How green is Northumberland council?

Take a look at the recent announcements about Northumberland county council's capital spending plans. Central to them is th Morpeth northern Bypass. NCC proposes to spend £13million, with government stumping up £22M, to divert one car journey in five away from the centre of Morpeth.

You did read that right. Four car journeys in five that currently go through Morpeth will continue to do so after the bypass is built. So that's £35M to make traffic in Morpeth not much better. NCC aren't very liberal with their traffic data. You'll search in vain for evidence that anything will improve in Morpeth as a result of this road being built. Cynics suggest its main purpose is to make Pegswood and the north and west of Ashington attractive places for housebuilders - provide dof course that there's a demand for houses with an easy link road to Berwick and Alnwick.

So for double the cost of putting rail services abck ont he Ashington Blyth and Tyne line a section of greenfield land will be dug up and tarmacked over, in the hope that housebuilders will move in. Raise that point with the administration at County Hall and they'll smile and murmur about industrial development in Ashington if only road access was better. Drive up the Spine road from Blyth to Ashington and you'll see Ashington's Field of Dreams business park on your left hand side, conclusive proof that you can build it but they still won't come.

So to sum up, NCC plan to plough up green space all round Morpeth in the vain hope that it might improve the economy of Ashington, for twice the price of a rail service to Ashington which could be linked into the Metro system and provide integrated transport for all south east Northumberland. Given the support for the Green Party in Morpeth, and their preference for integrated transport over the private car, this could be a political own goal for the administration at County hall.

Incidentally, if the objective is to take traffic out of the centre of Morpeth, why not upgrade the A1 junction at Clifton so that southbound traffic can come off the A1 there and go to County Hall or Merley Gate without passing through Morpeth town centre? Is that too obvious?