AN MP has told council chiefs of the concerns of more than 100 groups and protesters over plans for thousands of new homes.
Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell has written to city council chief executive Barry Rowland over issues raised by the Newcastle/Gateshead One Core Strategy, which seeks to map out development over the next 20 years.
Issues which the MP highlights include:
The way in which the city council initially handled the consultation exercise on the strategy;
Questions over the need for up to 21,000 new homes in Newcastle and the threat to green belt land;
The creation of urban sprawl and fears that it would swallow up the identities of existing settlements;
The threat to Gosforth Park nature reserve from proposals to build hundreds of homes near the site, which the MP says has become a regional issue.
Ms McKinnell said: “I have been contacted by a significant number of extremely concerned constituents. As someone who was born and bred in the Newcastle North constituency, I share many of their concerns.”
The MP says she wants to “see the local area prosper as part of a growing and economically vibrant city.”
But she says she has received a string of representations about the strategy from organisations such as the Save Gosforth Wildlife Campaign, Save Throckley, Walbottle and Blucher Open Spaces Campaign, Newcastle West Green Belt Protection Campaign, Wolsington Parish Council and Kenton Bank Foot Residents Association.
Ms McKinnell says in her letter: “I want to register my concern at the way in which the consultation process has been handled.
“It should have been abundantly clear from the outset that a proposed strategy which would result in up to 21,000 new homes – the large majority of which are proposed in my constituency – would be of very significant interest to local residents.
