Ponteland Wake up Call

Ponteland this is your ‘Wake Up Call’

Hands off our Greenbelt !!!!!!

Now the gloves are off and the consultation process begins. Northumberland County Council have notified residents of the outline planning application  13/00132/OUTES click here

The appropriate advertisement has been put in place  locally and a public notice in the newspaper for the development of 280 houses at Birney Hill Farm.

You need to ACT NOW, don’t wait, or leave it to others. HAVE YOUR SAY

Watch out for our information pack which is being delivered as you read this, over the next couple of days.

There is a quick objection letter and plenty of information for those who wish to personalise their replies. Download extra copies for everyone in the household, that includes children of any age. 

Use the envelope which has been provided, pre labelled, either post or we have two addresses: 93 Cheviot View and 17 Darras Road that will accept your envelope and will deliver them, by the deadline to County Hall, Morpeth.

Don’t think this proposed development is NOT going to affect you, it won’t matter where you live in Ponteland, it will have an adverse impact on your day to day life. If it is concreted over, that is it-it’s gone forever! and don’t think it stops there the door will be wide open for other speculative developers to follow

Take Note this is an Outline Application for 280 houses on the Birney Hill identified site the layout was an example of where the houses “could be built”

The Community needs to come together and respond before it is too late

Deadline 11^th March

Ponteland Greenbelt Group

Ponteland in the Twentieth Century

Ponteland was a small typical Northumbrian village before the First World War. There were farms and farmers,blacksmiths, carriers, saddlers and other trades associated with the rural economy. Livestock of every kind abounded andtwo coaching inns were in their last days. The population lived where they worked. The turnpike road to Scotland was hard-surfaced and motor cars appeared. The city of Newcastle, only 8 miles away, was an industrial hub where the workers lived in rows of terraced houses and coal-based industries produced constant smoke and dirt. The Northern Allotment Society was founded to give people the chance to buy plots of land out of town and grow vegetables and flowers for the markets. It was a novel idea to own land and to grow crops on it and the man who made it work was Joseph Wakinshaw. A number of small schemes met with success and when two farms came up for auction in 1907, the Darras Hall Farm and the Little Callerton with Callerton Moor, a total of over a 1000 acres, there was enough support for the NAS to buy both lots for short of £60 000. Careful planning went into the infrastructure of the Darras Hall Estate and the Trust Deed laid down standards still maintained today. The Estate boundaries are fixed and houses have a minimum plot size. Many market gardens flourished and houses were built, very few at first. A railway came and went and it was only after the Second World War that new housing eventually took off and by the end of the century some houses were being demolished to make way for modern buildings and mansions. One of the first houses built still has a stable, but in a dilapidated condition! 

Some ribbon development, of the kind now frowned on, occurred along the North Road, the West Road and Cheviot View on the Newcastle Road, mainly between the wars. Social housing, originally called council housing, was built in the 1950s in fields behind the Blackbird.The Ladywell estate at the west end of the village was built in the early 1960s. Small infill estates have been built since 1980. The Eland Haugh estate behind the golf club was built on the flood plain. Would permission be granted today? Fairney Edge extended Mayfair Gardens up to the burn of that name, and most recently the old mart field became The Lairage. The next big project will be housing on the police HQ site out at Smallburn. The original buildings were erected in 1903 as Cottage Homes for workhouse children from Newcastle, when they closed, it was used as a teacher training college before finally ending up with the police. So, lots of varied housing in Ponteland. We have a population of over 11 000. But, and this is a big one, there has been norecent significant expansion of our village facilities. We can’t call ourselves a town in the way that both Morpeth and Hexham are towns. We have the population but not the infrastructure, the facilities or even the parking spaces.When there are proposals for hundreds, or thousands, more housesthese all become critical concerns for the present residents. Planners give permissions for care homes and restaurants in the centre and stick the medical block at the far end of the industrial estate! 

Ponteland is unique settlement, neither village nor town, and there is no comparable place anywhere in the country! It is an aspirational, desirable place to live and most residents work in Newcastle, easily reached with good transport links. And greedy developers would love a slice of it. But without the Green Belt it could end up as just another outer suburb of Newcastle and the residents choose to live in Ponteland and Darras Hall because of its village feel and the accessibility of the surrounding countryside.

We don’t want any development in the Green Belt!
It has been in place for nearly 60 years and it is even more important today.

Source: Ponteland Green Belt Web Site

Rerouting of Bus No 74

Via email from a Ponteland Online visitor.

I would like to publicise the rerouting of Bus No 74, which from 28th October is going to revert to its original route along the upper part of Eastern Way and then via Edge Hill back onto Callerton lane, from where it proceeds to Newcastle through Westerhope.

This Go Ahead service, which goes to Newcastle at about 10, 12, 14 and 16h, will once again provide a useful link for a part of Darras Hall which is not served by Stagecoach.

It is to be hoped that the efforts of a determined octogenarian to get this change in route will now be rewarded by potential passengers finding many opportunities to use the service.

Community Joins Forces to Fight Development Plan

A COMMUNITY has formally come together to fight to protect Ponteland’s green belt.

More than 100 residents living in streets beside a proposed housing site have met to unite in a battle to protect the land from major new housing developments.

And a Ponteland Green Belt Group made its presence felt at the latest exhibition by Lugano Group, where it revealed plans for between 200 to 300 homes at Birney Hill.

The residents’ meeting was organised by householders on the eastern outskirts of Ponteland who are opposing all development on green belt land, including fields surrounding their homes where Banks Group is proposing to build up to 500 new properties.

One of the organisers, Susan Johnson, of Cheviot View, said: “We were delighted by the response from people in the area. Everyone is very concerned about the proposal for this and other areas around the village. Ponteland is the gateway to rural Northumberland and maintaining the green belt is vital.

“There is no proven need for more housing in Ponteland and developments on this scale would have a major impact on the area. Ponteland is already at saturation point. Traffic is a problem, parking in the village is difficult, the schools are already full and the village simply could not cope with developments of this nature.”

Mrs Johnson said that in a very short space of time the group had collected more than 200 responses to Northumberland County Council’s Local Development Plan Core Strategy document. These had been forwarded to the county with views on future planning.

Fellow resident Lesley Noble said residents have urged the authority not to class Ponteland as Tier One, which would make the area a ‘main focus for future development and regeneration’.

“Ponteland is not a key hub within the county for healthcare, housing, employment and retail which is what mainly defines a Tier One settlement,” she said.

“The vast majority of residents consider that Ponteland clearly meets the county’s criteria to be a Tier Two settlement with development that maintains and strengthens Ponteland as we know it.

“Being listed as a Tier One town could be seen as giving developers the green light to build what they want, where they want and without considering the wishes of the people in the area, the character of the village and its capacity to expand.”

Both Banks and Lugano claim that there are not enough brown field sites in the area to satisfy the county’s requirement for new homes.

Although the new National Planning Policy Framework allows building on the Green Belt in exceptional circumstances, the Ponteland Green Belt Group is concerned that the Government’s recent drive to boost the economy could see large housing estates being approved on the edge of the village and Darras Hall estate.

Its Protection Co-ordinator, John Blundell, said: “Communities are now faced with the loss of green belt through new legislation that is contrary to its original intention of allowing local residents to have their say on these issues because of Government demand for houses.

“This is not a small development of houses here and there, but large changes which cannot be undone.

“Communities must not look back in years to come to regret having done nothing about the loss of green areas and to have at least tried to stop the urbanisation that threatens their quality of life.

“There will always be brown field sites for building, but once a green field site is built upon, it is gone forever.”

The residents’ actions are being supported by their local MP Guy Opperman.

The number of people signing his petition, which calls for no building in the Ponteland Green Belt, is now close to 2,000.

Source: Morpeth Herald

Lugano Planning Ideas Day

PROPOSALS for the future of Ponteland will be put forward at the second event to be held by Lugano Group.

The company, which is examining the potential of about 2,500 acres of land which it owns on the nearby Dissington Estate and is also acting on behalf of some other landowners on the edge of the area, held a planning ideas day in the Memorial Hall on June 14.

After taking on board feedback from residents, it is now ready to showcase its initial plans for the area. Representatives will say how they believe issues raised on the day have been addressed.

As well as housing provision and design, other subjects that are being looked at include transport, community facilities, countryside and ecology, flooding and drainage, jobs and business and its vision for the centre of Ponteland.

Any proposals for new homes on Green Belt land will be met with strong opposition from hundreds of local residents who believe it should not be touched by development at all.

The latest exhibition will take place on Thursday, September 6, in the Memorial Hall between 2pm and 8pm and on Saturday, September 8, in the function suite at Ponteland Leisure Centre from 10am to 2pm.

Source: Morpeth Herald

New seats to be installed

NEW public seats will be installed in a Ponteland shopping area.

Members of Ponteland Town Council agreed that a wooden bench seat in Broadway, Darras Hall, needed to be replaced as it is in poor condition.

The clerk submitted various options for consideration and after a vote, it was decided to purchase two steel seats which will be fixed back-to-back.

Coun Joyce Butcher said: "The bench seat is falling apart and it looks out of place with the rest of Broadway, so these new seats will give that particular area an uplift."

Source: Morpeth Herald

Trust deed could cause problems for Darras Hall housing development plans

A CENTURY-OLD clause in a trust deed could become the focal point in a row over a housing development.

Plans have been laid to demolish Broadway Garage in the centre of exclusive Darras Hall and replace it with flats and townhouses.

But one clause in the Northumberland estate's 1910 trust deed says "terraced dwellings were expressly and specifically to be avoided".

It is also claimed that local rules say the filling station, built in the 1960s, should be in place for 100 years.

The Darras Hall Estate Committee, which has its own set of established regulations, says the terms of the lease precludes the use of the site for residential purposes.

The dispute is due to come to a head today when Northumberland County Council's area west planning committee meets in Hexham to decide on the application from Roadside Group Ltd to build 15 two-bedroomed flats and five three-bedroomed townhouses in place of Broadway Garage.

Twenty-four written objections have been lodged with planning officers who nonetheless are recommending conditional planning permission be granted.

Ponteland Civic Society believes the proposed buildings will be "out of keeping" with the immediate surroundings.

Chairman Philip Ham said: "The trust deed is something the owners very rarely get to look at in its entirety though the estate committee produces a summary book every so often.

"But the civic society feels if there were some better scheme rather than have this high-density one, we could possibly take a different view. But the plans for this are very high-density."

Zara Commercial Ltd, the owners of the Broadway Shopping Centre, lease the site to Roadside Group Ltd but are opposed to the housing development plan.

Their solicitors, Dickinson Dees, have written to the council to say: "The byelaws explain that in 1910, a group of landowners and businessmen created the concept of a residential estate to allow people to live in a more rural surrounding rather than in long streets of terraced houses and flats.

"The byelaws state that it is important to ensure the overall rural ambience of the estate is maintained. They are a separate regime to planning which also must be complied with.

"To maintain a rural ambience, a lower density is required than that proposed with the current application for the garage site.

"There is very little open or green space, creating a high-density urban development which is out of character with the area and contrary to the principles of the Darras Hall estate and its byelaws."

Other objections say the "flat and unattractive" courtyard-style development would cause traffic congestion, overcrowd the area, and at three storeys is too high.

There is also a risk of contamination in the land after its long use as a filling station.

But planning officials say there would be contamination checks on the site before any work starts.

Around 40% of the buildings would be "affordable", the impact on neighbouring amenity and highway safety would be acceptable, and the planners' report concludes: "Subject to recommended conditions the proposal would be acceptable."

Roadside Group Director Colin Fullerton was unavailable for comment last night.

Source: Journal Live

Interview: Victoria White, editor of Company magazine

Mother-of-two Victoria 
White hails from the North East and is editor of one of the UK's leading female 
magazines. She chats to LIZ LAMB about her glitzy career rubbing shoulders with 
stars, editing a fashion glossy and hanging out at Number 
10
 
AS 
editor of Company – one of the country's biggest-selling magazines for trendy 
twenty-somethings – Victoria White has rubbed shoulders with A-listers such as 
George Clooney and Take That, attended the Oscars and had an audience at Number 
10.
She 
receives invites for all the best fashion parties, dresses head-to-toe in 
designer threads (with a good mix of high street finds thrown in) and is friends 
with some of the country's most influential media high flyers.
The 
hard-working mother-of-two readily admits her life is as fantastic as it 
sounds.


The 
hard-working mother-of-two readily admits her life is as fantastic as it 
sounds.
"I 
have got a nice life, a nice job, a nice husband, nice kids, what's not to 
celebrate? says the 39-year-old. "I don't want to seem smug but it really is a 
nice job. It's hard work but it is exciting.
"People always ask me, do 
you get to meet celebrities and, yes I do, all the time. It's not something that 
I stop getting excited about. I was dumbstruck when I met Take That. They were 
stood three feet away from me but I was frozen and couldn't speak to them! I 
have met George Clooney, and he was really nice – very easy-going and pleasant. 
It's very rare that I get my photograph taken with celebrities, I never seem to 
do that."
Victoria has been editor of Company magazine, a fashion 
and lifestyle bible for women in their 20s, for six years. During her 
career she has championed using real-women instead of models on the pages of her 
publication and has overseen the magazine's Get Home Safely campaign, which aims 
to raise awareness of the risks posed by young women getting home on nights 
out.
She 
developed a taste for journalism while growing up in the North East. Born in 
Fenham, Newcastle, to parents Graeme and Iris Ross, Victoria grew up in Darras 
Hall and attended Ponteland High School. Her parents still live in 
Jesmond.
"I 
actually did some work experience at the Chronicle and Journal in 1992," she 
recalls. "I did a big university supplement for The Journal. They let me write 
it all, which was brilliant work experience.
"I was 
at the Chronicle for a week and then spent a couple of weeks at The Journal, and 
then they asked me stay for the summer. I was keen and just got on with whatever 
they gave me. I got really good stuff to do. I went and sat in on court 
sessions, interviewed people and had my work published.
"I 
have pretty much always wanted to be a journalist but, back then, you didn't do 
media studies or journalism at school. Nobody from my school had ever been a 
journalist or expressed an interest, particularly in working for 
magazines.
"I 
wanted to work in magazines and fashion and they looked at me and said, have you 
thought about retail management? I was so determined, which is why I did so much 
work experience.
"My 
parents were always really supportive."
Victoria also spent time 
working at BBC Look North and worked closely with television presenter Wendy 
Gibson. "She was fantastic with me," says the editor. "She really took me under 
her wing and took me out on outdoor broadcasts.
"She said if I ever wanted any help then to stay in 
touch. My dad, a retired sales director, saw her recently in a 
restaurant in Newcastle. He told her 'you won't remember my daughter but I 
wanted to say thank you, she is now a magazine editor in London and she started 
out in the media partly thanks to you'.
"Wendy 
was very touched."
Victoria left Newcastle to 
attend the University of Sussex to do a degree in American Studies. "Back then, 
you didn't do journalism at university, " she says.
During university, she went travelling to America and lived with an aunt in Los 
Angeles. Victoria says: "When I was there I made friends with an English girl 
who was an actress and one of her friends was the LA correspondent for TV Hits 
magazine in the UK. I told her I really wanted to be a journalist. She told me 
to phone TV Hits say I knew her and get some work 
experience.
"I had 
already applied for work experience at lots of London magazines and got tons of 
refusal letters. I probably applied to Company magazine, too.
"I 
went to TV Hits for work experience and never left."
In her 
final year at university, Victoria worked one day a week at Inside Soap 
magazine. "They asked me to come and work for free and I didn't mind at all," 
she says. "I was incredibly grateful. They gave me a job.
"I do 
lectures with students now and they always ask how to get on in media and I say 
not to pay any heed to how I got into journalism as that won't get them a job in 
journalism now. You can't do unlimited work experience anymore, there are laws 
now. It wasn't like that 20 years ago.
"It's 
hard because there are not that many jobs."
While 
at Inside Soap, Victoria was offered a job in Australia to edit a new magazine 
that was launching. "I went there for a year and then I was offered the chance 
to go to LA to be a bureau chief for a lot of Oz magazines doing the Hollywood 
junket. It meant that I got to go to interview stars in hotels. It was when 
Titanic was released so I interviewed Leonardo Di Caprio, George Clooney, 
Jennifer Lopez, Matt Damon, everyone that was a star.
"It 
was a brilliant job and the best year of my life." It was in LA that Victoria 
met her husband, British actor Peter White, who had a small part in Titanic. The 
couple moved back to the UK, married and now have two children – Arthur, seven 
and Sebastian, three.
"I got 
on a women's magazine called B as deputy editor," she says. "That was always 
what I wanted to do, to work on a women's magazine, and it was too good an 
opportunity to miss."
The 
mum-of-two was there for four years before the magazine closed and she moved to 
Company, where she took up the role as deputy editor for four years before 
becoming editor.
The 
May edition of Company is a real women edition featuring readers modelling 
clothes instead of models. Sunderland university student Hannah Traynor can be 
seen modelling animal prints.
"I 
brought in the real women issue three years ago." says Victoria. Every year, we 
have an issue of Company in which we don't use models. We have a reader on the 
cover. Times have changed, people want to know about street style and who is 
wearing what. It's great to use real girls."
The 
Company team have visited the North East in the past scouting for girls to model 
and they were at the Metrocentre last year looking for girls to come and edit 
parts of the magazine for the special edition.
During 
her career, Victoria has also attended the Oscars, the Emmys and The Brit 
Awards.
It's not all about fun and fashion, though. The Get 
Home Safely campaign has seen Company magazine and some of its readers go to 
Number 10 to talk to David Cameron. Victoria was there recently at a party to 
celebrate International Women's Day. These days, she rarely find times to come 
back to the region, although the family holidays once a year at 
Bamburgh.
"I 
really love my job," she says. "It's fun, it's young and it's a really fun 
magazine to edit. I get to do things with music and fashion. I love the fact 
that I am nearly 40 now but the magazine is for women in their 20s – it keeps me 
in touch with what's happening."

Source: Journal Live

Mobile mast fears at school site allayed

A BID to give increased protection to a Northumberland school and nearby homes which were threatened with a controversial mobile phone mast has been given top-level approval.

Anger erupted last year over two separate attempts by telecommunications giant O² to erect a phone mast on The Broadway in Darras Hall, Ponteland.

The company eventually agreed not to go ahead after hundreds of placard-carrying locals staged a silent protest outside Darras Hall First School.

Subsequently 1,800 residents signed a petition calling on Northumberland County Council to take action to make it more difficult for phone companies to put up a mast in the neighbourhood.

Earlier this year councillors agreed to use special planning powers to seek a direction under Article 4 of the Town and Country Planning Act in a bid to give added protection to The Broadway.

Now the order has been confirmed after no objections were raised by the Secretary of State, O², or any other interested parties.

It removes permitted development rights for telecommunications equipment in the area, and gives it increased protection against phone mast development. It means companies such as O² would need to secure full planning approval from the council to put up a mast.

The saga began last year when a county council mistake resulted in O² getting planning permission by default for a 12.5 metre-high mast outside 450-pupil Darras Hall School.
An alternative site further along Broadway was then refused planning permission, leaving the company free to put the mast next to the school.
However, O² agreed to seek a less sensitive site in the wake of the massive public demonstration held in February.

The Article 4 direction was sought to restrict permitted development rights, and address local fears that another telecoms firm could return to the school site and implement the outstanding planning consent.

Yesterday Richard Dodd, who represents Ponteland North on the county council, said seeking the order had been the only option to protect the school site and The Broadway from telecoms development.
He said: "It is all quiet on the western front as far as O² are concerned, but we also have to worry about who or what comes next. Darras Hall School and The Broadway is a sensitive area and the order is a tool which gives us more control over what happens there."
Planning rules say an Article 4 direction can be made where there is a "real and specific threat to the locality in which the development is to take place". There needs to be a compelling case to justify such a move.

Source: Journal Live

Darras Hall affected by property price plunge

THE impact of the economic downturn on North East property prices is revealed today, with homes in some of the regions most desirable postcodes plunging by up to 45%, while those elsewhere have held their value.

An investigation by The Journal has revealed how some householders have been forced to reduce their asking prices to more realistic levels.
One of the most affected areas identified by estate agents is the exclusive Darras Hall estate in Ponteland, Northumberland, where many have seen hundreds of thousands of pounds taken off the value they put on their homes.

The problems in Darras Hall are being partly blamed on the fact fewer Premier League footballers and other high earners are buying houses there.

In contrast, other parts of the region including Jesmond, parts of Durham City, and more rural areas such as the Tyne Valley, and Sedgefield, in County Durham, have managed to retain higher values.

Experts say the pattern of property prices has followed the money. As higher-earning entrepreneurs and manufacturers have been forced to rein in their spending, many have looked to downsize, making more executive homes available to the market, and decreasing their value.

Letting agents say more top-flight footballers, from both Sunderland and Newcastle United, are also choosing to rent instead of buy as they see their time in the region as more transient.

Longer established desirable neighbourhoods, such as Gosforth in Newcastle, have been insulated from a price slump by demand from top earners in the public sector.
Experts believe this is in part driven by medical professionals, who choose to live closer to the hospitals where they work.
Planning restrictions in rural areas have also meant supply for aspirational properties in the countryside has been starved, helping to preserve values in areas such as Corbridge and Hexham.
According to last weeks Nationwide house price index, the average house in the North East fell in value by 1.2% in the last quarter, but is still worth 1% more than a year ago.
However, such figures disguise huge differences within the region with some neighbourhoods suffering big losses.

For example, so far this year Darras Halls Runnymede Road has realised an average sale price of s500,000 less than in 2004, dropping from s1.2m to s700,000, according to the property website nethouseprices.com.
But Gosforths Graham Park Road last year recorded an average sale price of s1m, compared with s700,000, in 2005, an increase of s300,000. Last night, property bosses reassured buyers and sellers alike that the North East property market remains healthy, although they warned that the days of super-inflated prices in the region are at an end.
Duncan Young, managing director of estate agent Sanderson Young, which has a 70% share of the market for selling homes over s1m, said: Demand for homes in Darras Hall accelerated very quickly from the 1990s into the 2000s, as footballers and sportsmen started moving into the area.

It is still a wonderful neighbourhood and the demand is still there, but prices have fluctuated more. In Northumberland, agents say there has been a drop-off in the number of buyers looking at s1m-plus homes, while the very top end of the market has remained insulated.
Experts say this reflects the large cash wealth of investors looking to buy estates with multiple homes and land.

Partner at Strutt and Parker, in Northumberland, Simon Beeby, said: There has possibly been a drop-off in the number of people willing to spend over s1m, which would also come down to high-earners seeing their income affected by the economic conditions.
I think the reason you see such fluctuations in Darras Hall is because there is such a large concentration of expensive homes in one place, it becomes the microcosm of the bigger picture.
Neil Foster, managing director of Foster Maddison, said: It is important to remember average house prices can be affected by relatively few sales and, in my opinion, the market has remained more or less level over the last year.
Developers can increase the supply of new properties, but there are limited numbers of period and rural homes, due to planning limitations.
Valuers say Durham City has also performed well, with strong transport links making it an accessible option.

Source: Journal Live

Keith snaps up top photography award

A PONTELAND photographer's sporting shots have seen him receive a prestigious distinction award from a national organisation.

Keith Robertson, who has been taking pictures for the Morpeth Herald and Northumberland Gazette for the last 24 years, now has the Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) in Applied Visual Journalism.

The 15 photographs submitted to the judging panel covered a wide range of sports and met the high standard required – with all five of the judges approving them.

Mr Robertson, who can now use ARPS after his name, also had to include a statement of intent and his said that the photos represented the concentration, intensity and aggression of sport.

"I'm delighted to receive this accolade and it's a great achievement because they are looking for a high standard of technical skill," he said.

"It took quite a bit of time to get everything ready, as each photograph needs to be perfectly presented on a board and they had to be sent off in a special case, but it was definitely worth it.

"I have to thank the Morpeth and Ponteland sports clubs as they have given me a lot more access than other photographers get because of the relationships I've built up with them over the years, as well as the Herald and Gazette for giving me the opportunity to take pictures for them."

The Associateship is the middle of the three distinctions photographers can get from the RPS.

The 66-year-old Darras Hall resident achieved the first level Licentiateship 15 years ago and he said he may try to get the highest distinction, the Fellowship, in future years.

Mr Robertson is President of the Hexham and District Photographic Society and a photographic judge appointed by the Northern Counties Photographic Society.

His wife, Olive, is also a keen photographer and she successfully achieved her Licentiateship last year.

Source: Morpeth herald

New bike gives Ponteland police off road presence

Ponteland's beat bobby has a new set of wheels to help him police the community – thanks to a grant from civic leaders.

Ponteland Town Council and Darras Hall Estate Committee shared the cost of the £700 Giant Roam XR3 bike for Neighbourhood Beat Manager PC Paul Henery after hearing the benefits it could bring to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.

With numerous paths, parks and bridleways in the area, the bike gives PC Henery a speedy off road mode of transport when hunting or chasing criminals, as well as a highly visible presence to help address fear of crime.

Town Mayor Robin Ramsay said: "The Council is keen to improve the quality of life for residents and businesses and this bike is another weapon our local police can use to tackle criminal activity. We thought it was an extremely worthwhile joint initiative we were more than happy to support."

John Scott, Vice-Chairman of Darras Hall Estates Committee, added: "PC Henery made the point that there are places in Darras Hall he can get to quickly on a bike which are simply not accessible by car, including bridlepaths. It also gives us high visibility policing and we felt the bike was something he should have."

PC Henery said: "I'm really grateful for the bike as it's going to make a difference to how I can patrol the area. I'll be able to provide a greater visible police presence in and around Ponteland and because I'm on a bike I can access hard-to-reach areas, such as the bridlepath, in order to tackle anti-social behaviour. I find that when I ride a bike I can talk to the public easily while patrolling Ponteland's paths and tracks, something which is not possible in a car."

Photo:
PC Henery is pictured on his new bike with Town Mayor Robin Ramsay and John Scott, Vice-Chairman of Darras Hall Estates Committee.