St George's, Cottingwood Common - and English Partnerships

I gather that English Partnerships have now taken over the whole St George's Hospital site from the NHS as part of the Government's plan to develop unneeded NHS land.

]My understanding of the planning situation is that there's no chance of development beyond the 150 homes already approved until a new access road is constructed]

English Partnerships seem to be taking their responsibilities for the site seriously - and in the past week or so there has been some friction between security guards and dogwalkers etc on the St George's site. I understand that the site manager for English Partnerships has now been given instructions to allow free access (within reason) to walkers and dog-walkers.

However - it does raise issues about future access to the site. NCC have a webpage showing existing rights of way, but there are a number of footpaths and access points which are not covered by these.

There is a process whereby additional rights of way can be established by groups of people if they can demonstrate that they have used the route for 20 years or more. I'd like people who regularly walk at St George's or on Cottingwood Common to get in touch with me so that we can identify any further rights of way and points of access that need to be defined before English Partnerships get going with development plans.

I've been told that Morpeth Antiquarian Society have registered 'Cottingwood' as a Common - and I'd like to hear more about this.

I'm also aware the the Morpeth Walking Festival will include some walks up onto the Cottingwood site, and that GMDT will soon be issuing walking guides which includes at least one involving the site.

Time for some joined-up thinking....

You can't get to Morpeth Station

Transport 2000’s recent “Weakest Link” survey found rail passengers in the North East citing poor bus links, difficult-to-cross roads, insecure cycle parking and a lack of cycle paths as barriers to using their local train station.

Morpeth Station was particularly highlighted.

It has seen an 8% growth in passengers in the last year with Virgin XC and GNER InterCity services stopping and is increasingly popular with commuters.
However, the car park is full by 8:30am and there are no cycle storage facilities at all.
And the northbound platform is notoriously inaccessible for wheelchair users.

Dennis Fancett, the Chairman of SE Northumberland Rail User Group said:

“The southbound platform has a bus turning circle marked ‘bus only’ but no buses call there; buses only serve the main road which is a short walk away. There are no sign posts to the bus stop. To get a bus into town you have to cross the main road with no pedestrian facilities. We’d like to see the bus company working to get the buses actually into the station complex.”

Meanwhile Northumberland CC has reportedly got bus operators to work to the train timetable, and even take account of delayed rail services at the newly refurbished transport interchange at Prudhoe Rail Station.