Historical Factoids 17:

[Mal]

Back in the early 1990’s Northumberland County Council came up with an idea to regenerate the dilapidate Hartford Hall.  This was well before it became a residential area. 

The idea was to turn some of it into the clubhouse for the Wansbeck District Council owned Golf Club (at that time it was 100% owned by WDC), build some into a hotel complex and the main part into a Regional sporting rehabilitation centre.  It was previously used by the Coal Board as a recuperation centre.

I went along to one of the meetings to hear what the plans were and asked a question that had been bothering me for some time.  “Will this mean we get a sign post on the A1, the main vehicular arterial route through the county, to Bedlington?” 

The answer, NO Bedlington isn’t seen as a destination Town.

I asked what on earth was it seen as then?  “It’s seen as just somewhere you pass through to get to somewhere else.” 

I don’t think that thought process has changed to this day!

Hartford Hall was to be a £20M investment by NCC and they even wanted to give themselves planning permission to do it.  That fell foul of the planning Laws and they were told they couldn’t do that!  The ill thought out plan fell to bits after that in pretty short order, especially when the Golf Club members said they were against it and wanted their clubhouse to remain where it is. 

So NCC, who were in for about £1.5M at that time, not including any officer time, sold to to a developer for about £2M and claimed they had made a profit on the whole transaction! 

What happened next robbed us of one of the most important bits of Bedlington Heritage namely the Hartford Hall gates!