Conservative leader Peter Jackson urged to ‘remember’ if any Conservative’s blockedPLAN A for the Co
Conservative leader Peter Jackson urged to ‘remember’ if any Conservative’s blocked PLAN A for the County Hall site Cllr Peter Jackson leader of the Conservative group has been urged to ‘remember’ Northumberland County Council’s PLAN A for the County Hall site which involved a £90m scheme to build four new schools AND a £25m leisure centre on the site as he submits a question to today’s last Full Council meeting before May’s local elections.
Local Conservatives have mounted a campaign which has been branded as ‘fake news’ in a recently submitted Standards Complaint to the county council which has ‘deliberately mislead residents’.
Labour are pointing to Cllr Jackson’s question urging Northumberland Labour group leader Grant Davey to explain what the council’s PLAN B is for the site after the decision was controversially called in by Conservative Secretary of State Sajid Javid.
It seems that Cllr Jackson’s infamously faulty memory is playing tricks again as the current controversial scheme is PLAN B.
Northumberland Labour’s PLAN A scheme circulated for consultation with the schools, the Town Council and other bodies set out an ambitious scheme worth over £90m which would have seen new schools built on the County Hall site AND a £25m leisure centre. Chantry Middle School, Newminister Middle School, Goosehill First School and KEVI secondary academy would have relocated in the plan put forward in Nov 2015 but were mysteriously rejected by the schools excluding Goosehill First school which subsequently decided to take up the offer of a new school on the site. That has been put on hold pending the Conservative Secretary of State call in of the school planning application along with two others.
Planning experts are said to be ‘bemused’ by the call in and Cllr Grant Davey has called on the Secretary of State to explain why the plans were halted amidst allegations of political interference in planning.
Grant Davey, Leader of Northumberland Labour group said
“Cllr Jackson has once again demonstrated he’ll do anything to play politics with decisions of interest to hard working Morpeth folk. He seems to have ‘forgotten’ that the current plan is PLAN A was rejected by a coalition of interested parties. He might want to answer whether any Conservative Cllrs were involved in the decision to block the 4 new schools and a leisure centre plan for the County Hall site. He’s frequently calling for transparency so can he categorically state that no Conservative Cllrs or his Lib Dem coalition partners were involved in scuppering PLAN A?
