Traffic nightmare at new school site
May 16 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal
WORRIED families say they are facing 18 months of traffic chaos and danger while work is carried out to build a new 630-student academy in the heart of their neighbourhood.
People living in Shearwater Way on Blyth’s South Beach estate claim their already congested street will suffer massive disruption from heavy construction traffic during the building of the primary element of the town’s £30m Bede Academy.
They say hundreds of local residents who have to use the narrow, winding street to get in and out of the estate will be met daily by lorries and other large vehicles taking materials in and out of the construction site at South Beach First School.
Academy sponsor, the Emmanuel Schools Foundation (ESF), recently came up with a possible solution involving re-routing all construction vehicles along a temporary access track around the back of the nearby South Beach pub.
Now that plan has been sunk after the pub’s owner, brewery company Marstons, refused permission for the land to be used.
However, many angry residents say the blame lies with ESF, claiming the affair provides fresh evidence for their argument that the new school should never have been planned at such a difficult to access site.
The latest row follows numerous objections to the ESF’s application to build the new academy on the site of the existing South Beach First school, doubling its size and number of pupils.
The entrance to the school is near a tight double bend on Shearwater Way, and locals say the prospect of heavy lorries travelling past their homes for 18 months fills them with horror.
Yesterday, local resident Carol Innes said: “At the end of the day this academy school is in the wrong place and should not be built here.
“We will never accept that it is too late to stop this, although some of the work has already started.
“David Vardy from ESF is trying to pin the blame for this latest setback on the owners of the pub, but the fact is that this is the wrong site for an academy. We don’t believe the brewery is the guilty party here.
“This estate was never designed to take a school of the size now proposed. It is going to be hell for 18 months because we already suffer major problems with the school run as it is.”
Neighbour David Shortland added: “We are going to have 38-tonne vehicles coming along a quiet, residential street and that will shake the place apart. There will be horrendous damage to the road and the vibration could damage our garden walls.”
Last night, ESF said it was Northumberland County Council’s decision to choose South Beach First School as the site for the primary academy, and plans were now too far advanced to be changed.
It said its plan to divert construction traffic off Shearwater Way had been blocked by Marstons, who don’t want the profitable South Beach pub to be affected. Bede Academy project director David Vardy said: “We listened closely to residents’ concerns about construction vehicles using the estate’s narrow streets and a lot of work went into coming up with an alternative plan to minimise any disruption.
“We have done everything in our power to push the plan forward, but it cannot go ahead without the brewery’s permission. It leaves us with no alternative other than to use Shearwater Way.” ESF was holding a meeting with residents last night to discuss the way forward.
For previous stories about the Bede Academy, click the links below
Councillors delay own faith academy
