Building to start soon on Murton fields
The Planning Committee have agreed the proposals for 300+ new homes in the land owned by Northumberland Estates opposite North Tyneside Hospital (November 2021). Building is likely to start in the next few months. A further 2,700 homes are planned for the Murton Gap area between Rake Lane, Monkseaton and Shiremoor over the next few years on land owned by Bellway and Persimmons.
These developments were agreed in principle several years ago as part of the North Tyneside 2017 Local Plan (this can be found on the council website). It was anticipated at that time that the whole site would be developed in a phased way so that issues related to traffic in particular could be managed by the early building of a new road from New York Road up to Earsdon. This would take cars away from Rake Lane. However this road has not yet been built which means that traffic from the Northumberland Estates homes will all converge onto the roundabout on Rake Lane where there is an entrance to the hospital and the new Lidl store. Rake Lane is already congested at certain times on the day and this additional traffic – eventually up to at least 300 cars a day – will obviously make this much worse.
You would have thought that this must raise concerns about air pollution in a very sensitive site, being adjacent to the hospital. However no one in the Planning Committee asked questions about this. Nor was there any consideration given to the impact of this development on the council’s Net Carbon Zero target for 2030 – but the planning proposals did not include any mention of heat pumps or solar panels in the buildings although facilities for EV charging are to be installed. This is of particular concern since domestic heating contributes about 30% to the borough’s carbon footprint and these new houses are going to add to it.
There were questions about the impact of this development on the environment and wildlife but committee members were assured that the impact would be minimal – and in fact there would be net environmental gain because some land would be set aside away from the development, in Backworth, where the birds and wildlife can go instead. However no plans were produced to explain how the birds, insects and plants would find their way there!
This is the first of probably several planning applications for building on the Murton Fields site. While it is no longer possible to challenge the development as a whole since it has already been agreed in principle the details of the individual developments can still be questioned as they come forward for approval. There are a number of concerns in addition to the traffic/air pollution and carbon emissions ones above:
– the Murton fields are a really important ‘green lung’ in the east of the borough, used by dozens of people (and dogs) every day. We need to know what green space is going to be left after all the homes are built, and where people will be able to exercise their dogs off the lead as they do at present;
– the fields are home to many wildlife species and provide an important corridor to allow larger mammals to move from north to south of the borough – what provision is being made to preserve or improve the bio-diversity of the area?
– flooding remains an issue although Northumbria Water has done a lot of work there; flood water will be directed through to Marden Quarry where apparently it is difficult to prevent high water levels at times of heavy rains – might this be a concern for houses in the Whitley Bay area?
– where are the school places, provision of doctors’ surgeries and other community facilities going to be for the hundreds of new residents in this and other developments?
No doubt local residents will start asking these and other questions once the building starts. We need to be prepared for this.