Cllr David Freeman, Cllr Nigel Martin and I attended the County Plan protest in the Durham Market Place today. It was well attended with some good speeches.

I have arranged a meeting with the Head of Planning this coming week to get to the bottom of how the Council plans to proceed now that it has managed to get around the Inspector’s decision to reject the County Plan.

As I see it there are a number of ways the Council could deal with this:

1. Put out an alternative County Plan in a few months for “consultation” and then ignore every view which comes back – as it has done throughout the process.

2. Arrange proper consultation sessions before producing ANY proposals and then produce an alternative plan without taking account of residents proposals – less likely but wouldn’t surprise me.

3. Arrange proper consultation on the areas of the plan which the Inspector and residents disagreed with – before producing a proposal, including the changes residents want and publish the alternative plan – how it should be done but almost certainly will not happen!

Whatever happens you can be sure it will be Lib Dem councillors standing up for our World Heritage City against a Labour-run council which so far has completely and utterly ignored the views of the vast majority of residents from Durham City and the surrounding villages.