Residents, furious at the HQ planning application have stated a petition to the Sectrary of State requesting he calls it in.

The more signatures, the more pressure it puts on him to act. I was one of the six councillors who voted against the application at committee last week. I have never in 10 years as a councillor seen a more ill thought out planning application. I was one of only a few councillors on the committee who spoke against the proposals, and at significant length.

There were so many reasons for objection to the application, it was almost too difficult to get across all of them. Cllr Elizabeth Scott the Lib Dem Chair of the City of Durham parish Council spoke against it, as did the two local Lib Dem county councillors Cllr Freeman and Ormerod.

No members of the Labour Party spoke out against the application on behalf of their Party and the MP has failed to provide any comments against the application. So its down to residents and Lib Dem councillors to continue to push for action. You can sign the petition here. I have sent this to all 126 councillors – might there be one Labour councillor out there who sees sense on this?:

https://www.change.org/p/get-durham-county-council-sands-hq-plans-called-in-by-the-secretary-of-state?cs_tk=Ah8vtOVK0pl2MqG9hlwAAXicyyvNyQEABF8BvJvWteLCJ2NJ9VTaw88XXXQ%3D&utm_campaign=7d0c18f63afa44c6b3dd39476bd19b6f&utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_signer_receipt&utm_term=cs

Yesterday I attended the Council’s Cabinet meeting which they decided to hold in Murton – with the County Plan on the agenda. Total number of pages for the meeting was 5718! Of which most were the County Plan.

As councillors we only got this last Wednesday, and I’m convinced there isn’t a person on the planet, including the Cabinet members who have read all the 5718 pages of paperwork over the last week.

Having searched through the paperwork I managed to get a question in over the weekend for the Portfolio Holder for Regneration.

My concern was around the route of the Northern Relief Road. This seems to be the biggest issue now about the plan. The impression we get as councillors is that the reduction in the number of houses as art of the scheme from over 6000 to 1700 is now less of a concern than previously, especially given that there will be parkland as part of the proposals – although I still need to get to the bottom of how much parkland and how the infrastructure around the whole area is supposed to cope.

Part of that coping is the Northern Relief Road from Pity Me to near Belmont. Whilst there is a vocal group who are against the proposed road, when you delve deeper it is clear that the route of the road is the biggest issue for most people, whilst a sizeable majority of people feel we should have an improvement in the infrastructure to the North of the CIty.

It is the route of the road which concerns me most. The council has failed in my view too get proper analysis of all the possible options.

I have copied my question to cabinet below:

One of the most important elements of the County Plan is the Northern Relief Road. Both prior to and during the consultation process I have raised concerns about the lack of independent analysis of all the possible alternatives to the route proposed.

This route, either with a new bridge or using the Belmont Viaduct goes through a nature reserve and an area with outstanding wildlife and stunning landscapes which is critical to the residential amenity, health and wellbeing of Durham City.

Opposition from local residents to this route is significant.

Whilst a majority of local residents and indeed myself support in principle improved infrastructure to the north of Durham City, at this stage I cannot accept that all possible routes and options have been satisfactorily analysed.

There is no consideration of a route around the back of Brasside, and in fact all the County Plan contains is a few paragraphs of officer views on each possible option.

In addition, the report states that Highways England will not allow a further A1 junction, yet on questioning officers I find that the Council has never even asked them and has simply relied on a national transport circular from 2013 which states such junctions can only be built unless if they are part of a wider strategic growth agenda – well if the County Durham Plan is not part of a wider grew than agenda I do not know what is.

For such an important proposal as the NRR there should have been a full independent report carried out of all the possible options. This is something I specifically asked officers for. The fact that there has not been a proper report means that at this moment this part of the plan is fundamentally flawed.

I would therefore urge Cabinet to commission a full and proper independent report into all possible routes and options for the Northern Relief Road to avoid this element failing at Public Inquiry and if they are not willing or able to do this, explain why, given the critical importance of this element of the plan, the Council has not and is not willing to do this and accept responsibility if this part of the plan does indeed fail.

The response to my question was pretty straightforward – that I was wrong. The Council believes this is the only viable route and any other route would not be close enough to the City to work. I strongly disagree.

There was no explanation as to why no independent report has been done, no explanation as to the discrepancy with highways England, no understanding of the impact of the route on our area.

What is good is that the council have recognised that having a bridge over the East Coast mainline is going to have a very negative impact and so they have included the option of going under the railway line at Brasside. The reduction in housing numbers as part of the plan is also welcome, however I am still not convinced that the infrastructure proposed will be put in place before housing is built, nor am I convinced that areas such as Durham Moor, Aykley Heads and North End will be able to cope even with the extra roads. Aykley Heads roundabout is already log-jammed at certain times of day.

I will, as no doubts others will, be ploughing through the 5700 pages looking at what else is still a problem. Please do let us know your views and please do attend the consultation events.

One final thing that has annoyed me is that we had to ask again for the necessary events in our area and had we not done everyone would have had to go to the Town Hall.

Thankfully all three of my requests for events have been accepted and the dates are as follows:

4th February – 3.30-6.30 Framwellgate Moor Community Centre

14th February – 4pm-7pm Abbey Leisure Centre

21st February – 4pm-7pm All Saint’s Church, Newton Hall

Whilst the weather was certainly summer like this year. The supposed August break failed to materialise for us as councillors. We have had to deal with a whole raft of issues across the area during this time including:

– ARRIVA BUS SERVICES – Problems with local bus services culminating in articles in the local press. We have had to challenge the Council and Arriva regarding the 64 service and indeed other services across the area. It seems Arriva have had a whole raft of problems. Although for many long term sufferers of the services on Newton Hall, this will come as no surprise, just that this year it seems to have been worse than ever. We continue to look for ways to improve services in our area.

– HIGHWAYS ISSUES At various locations including Mere Drive and Carr House Drive we have had to intervene over council work to footpaths where not all the work was completed. In ere Drive this was not the Council’s fault and was down to parked cars. On Carr House Drive, areas where were due to be rebuilt were completely missed due to council error. And ear the hospital we have had to repeatedly push with our colleagues form Neveille’s Cross for the footpath which was really dangerous to be resurfaced. This was done over the last weekend and a very good job has been done, so thank you to our highways teams for finally recognising the need for this work.

– PAVILLION AND KING GEORGE V WORKS – On a the Parish Council we have all been working hard to make sure that the work to the Pavillion could start this week, the £100,000 project includes replacement of the roof of the Pavillion including other structural works, new heating system, new lighting for the MUGA,Tennis court and pavillion access road. Parish Councillor Colin Hillary has been invaluable in making sure that this project reached this stage. I was put in charge of the fundraising and we managed to bring in significant funding from Sport England, S106 planning funds and AAP funding so that the parish council has only had to fund a small proportion of the works. The Parsih car park will be closed for 3 months and we have had to liaise with the Primary school, county council and police to ensure that problems in the local area are kept to a minimum particularly on Newton Drive.

– FRAMWELLGATE MOOR PRIMARY SCHOOL has opened with its wonderful extension, new windows, heating and car park works well on the way to completion. It is expected the works will take until April to completely finish. This has ensured that the area will have enough places for local children this year and that the primary school will now have far better facilities than before to support its outstanding status! We had to work hard with the school and County Council to ensure that the heating, parking and windows plans were improved.

– COUNTY HALL AND AKYLEY HEADS. We have had to intervene over the summer over the plans for the new county hall and next week Amanda will be raising concerns about the Aykley Heads masterplan at Cabinet. We do not believe that the County Council can be trusted to ensure that this area has the infrastructure in place to deal with the proposals for new jobs in this area and given the problems over the years which we have had to deal with since the redevelopment of Trinity School, we have sincere concerns about how traffic management, parking and other issues will be managed. The new county hall plans for the Sands car park have raised significant concerns in the community, and I have raised with Directors at County Hall my concerns that there is no sustainability assessment included with the proposals Many residents have contacted us about the plans for the new HQ. As I am on the planning committee I cannot give an opinion either way on the building but do feel that residents should have an extended period of consultation on this as all the information needed to consider the proposals is not yet available and the consultation period closed last week – this is clearly not acceptable.

BRASSIDE PARKING LAY-BYS – We have numerous issues which we have had to deal with in Brasside including discussions about the plans to rebuild the parking areas though the village. We are now hopeful of a start on site soon after making several amendments to the works to make them safer and more appropriate.

START OF NEW COLLEGE TERM – The state of Front Street last week with students from New College back for the new term was completely unacceptable and we intervened contacting the College, the Police and teh County Council. Wardens are patrolling, as are the police and the College has written to all students reminding them of their responsibility to treat the local area with respect. The amount of litter at the top of Newcastle Terrace last week was disgraceful We are going to me monitoring this going forward and I will be asking the County council to reconsider whether or not 16-18 year olds can / should be given penalty notices for littering as at the moment the Council does not do this.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES – Across the area we have had requests for a variety of works including weed spraying, tree and bush cutting, clearing of flytipping and litter. We have also had to intervene because of the unacceptable behaviour of some of the shops on Framwellgate Moor Front street, the owners of which seem to think they can profit from the local community at the same time has leaving the outside of the shops looking a complete tip. Warning and enforcement letters have been sent and are being looked at further.

CLOSURE OF POTTERHOUSE LANE

We had to intervene and challenge the Council over this and their suggestion that this will be closed for months and months. For many years I have expressed concerns about the culvert running under the road near the chicken farm. It collapsed and when the Council said it was going to take so long to repair we have been putting pressure on and hope that the work will get finished more quickly to avoid unnecessary disruption.

Just a few of the things going on. Blog fully back up and running……..

Over the last week, whilst delivering our latest leaflet which provides details of the County Plan consultation, we have also ben reporting issues around our area. Some of these will be acted on quickly by the council, some will be booked in for future works program, and sadly some may not be actioned at all if Council doesn’t think they are severe enough or fails to properly investigate – this does happens sometimes and some of the reports we put in have to be it in more than once. Here’s a sample of some requests, if you spot anything like this anywhere else, please let us know.

Dryburn Hill – Road surface request for patching, leaves and detritus on footpaths and road.

Dryburn Road – Request for sweeping of road and paths

Sacriston Lane/Durham Moor – Various areas requiring sweeping

Durham Road/Durham Moor Crescent – Tree root trip hazards on pavement, detritus on pavement.

Holmlands Crescent – trip hazard on pavement

Durham Moor Crescent – Very poor state of pavement on part of the street

Path from Finchale Road to Newton Drive – overgrown/full of weeds

Various properties with rubbish in gardens or overflowing bins

25-31 Finchale Rd – road surface never resurfaced when rest of estate was done

Flytipping at various locations including Finchale Road, Beech Road, Newcastle Terrace, Garden Avenue, Front St Framwellgate Moor, Woodbine Road, Farnham Road, Durham Terrace

Dangerous structure (wall) on Finchale Road

Damaged footpaths on Finchale Road, The Forge,

High Carr Close – new estate – drainage gullies full of construction waste

Various issues with County Durham Housing Group properties

Overgrown paths/weeds on Caterhouse Road

Pavement issues on Lilac Avenue

Abandoned vehicles

Overgrown path at Bek Rd traffic lights

Various detritus issues on Old Pit Lane

Road defects Roman Drive, Carr House Drive, Aykley Vale

Overgrown path Newton Drive

Path from Potterhouse Terrace to the Forge overgrown

Blocked gullies – various locations

Farnham Road – tree root/trip hazards

Bede Way – bushes growing into road

There will be a mixed reaction to proposals for the Northern Relief road. On the one hand Durham has a pollution and congestion problem and attempts to get people to change will simply not deal with it.

I imagine there will be a significant number of residents supporting a new road. However there will also be a significant percentage against a road at all. Then there will be residents who want a road but do not agree with the route.

One such resident sent me a video he has done which you may find interesting. See below.

Another interesting point is that when I asked officers for the analysis of all possible routes for a relief road, I found that there were only the two options running between Brasside and Newton Hall. No consideration of Cocken Road nor of going round the back of Brasside have been even analysed at a basic level – simply because decades ago this was the proposed route. I don’t think that is an acceptable answer.

Whilst I am inclined to support improved road links due to the congestion in Durham City, I am yet to be convinced that the route proposed is the only or best option.

Whatever your views on this and the other County Plan issues, please make sure you attend the consultation events.