With the new national guidelines for housing targets and the fact that Northumberland annual targets have been nearly tripled and that the South East of the county is seen as the area that can support most of them......................

People need to be informed before we see every blade of grass around the town disappearing under concrete!

So I've called a public meeting and invited the head of NCC Planning to come and give a presentation.

Spot the undeliberate mistake.........blooming AI!

Thursday November 11th.

41 minutes ago, Vic Patterson said:

Thursday November 11th.

The date is right @Vic Patterson - Thursday is the 12th - I can't see anything wrong

1 hour ago, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

The date is right @Vic Patterson - Thursday is the 12th - I can't see anything wrong

Alan the first one had the wrong day............

18 minutes ago, Mal said:

Alan the first one had the wrong day............

I'm getting dafter Mal - I just checked the 2nd one

I’ve been asked to give a rundown on what was discussed at last night’s meeting about the new Local Plan and housing numbers.

It’s more difficult than what you might think!

We had a brief presentation off Rob about the structure around this, notably the new Government dictates around housing numbers, which took around 20 mins. We then had about an hour of questions off the people who were there and to give credit none were dodged!

I think it’s fair to say questions fell into a few similar categories, where will these new sites be, how did we get to the numbers and what new infrastructure will accompany them?

The only thing we can be sure of since the new NCC Local Plan is currently being worked on, and I’m on the working group that is doing that work, is that the government have said we have to go from 650 new house starts per year in Northumberland to something like 1750, or nearly triple! Bedlington will inevitably get its share of that increase! 34,500 houses across the life of the new NCC Local Plan.

Suffice it to say that the HELAA map which I have put up on an earlier thread is the total of the sites which have been identified by developers and landowners and NCC will be using that to list the sites which can be developed, providing they hit the target numbers.

Next year, March/April, a new map will be issued listing these agreed sites and then follows a consultation for councillors, Town and Parish councils, businesses and more importantly residents.

I will be posting links to sites where the information is available as soon as I get them.

I think seeing 1000’s of new houses around our town will inevitably change it, bound to, and in more ways than what might be immediately thought. Just one aspect vehicle traffic. It’s already becoming a problem, certainly at certain times of the day, but add in 4, 6,8,10 thousand new vehicles into the mix and its gridlock. That’s before we assess the problems around doctors, dentists, school places even leisure provision! So it demands careful considerations as we progress this!

My closing remarks were about Government making policy up on the hoof because it might appeal to a certain demographic, always, always, always a mistake. All very well a Government Minister getting up on her high horse to announce new policy but Government don’t build quantity housing, developers do. Developers build for profit with relevance to customer needs. We see inflation rising, interest rates rising, the probability of wholesale white collar workers being replaced with AI, all the while in a cost of living crisis which squeezes salaries already. If the Government don’t get the economy right all of this is just pie in the sky because there will be fewer and fewer buyers capable of getting mortgages and then the realities of life hit home in the ivory towers in London and we see the ‘Emperor’ has no clothes on!