PROPOSALS to poll North Tyneside families on new housing developments – including a luxury estate billed as the new Darras Hall – have been axed.

Councillors had called for a referendum over plans to concrete over green spaces.

Set out in planning documents which will guide the council for the next 15 years, the proposals would see hundreds of new houses built at the expense of open fields.

But now the cabinet has turned down the idea of polling everyone in North Tyneside on the plans. Instead, it has agreed to hold another month of consultation meetings.

Elected mayor Linda Arkley said: “We have an ambitious future vision for North Tyneside. Growth in housing is key to our future success. It will allow us to meet existing and future housing needs, as well as create and support jobs and infrastructure and attract more inward investment.

“If we don’t progress with a development framework for the borough, then we will lose control of where we can guide development, and this will affect the future of the borough.

“I have heard and understood residents’ concerns about the level of house building that is required, and we will now conduct an extra consultation on a range of growth options for the borough, to allow us to take those concerns into consideration.”

But the move has left campaigners, such as Keith Page, of the Holystone Action Group, worried that their views will be bulldozed out of the way.

“The mayor is saying that she wants to listen to us, but we have invited her repeatedly to come and talk to us directly about our concerns and that has never happened,” said Keith whose group opposes plans for houses in Scaffold Hill, Holystone.