Wrong NOT right on leaving Northumberland Communities vulnerable

Conservative Leader Jackson Article today is laughable.

I wondered if anyone had noticed 5yrs have vanished. The Northumberland Core Strategy which was worked on for nearly a decade by cross party groups and officers gave a clear plan until 2031. He’s now making reference to 2016 - 2026 inclusive. Therefore the calculations show little change for data over a 5yr shorter period. Why wasn’t a major modification as advocated and proposed by the Labour Group not made following the release of these figures rather than leave communities naked and vulnerable. This doesn’t show they were right to withdraw the document at all, it merely reaffirms that it was wrong to remove the document, wrong to leave Northumberland vulnerable and a lie to suggest that housing number modifications couldn’t have been done using a modification process to the plan.

If all the Tories wanted to change was the housing figures opportunities exist to do that, there always has been, if it’s about land then I’m sure lots of declarations of interest will need to be made.

It just demonstrates the failings of the Tory Leadership to understand the processes before jumping in with size 10s. We’ve seen the damming letters from the Inspectorate we’ve already seen refusals overturned with reasons relating to the withdrawal of the Strategy and this stance is simply confirmation that the mess they created is set to continue for some time yet. All they’ve done is allow thousands of homes to be approved while they dither and try to con voters to believe they are somehow delivering on promises.

Those rammed through plus the planned numbers will now probably far exceed what the projected figures were in the first place and with a number of years until another plan is submitted goodness knows what will happen.

We are seeing places like Amble saturated with no protections and a Council left powerless, a Council at the same time cancelling all the infrastructure planned like school, Queen Street car parking halted etc....we also see New Hartley being overrun with housing that was turned down too with appeals firmly and squarely naming the removal of a governing document as a reason for approval. Manifesto commitment to “halt the march or developers” quickly turned in to a “free for all for developers”