ANGER OVER FENCING PLANS

October 2014 - ANGER OVER FENCING PLANS: There's a planning application in from the Red House Farm Football Club for them to install a perimeter fence around all of the football pitches on the Kingston Park Road field. This would mean that the pitches could only be accessed and used by the Club in the future, not the public. The fences would be 3m and 5m tall, plus floodlighting towers for an artificial pitch - to be used all year round and potentially late into evenings.
For years the field has been used by the community for walking and jogging, picnics, kite flying, informal kickabouts, sunbathing, dog walking, you name it (and not to mention the wildlife you can see in the mornings)
"It's public open space, with the emphasis on the word public" says Councillor Brenda Hindmarsh.
"We have sympathy with the concerns expressed by local people, not only about the loss of public access,
but also about extra traffic from greater use of the pitches, with more parking, noise and litter - and what an
eyesore these fences will be" says Brenda. "We don't want to stop football on the pitches, but the activities
of the club have given rise to legitimate concerns by local residents in recent times; these proposals will only make relations more difficult, at a time when the club needs to be mending fences not erecting them."

To let your views be known please call Council Planning Officers Tony Howarth/Billy Browell on 211 5635 or 277 8974 quoting 2014/1466/01/DET, OR email tony.howarth@newcastle.gov.uk, OR write to them at Room 900, Planning, Civic Centre, Barras Bridge, Newcastle NE1 8PD, OR search online planning applications at www.newcastle.gov.uk to comment online - or for more detail. To be received by 21 October.

ROADS AND PAVEMENTS CASH "AN INSULT":
The Lib Dem-run council used to make available realistic budgets for road and pavement renewal, averaging between £100,000 and £200,000 for each ward each year. We know that budgets are much tighter now but here we are, half way through the year, and we have no budget given to the wards but are told that the total for the entire CITY (26 wards) will be around £200,000. "It's an insult" says Councillor Brenda Hindmarsh, "and will barely be enough for a few stretches of road or pavement. Remember we told you of the Labour Council's plans to spend EIGHTEEN MILLION POUNDS on improving the Civic Centre. They need to get their priorities right."