The news that a development partnership between a massive housing company and a locally linked national transport guru is seeking outline planning permission to kickstart the development of homes in Bebside is really good news for residents of Blyth, particularly Cowpen Road and Cowpen Estate areas.
Cowpen Road is Northumberland’s busiest highway and is choked with traffic daily. Plans for a bypass are in existence but with the dreadful government austerity programs since 2010 to pass cash from working people over to the elite and their investor friends and remove and run down essential services to the masses, has left councils 18% per person lower in basic core funding allowance with neighbourhood services being slashed back right across the poorer parts of Northumberland as a consequence then residents are looking at years and possibly a decade before a bypass becomes affordable even with a change of Government.
This effect leaves residents of Cowpen and Kitty Brewster with some of the worst airborne pollution in the North of England.
The proposal to build new homes on land at Bebside ‘which sits outside the green belt’ and has no public access across it may help enormously as those who wish to live in Blyth yet take advantage of its new rail links with Newcastle and the Metro and are more mobile will be able to enjoy the freedom of living close to Bebside’s new station which its expected lower the traffic and its damaging pollution from Cowpen Road making Cowpen Estate a better place to live..
The outline permission for the site at Bebside which is a long term project for the development partnership is for a mixed style development but it is proposed to grow to include a primary school medical services and local shops making Bebside a unique community in future.
