Damage the hopes and aspirations of over half of Blyth, Ashington, Morpeth and Newbiggin by the Sea

 

The news that the Conservative led Northumberland County Council have refused to invest capital finance in a new station, public transport hub and cark park at Bebside in the Town of Blyth before a single nail has been knocked in to repopen the AB&T Line from Newcastle to Ashington has shocked many.

With the Tory MP Ian Levy totaly reliant on the news surrounding the reopening of the line to passenger transport were not surprised that he hasn’t furnished the Chronicle with a published quote apologising for the action of his party for abandoning the largest Town in the county of Northumberland. It shows that he is sitting on the wrong side of the Conservative Party split dominated by a Morpeth centric group of Councillors.

The railway station at Bebside in Blyth is situated on the edge of the most deprived areas in Northumberland with endemic poverty running through families for generations, Its reopening has been integral to Labour’s reason for supporting the reopening of the rail line and furnishing the cash from 2013-2017 which paid for the very expensive but necessay GRIP studies which have led to where the reopening position sits today.

We caught up with two of the County Councillors from the area and asked them their thoughts on this matter, Councillor Susan Davey the County Councillor for Cowpen Ward said to us: “The whole ethos for the long term struggle to have this line reopened was to bring equality of opportunity to some of the wards in Blyth which are well entrenched in the top 10% of most deprived wards nationally”. “Cowpen, Kitty Brewster, the North side of Croft and most of the Isabella ward suffer from high rates of deprivation including some of the lowest rates of access to transport for private use in the UK”. “The reopening of the station and transport hub at Bebside would have allowed people to access higher paid jobs on Tyneside and beyond to improve the income of some of the poorest families in the UK”.

“The town of Blyth is geographically cut in two with no easy to use cross town highway or public transport routes to access a station at Newsham and for those who can drive there the pressure placed on the roads in Newsham will be immense and begin to equal the traffic and pollution problems suffered by residents of Cowpen Road.”

Kitty Brewster Councillor Grant Davey said to us: “This act of vandalism as that is what it is, against the population of the North and Central areas of Blyth is somethng we have come to expect from the Tories at County Hall”. “It was in the GRIP estmates that the opening of the new hub and station at Bebside would cost Circa £4.5M that included foot and cycle access over the A189 spine road. Something the Tories had already cut back on with a cheap bridge design that did not include disabled or cycle access.”

 “£4.5m, is only 12% of the capital expenditure frittered away on an academy high school in Hexham that now its built and paid for has nothing to do with the County Council or just over half of the cash set aside from Adult Care reserves to protect the Company ADVANCE Northumberland’s by those same Conservatives who wish to damage the life chances of Blyth residents”. 

“It was predicted that when the station at Bebside opened not only would house prices in the area rise rapidly, new development planned in  Bebside to take advantage of the station would have covered the investment costs of the hubs development via Councl Tax receipts but the short sightedness we see from Tories in Northumberland is undeiably and always will be part of the question of if Blyth is getting something how do the Tories sell that message across Castle Morpeth to protect the administration team from criticism? making it easier to strip out all spend in Blyth to stop the whisper’s from their heartlands” 

“This retraction of investment in the long term plan to raise the opportunity and income bar in the Town of Blyth is a real time digrace, affecting the future of not only the residents who live here but the shutdown of the opportunity to develop high value homes near the station will mean that Council Tax will have to rise year on year to compensate for Austerity 2 which will be announced by the Chancellor after May 6th elections to pay back the pandemic and Brexit costs as rapidly as possible.” 

We also caught up with Wansbeck Councillors Lynne Grimshaw and Liz Simpson, Councillor Simpson said: “This dreadful cut back by Tories at County Hall does not bode well for future extensions of the line to Woodhorn to aid the General Hospital and East Ashington or on to Newbiggin by the Sea.” “The promised run in to Morpeth from Bedlington Station must now be light years away if the Tories on the Council won’t invest such a small sum by County Council standards into its largest town.”

Councillor Grimshaw said:” I’m now very concerned that the project will not be economically viable when the largest predicted user group for the service have been cut off from having a station they can access easily.” “Ashington needs this rail link to keep its population in well paid employment but it also needs the people of Blyth, the Counties largest Town by far to use this service regularly and to cut off the largest population group with the greatest transport needs from access to jobs and a wider social and shopping experience will not benefit Ashington and will affect the the medium and long term viability of running a line into the jobs powerhouse areas of Newcastle and the Tyneside connurbation.”

 “Not only will I fight to get this line opened to Ashington, I will if re-elected put pressure on Labour’s leadership to invest and open the Bebside hub to gift longevity into this reopening passenger service.”