Dear Sir,

Last Wednesdays council meeting saw an unprecedented number of members of the public attend, concerned about the social cleansing of the west ward, whoops, sorry, I meant to say West Ward Regeneration Project. And where were Livin? They were busy dropping correspondence through our doors instead of answering questions and providing much needed facts.

But yet once again, what they say does not stand up to scrutiny. They state that there are several problems on the estate including anti social behaviour, low demand, high levels of deprivation, low property values, high energy bills, poor parking and poor and run down play areas and public spaces. So lets look a little closer.

1. Anti social behaviour. If you go onto https://crime-statistics.co.uk and enter postcode DL5 7DT for example. You will see that there were 171 reported crimes for February and 47 of which were for anti social behaviour. Alarming yes, BUT, and this is important, scroll down until you see them listed as categories and street by street.

Number of crimes on or near Eskdale Place 2, number of crimes on or near Kirkstone place 6, Langdale Place 2, Whinlatter 2, Silverdale 1. In fact looking back through over a years worth of data the west ward area is comparable to a fair few other streets in the town in terms of crime.

There are problems I admit but it is certainly not the High Levels of anti social behaviour that Livin’s fact sheet insinuates. And since Livin is the major landlord for the estate, some of the responsibility must lie with them and their vetting procedures

2. Low Demand. To quote historicengland.org.uk “pockets of low demand housing are still prevalent in parts of the Midlands and north of England. Where this is the case significant numbers of houses are empty and even boarded up” Now Livin have stated that the reason they in their initial bid reduced the number of their properties was due to the number of empty properties at the time and low demand.

So in January 2017 when you put your bid in there were 128 empty properties on the West Ward, so in January 2017 when you put your bid in over a ¼ of properties on the West Ward were empty. REALLY, and where are these properties? Does the West ward have it’s own version of Narnia where as you walk through the gates you are presented with row upon row of empty houses? NO!.

Was there really 21 empty homes per street? NO! As for demand, even on Livin’s own website there are only 3 properties to rent in the West Ward. Not bad for somewhere with low demand.

3. High levels of Deprivation. Again this isn’t exactly true is it. Yes it is a poorer part of town but it is hardly “the ghetto” is it. In fact we are no more deprived than many other parts of the town

4. Relatively low property values, Yes this is true, but then isn’t that why you have chosen this area.

5. High energy bills. Rubbish, absolute rubbish. These houses have modern boilers, cavity wall insulation and loft insulation. My energy consumption is well within the national average.

6. Poor parking. Again not exactly true. A lot of these houses have garages, most have yards and there is plenty of parking bays. Granted it is not ideal for those who have more than 2 cars but then would these new houses be any better

7. Poor and run down play areas and public spaces. The town council do a good job looking after our green spaces, in fact the grass has been cut and the litter pickers have been out. When will you be out to cut your bits of grass, remove rubbish etc.

As for play areas we have 2, one in Eskdale and one in West park. Both of which I am more than happy to take my granddaughter to. West park is one of the jewels in Aycliffe’s crown, a lovely place to walk around, feed the ducks etc., play with the dog etc.

You said in the Northern Echo that invites would be sent out to all residents, where are they? On Friday you turned up completely unannounced. The first I heard was a phone call from my mother who was really distressed. She is 71 and terrified at the prospect of losing her home. And I know she is not alone. Since your preferred option was dropped on us my mother’s health has started to suffer and seeing her so upset on Friday has really made my blood boil.

You mention scaremongering and rumour spreading, but the biggest scaremonger is Livin, you are the one who came to the West Ward and said “we want to demolish all your homes”.

Residents want straight answers, facts, figures, guarantees, they want all relevant information to make an informed choice, but most of all residents want Honesty.

Is it really too much too ask?

Thank God we have the Newton News

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