New Ridley: Decision on False Premises?

Recently I posted some thoughts on the council's complete reversal in its thinking when it chose to approve the planning application for the development at New Ridley. One of the reasons for the decision that I picked up was that the county is concerned that 80% of planning decisions are overturned on appeal. However, a quick look at the Planning Inspectorate's own figures (see page 77) reveals almost the exact opposite to be true: for the Northumberland County Council planning authority in 2013-14 68% of appeals were dismissed.

Was the decision made on a misunderstanding of the facts?

Northumberland's Teenager Tax: Post-16 transport and rural disadvantage

So, there is something of a storm brewing at the moment over the Northumberland County Council's (NCC) decision to axe free travel to post-16 students from this September. This comes in just at the time that the law is changing to make it compulsory for children to stay on at school until the age of 18.

New Ridley: End of the road...

I was deeply disappointed by the about turn of the council last week when it approved the development in New Ridley. I thought we had a really good case for the following reasons.

New Ridley: Approval Recommended

Today I received a copy of the County Council planning officer's report on the New Ridley application which is being decided next Wednesday. Unfortunately, and despite the council rejecting the original application, the planning officer has again recommended conditional approval.

You can read the planning officer's report in full by downloading it here.

New Ridley: Amended plans and planning committee

Amendments and planning committee date

There have been some amendments to the New Ridley plan and a date has been set for the planning committee.

A Speedy Delay

Just as we approach the end of the period in which we thought we were going to get super fast broadband, there has been another delay, and we're now looking at some time in August before the service goes live.

Connecting the Cabinets

If you were inconvenienced by the temporary traffic lights along the A695 today, it may lessen the annoyance to know it was all in the good cause of super fast broadband. Today Openreach (the BT company that installs and maintains the infrastructure) were at the new cabinets along the A695 installing the main fibre optic cable that will link them to the main network.