Think of “garden village” roads and images arise of zebra crossings, lollipop ladies and friendly postmen on bicycles. Not if you are Lord Ben Houchen, the Mayor of Tees Valley. He seems to envisage football fans’ coaches, duelling trucks and family cars scattering tealights from overloaded roof racks on the way home from Ikea.
He told Radio Tees this week that Darlington Council has “signed-off on” a masterplan which includes the much-touted “Northern Link Road”, a route from Newcastle and the North to Teesside and the coast which does not involve snarling-up the town.
After much discussion, Darlington Council has approved the option passing south of Skerningham Woodland, he said.
If this is true, it will serve a dual purpose as the route has also been chosen for a road to connect the separate little hamlets which, together, will comprise Skerningham Garden Village. So it’s two for the price of one. And, as the Government has promised £250 million to pay for the Northern Link Road, it will save the garden village developers the cost of building their own.
Again if true, this decision must have been made in secret, like the one back in 2017 when Darlington Council inexplicably ignored its own earlier assertion that Skerningham was unfit for housing and set the “garden village” wheels in motion.
Up until now, Lord Houchen has said two possible routes were being considered for the Northern Link Road – either to the north of the River Skerne or to its south, though Darlington Council has insisted there was still a wide range of options. Also, in September 2022, a council meeting was told categorically that the Northern Link Road and the garden village road were “totally, totally” separate entities.
Meanwhile, the long journey towards official approval continues for “Skerningham Garden Village”, which will eventually comprise at least 4,500 large houses, in small clusters, with a link road between them, up close to the woodland. Campaigners say it will be a disaster for the area’s glorious countryside and wildlife.
It is believed this road will cut across the woodland twice, endangering the creatures that rely on it. Pleas have been made to restrict the speed limit and provide safe crossing points. Not only are deer, hedgehogs, rabbits, badgers, owls and other creatures at risk but children living in the hoped-for 4,500 or more houses will eventually play in the woods, too.
Skerningham Woodland Action Group (SWAG) is leading opposition to the plan. A spokesperson said: “It’s not difficult to understand that the two roads’ purposes are incompatible. One is to keep Darlington freer from through-traffic and enable swifter, unhampered travel between Tees Valley and the North. The other is to connect residents and local amenities with each other in a community landscape where care must be taken to cause no harm.
“If a secret decision has already been made to combine the roads it would surprise few of us but alarm us all. And it is worth pointing out that it would save the developers the £125 million that their own Skerningham link would have cost.
“They are, coincidentally, the same businessmen to whom Lord Houchen gifted a 90% share of the lucrative Teesworks clean-up contract.”
Here’s a Facebook link to the radio interview.
FOOTNOTE: “Lottie’s List”, a petition to save Skerningham launched by a Darlington ten-year-old girl has 1,500 names and is still open, preferably to people with a DL postcode as it will go to Darlington Council
