New Hartley Building Site

Planning refused by Labour, brought in by Tories

through their ‘Concreting over the County Policy’

Following a very successful campaign organised by the Seaton Valley Labour Party in partnership with local people during 2015 & 2016, the planning application 15/01182/FUL for 285 houses on a greenfield site adjoining the village of New Hartley was refused in February 2016.

This refusal, much to the delight of the villagers who had worked tirelessly with their County Councillor and current Leader of Northumberland Labour Group, Councillor Susan Dungworth to put forward an argument in planning terms that it was an overdevelopment of a village which lacked infrastructure to support such huge growth was seen as an unmitigated success story that could be duplicated wherever huge developments were being promoted in unsuitable (in planning terms) locations.

The loss of the Council elections in May 2017 left the village exposed once again, now to a Tory County council and a developer who is a well known giant donor to the Conservative Party.

A new application was slipped through during 2019 on the back of the Tories unwritten but very prominent developers charter to concrete over the County and their removal from statute of the Councils ‘core strategy’ planning document and the dreadfully slow progress made to replace it with a much weaker Local Plan allowed the big boys to come and mop up sites wherever they and their Tory mates decided was profitable. 

Councilor Dungworth fought hard but the permission was granted and the village of New Hartley will suffer for decades to come from the effects of the Tories actions.

Yet we have a Tory candidate running around blaming the Labour County Councillors for allowing this development to happen. People need to look at the above application number on the Councils planning portal and reassure themselves that this Tory isn’t keen like most of his colleagues on telling the truth, or does he even know what the truth is?