Councillor says residents on new Fairways Arcot Manor estates in Cramlington have been 'screwed over'

Homeowners on the Fairways Arcot Manor estates, which are being built by a partnership of Bellway Homes and Persimmon, say the only access onto their estate is via Fisher Lane.

It means everyone – including older people and schoolchildren – is expected to cross a busy 50mph road to access the bus stop.

And there is no pedestrian or bike access to local services except via a stretch of road they must walk along for a third of a mile without any footpath, as cars speed by. They then have to cross the A1068 to reach the footpath and cycle network at Northumberlandia, where the speed limit is 70mph.

They made their concerns known during a protest march along the busy road a couple of weeks ago, and the matter was discussed at county hall on Thursday after the residents submitted a petition.

The council has said the developers are obliged to put in associated infrastructure via a Section 106 agreement which was part of the planning process. However, this only comes into play when a certain number of homes have been built, and that threshold has not yet been reached.

In February, it agreed to explore building a temporary footpath across a piece of land it owns to give families safe access to the town centre. But at Thursday’s meeting of the council’s petitions committee, senior planning officer Liz Sinnamon explained that plans had run into issues.

She said: “There is a masterplan there and the footways are being delivered and the targets are being met. The position from planning is that the development is being built according to consent and those suitable footways will be delivered at some point in the future.

“We’re looking for viable options to bring a suitable footpath in the short-term to allow residents to get into Cramlington.”

However, the land the council own was described as “mucky” with holding water due to ongoing construction work, making it unsuitable. Any path, Ms Sinnamon said, would require “a lot of engineering work and require its own planning consent”.

Coun Caroline Ball said residents were being let down.

She added: “I personally feel the residents have been screwed over as part of the sales pitch. There seems to be very little we can really do until we reach that magic number of houses.

“When you’re paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for a house, should you not be able to expect to get to a bus stop, or local attractions or a school, safely?”

Ms Sinnamon explained that council policy had changed since the scheme was granted outline permission in 2015.

She said: “We look for really early triggers for these things. Eight hundred is a really big number.

“We probably wouldn’t go for such a high number now, but that’s easy for me to say now.”

But there is some hope for residents – speaking after the meeting, a spokesman for Persimmon said the developers were due to meet with the council “imminently”.

In a statement, a Persimmon North East spokesperson said: “Both ourselves and our joint venture partners Bellway have been liaising with Northumberland County Council on the issue of a footpath link over recent months and are due to meet the Council again imminently.

“Once the local authority has identified the location of a proposed pedestrian link on their land, we will be happy to work with the council and Bellway to bring the link to fruition.”

The committee also agreed that a further report should come back to them in 12 months’ time, to ensure progress had been made.