Councillors asked many questions of the Council's Officers in a debate chaired by Councillor T. Mulvenna and also expressed disappointment at the actions of certain Officers of the Council. Planning Manager Peter Brown had recommended the Planning Application be allowed and urged Councillors to have caution if/when considering grounds to reject the application.
Eloquent speeches against the Application were made by James Littlewood of the Natural History Society and by Nick Price on behalf of West Moor residents with Sandra Thompson of Signet Planning speaking on behalf of the developer (Bellway).
Following a debate which lasted almost four hours, all Councillors present rejected the Application. NOT ONE Councillor present spoke for the Application.
However, with only Norma Peggs from the Mayor's (Linda Arkley's) ruling Conservative Party being present, it should be noted that the following Councillors who are listed as members of the Planning Committee were NOT PRESENT:
Kenneth Barrie (Cullercoats); Glynis Barrie (Preston); David Lilly (Tynemouth); Leslie Miller (Monkseaton North); Shirley Mortimer (Cullercoats); George Westwater (Cullercoats). Clearly, people could ask the following questions (among others):
This site has been derelict for many, many years so regeneration and development for housing is to be welcomed. The Outline Planning Permission was granted for up to 120 homes. The land has now been sold on and Taylor Wimpey have submitted plans for 99 homes of differing types.
H.A.G. are again supporting this application to develop a Brownfield site. We welcome the statement from Taylor Wimpey that 20% of the total number of dwellings provided by the development are to be affordable, with the further breakdown that 65% of the affordable dwellings to be social rented with the remaining 35% to be intermediate affordable dwellings.
This shows what we have said all along, derelict sites can be developed by the major house-builders at an acceptable profit level for them, whilst including some of the much-needed affordable and social-rented homes which our borough so desperately needs.
This is further evidence that there is NO NEED TO DEVELOP GREENFIELD SITES and it again exposes the line taken by Councillor Michael McIntyre that ‘people do not want to live on brown field sites’ as simply incorrect.
We again call on North Tyneside’s Mayor and her Cabinet to abandon the plans to destroy Greenfield sites in the borough when clearly Brownfield site developments are viable and desired by developers and people do wish to live on such redeveloped sites.
Green field land on both sides of Station Road, Wallsend (between Hadrian Lodge and the old No Frills store) is identified in the Core Strategy proposals for a potential 1160 new homes.
Workers have been spotted doing an archeological survey on the land over the past couple of weeks. When asked what the survey is for, they state it is for "the developers" who are believed to be Persimmon.
This makes us believe that a Planning Application for this site is on the way, which will make it the fourth major planning application submitted for green field sites in North Tyneside which were identified in the Mayor's Core Strategy Preferred Options (CSPO) proposals (the others so far being West Moor planning 366 homes, Scaffold Hill, Holystone, planning 450 Homes and the now-granted application at Earsdon for over 200 homes).
Despite the Mayor (Linda Arkley) denying it is her Core Strategy, Councillor Michael McIntyre confirms that it is her Core Strategy in the intouch leaflet he had distributed in Earsdon and other areas towards the coast.
Significantly, there have been no new major Planning Applications for brown field sites since the Core Strategy proposals were published, just for these precious green field sites.
The Mayor has repeatedly stated that, in terms of the Core Strategy, "nothing is decided" yet the Planning Applications received so far, along with pre-application work being done in North Wallsend make those words sound increasingly hollow, particularly as they are all for sites identified in the CSPO document.
Despite the Full Council asking the Cabinet to engage in "meaningful discussions" with residents' groups such as H.A.G., the Mayor and her Cabinet still won't talk to us and Councillor McIntyre uses both his party publication and the local press to attack us. So much for "meaningful discussions"!
As the Mayor and her Cabinet, supported by unelected Council employees of the highest level who are seemingly unanswerable to the voting public, failed to even discuss a residents’ petition (over 2500 signatures) asking the Council to protect further areas of green field sites by having them re-designated as green belt, they showed once again their total disdain for the public. Indeed the report to Cabinet merely stated that the Mayor did not see the Green belt being changed by the Core Strategy. This was enough to stop the petition itself from being debated at Cabinet. view report here
It is worthy of note that, since the publication of the Core Strategy Preferred options (CSPO) proposals, the Mayor has shown no desire, that is evident to the residents, to get any part of those proposals altered. This is despite several petitions objecting to the damage they and accompanying Planning Applications will do to North Tyneside, as well as a well-orchestrated and vocal campaign through the Press and in the Council Chamber. She has absolutely refused to engage with community groups to discuss the CSPO proposals. It is noteworthy that there is no rush to publish the Core Strategy as the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is due for publication later this month or next.
Mayor Arkley and her Cabinet have now twice rejected the wishes of the Full Council and, despite requests from the Full Council so to do, she refuses to engage with the relevant community groups.
Thus, the Mayor and her Cabinet show the same disdain to the Full Council that they show to us, the residents.
We can only hope that the Planning Committee will do what the Mayor seemingly refuses to do, and actually listen to residents.
Further, residents must show the Mayor through the ballot box both this May and especially next, that politicians have no right to act in defiance of the residents.
In short, she has shown she will not work with or listen to community groups so we believe she should stand down and allow someone to fill her shoes who does believe in what we see as proper and genuine democracy; a democracy that is not twisted by party politics being held above the desire to serve the community.
Quite bizarrely and in total ignorance of the fact she twice ignored the wishes of the full council (the last time was only seconds earlier).
The elected Mayor of North Tyneside Linda Arkley attempted to shift blame for the core strategy proposals suggesting that concerned residents should speak to their local councillors saying that the full council, who she just overruled again, will have the final say.
Whilst there is an element of truth in the Mayor’s claims, in that the full council can overrule the final draft core strategy eventually and as long as 2/3rds of the full Council object.
The Mayor completely ignored the fact that every decision on the core strategy taken thus far has been taken by her and her appointed cabinet chums. More importantly, council planning refusals have been overturned on appeal, in part, because of her core strategy preferred option proposals. Even the Scaffold Hill developers, Northumberland Estates, have claimed the land has already been allocated for housing as part of the LDF.
Each time the full council has tried to intervene in Linda Arkley’s Core Strategy plans (request for a referendum, request to halt core strategy for proper community involvement and request to consider our petition to give land surrounding our country parks green belt/wedge protection) she has ignored their wishes.
North Tyneside Council has 60 elected councillors, 3 for each ward. Each year for three years 20 councillors seats go up for election, the fourth year is for election of the Mayor. The elected mayor can them appoint councillors to his (or her) cabinet. It is the mayor and the cabinet and not the full council who have responsibility for many policy decisions.
Whilst it is technically correct to say the full council has a debate on the Mayor's Core Strategy proposals and they can vote it out (2/3rd of councillors must object). This only happens toward the end of the Core Strategy process.
Days, Months or Years before the full council have their debate on the final version of the Mayor's Core Strategy Proposals, developers can use the Mayor's prosals (Preferred Options or Drafts) to steamroll inappropriate housing development such as the Earsdon/Wellfield development.
One of the major criticisms of an Elected Mayor is that the role attracts mavericks and self-publicists (source: Wikipedia) but more importantly it results in situations such as on North Tyneside where the cabinet appears hell bent on pushing their core strategy proposals even though they are plainly against the wishes of the elected majority of council.
If the Mayor expects that the full council may ultimately oppose her Core Strategy proposals, why does she continue with it in its present form? Why doesn't she take on board the concerns of the elected councillors (and local residents)? Does she seriously consider it prudent to continue on her present course only for years of work and money to be thrown down the drain because the full Council rejected her core strategy?
Does she think the full Council will warm to her ideas and grow to accept and embrace her short sighted and ill conceived proposals.... or is it perhaps that she knows by then that it won't matter because most of the planning applications on her "Key Housing sites" would have been approved on appeal in the same way as the Core Strategy "Key Housing site" at Wellfield....
[Interesting facts: North Tyneside is one of only 12 local authorities with an Elected Mayor - in four of those authorities campaigns are underway to abolish the elected mayor post]
On of our major concerns is that the Mayor has apparently chosen to protect some of the most sustainable (*read best land to build on) areas around Killingworth and Murton from housing development in her Spatial Strategy. But she has failed to consider any protection for our Country Parks or Wildlife Corridors. The present UDP (thing the Core Strategy will replace) protects designated Wildlife Corridors and the land surrounding and supporting those wildlife corridors.
[*based on North Tyneside Council’s assessment]
Why protect Killingworth and Murton which will result in destruction of vital wildlife corridors (such as at Scaffold Hill) and ultimately will lead to the destruction of the Country Parks those corridors depend on?
We have had no explanation from the Mayor, the only explanation we can proffer is that members of the Mayor’s cabinet (present and former) either live in or represent wards adjacent to those protected areas.
The Mayor’s attempts to distance herself and lay blame elsewhere for the her core strategy decisions are somewhat at odds to the recent election leaflet distributed around Whitley Bay. The leatflet put out by Michael McIntyre (the organ grinder of the mayor's local party) repeatedly refers to the Core Strategy as "The Mayor's proposals". Moreover, Mr McIntyre refers to the Mayor's proposals to "protect green field sites" – The only green field sites protected by the core strategy are Killingworth and Murton.
Mr McIntyre can be contacted on the leaflet email address mcintyre4whitley@live.co.uk for "views on any of the issues mentioned (in his leaflet)"
