Conservative led Northumberland County Council

In a fanfare of spin this week, Conservative led Northumberland County Council announced they would make an application to their Governments ‘Transport for the North’ fund to develop a link and relief road combo for the town of Blyth, possibly in financial year 2024/25 five years time. This followed a bid with an unknown outcome to the same Governments High Street fund to finance a chat with the public of Blyth and form a vision for their high street and their town. Some of that chat has already happened during a short public consultation on the proposed link and relief road. The cost of this highway is in local government terms, tiny at £22m.

This highway has been in train since the 1980’s and has been subject to a number of ‘pinch point bids’ to the former Highways Agency. As they were the decisive power who would be needed to determine any Compulsory land purchase required to complete the project. The Highways Agency refused this bid on a number of occasions choosing instead to support other schemes County-wide, such as Ashington, Haltwhistle, Haydon Bridge, Morpeth North and Prudhoe bypasses and not a link road in an urban area.

As part of the formation of the North of Tyne combined authority and the devolution agreements across the Northern Powerhouse, the need for the Highways Agency to manage matters has now, this year, come down to a local level and transport for the north are to be approached for the funding and if this work was not so essential it would be considered prudent to wait another year for the outcome of this bid and five years to deliver this scheme.

Northumberland Conservative’s who would have you think they are managing the Councils finances in an orderly fashion are hiding the truth behind their well developed veil of secret service style PR, and with their portfolio holder for finance crowing about not borrowing any more capital finance one needs to wonder when they are going to pay for the projects they have spun their story threads on.

In order to help people who live in Blyth understand how the Tories are letting them down now that the handcuffs of the Highways Agency have been removed let’s look at other projects they have in train in communities that have no links with Blyth, a town where it has been said Councillor Peter Jackson doesn’t want to deliver anything at all.

£5.5m paid to Galliford Try to stop the development of a new NCC office block in Ashington.

Ponteland, a new high school and leisure centre is underway currently valued at £46m white its legal costs.

New primary school in Morpeth on Loansdean site £6.85m.

New roadway to open up Ashington ‘hole’ site £9m

The cost of refurbishing County Hall in excess of £25m with £17m already spent.

New council owned cinema in Ashington £7m

New Berwick Leisure Centre £18m

New Morpeth Leisure Centre £18m plus estimated land stabilisation costs of £6m as its sited in a flood plain. (That’s beside it being designed too small for the towns growth.).

A recent loan to Advance Northumberland of £27m.

Redundancy costs of £8.16m over the two years the Tories have held power at County Hall.

£1m to safeguard Councillor Peter Jackson and his Chief Executive from liability in a series of bullying cases.

These are but a few items of headline borrowing and spend valued at £178m planned for other places outside Blyth.

The Blyth scheme isn’t just a singular highway as is the case of the other bypasses mentioned in this article. It is a series of small roads knitting the Blyth communities together opening up the network and spreading traffic over a far wider road surface than at present. As Blyth residents all know cross town and school run traffic is a huge element of the towns traffic problems.

At the secret Councils announcement meeting Councillor Jackson stated too many houses have been built in Blyth, May we remind you Councillor Jackson that Blyth is your largest town and when your spending cash or borrowing for projects in your more favoured areas you are reliant on the income from your largest town to economically drive the well P R’d Conservative economy.

Therefore if the £9m costs paid by Advance Northumberland for the new road at Portland Park in Ashington is anything to go by the estimated £22m application will only cover the road from the A189 to its junction with the Towns network so we Blyth residents all need to know why this work isn’t planned to start immediately, the cross town road and its tributaries can be built and are not reliant on the bid scheme that as we can now see if your a Blyth resident, may be planned to fail.