism, it is paradox. The Tri-Une God, the marriage vow whereby 1+1 = either 1 or 3> but never 2; these are paradoxes. And faith cannot make sense unless you understand paradox. There is much paradox in being British, not least that we are tolerant and broadminded. I wish to respect those of other faiths in our nation but they have to understand that the British spirit of fair play is formed in our faith and our temperate landscape.

These things turned us into a mercantile nation which is natural for a group of islanders. Oh,we might have been better served if Liverpool had become our shared capital not short hop from the Continent London. Recently someone put it to me in great detail that the Devil entered into Roman Catholicism at the moment of the Constantinian settlement. Not such an outlandish idea. A lot of the old pagan order must have been subsumed into the new, privately vowing to put as much corrupt sand in the mechanism as they could. So ensuring that power took precedence over grace. Creating a church which would dominate private lives, denies its ministers the succour of women, denying its members the freedom to choose what they wished for their bodies. I may sound very conservative but can also be hugely liberal. Catholic one moment, Evangelical the next. I see contraception (but not almost all abortion)as an opportunity for grace. Gay relationships, gay priests, women priests, a woman pope; none of these would alarm me. Hedonism with some rules makes sense. The renaissance took place 500 years ago and still many Catholics deny reason and yearn for "their Latin past". I believe in reason (rational Biblical (and Koranic) Criticism), science, evolution and commerce. But not in unbridled capitalism or competition. Evolution may have required competition but in humans it has created beings who can reach beyond this. Who can see Grace is of God and thereby a society can grow which is not a slave of business, mere numbers or competitive urges.

Back to the news and this theme reflects two immediate matters. I heard today that Somali pirates hold 700 hostages and 36 ships. This is an affront to civilised life. One which at any time between 1800 and 1970, it is hard to see Britain standing idly by. Our commerce is threatened and thereby our interests. With other nations a far stronger response is needed for otherwise a whole nation has been handed over to criminality. Britishness would have demanded a response that rightly crushed the Somali pirates and in our loss of national identity it would appear we have lost the will to defend shipping.

Tomorrow in Hexham I shall attend our MP's meeting about The Big Society which relates to several of these themes. A friend said to me today for Big Society read Big Chaos. Those who are being expected to shoulder the burden of provision are the same organisations lined up to face local authority cuts. I wonder when we will all realise of whatever political ilk that a civilised society costs. It is not created by saying that selfish wealth creation and the market are the supreme end of man.

The John Martin Festival 2011: at The Garden Station Langley

The title is The John Martin Festival 2011: at The Garden Station Langley. This is a page which will be a work in progress so keep checking back. Just got back home from a fascinating morning and the sun even came out. By 0830 I was casing the joint at Haltwhistle preparing for a Hadrian's Wall Heritage event.

At 1000 I was arriving at The Garden Station, Langley. This was to plan an event for the 2011 John Martin Festival. It is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Our heading picture shows the old lead smelt mill flue in the woods. Clear as a path but actually all collapsed, imagine an arched roof covered in earth and with the arch now fallen into the flue. Some bits are intact however.

The date for your diary is Saturday 14th May from 1000 to 1600. John Martin was a painter heavily influenced by the industrial landscape and when a child growing up in Haydon Bridge, the nearby lead smelt mills at Langley would have been fully operational. Today Langley is a quiet hamlet and the evidence of its intense industrial past is cloaked in woodland. Seemingly innocent fishing lakes were once at the core of its power system. Our day will start in The Garden Station which last saw a train in 1950.

The draft timetable is:
1000-1020 Arrival and welcome.
1020-1120 A presentation by myself about Tynedale and Langley's industrial past and John Martin's industrial associations.
1120-1230 A walk to the old brickworks and Langley Dam lake.
1230-1330 Lunch available for you to purchase from The Garden Station's café.
1330-1530 A walk in the old smelt mill area seeing the remains of the flue and on up to the chimney.
1530-1600 Tea and wrap up.

Mention of wrap up: come well shod! And if the weather looks as if it might rain, make sure the waterproofs are in. The walks are not heavy grade but do require care about where to place your feet! The walk to the chimney on the moor is an ascentand is roughly a two mile round trip. The old chimney has been restored and those of you who follow my Auden interest will know that he was another artist who took inspiration from the industrial landscapes of the North Pennine dales. He certainly came to Allendale and wrote about the lead smelt mill, its flue and chimney at Allendale Town. He could have got there by train through Langley before the passenger service ceased in 1930. We can document that he visited Allendale before then (see 1924 poem Allendale).

Find out more about John Martin here.

Details about bookings will follow.