Representation by M E Beal & Sons
- Date submitted
- 27 October 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
We write with reference to the letter sent to myself & my parents regarding the DCO, A1 in Northumberland, Morpeth to Ellingham, Ref Number TR010059, this letter is asking for our thoughts & opinions on the proposed development. Our first contact with HE with regards this section of the A1 was in 2014 when we were informed that the dualing of the A1 was going ahead & my farm was going to be majorly affected. Ever since then we have had countless meetings, emails, phone calls, on site visits, surveys (some all through the night with no notice, which resulted in my elderly parents thinking we were being burgled!) trail pits dug on my land, made to move farm stock & horses, remove fences, remove gates, padlocked gates cut off by A1 workmen, meetings cancelled by HE with no notice, meetings with miss-information presented by HE & had to be rescheduled & untold hours of work in relation to this scheme, not to even mention the huge impact all this is having on my [] year old parents & mine & my partners health. At the initial contact with HE my parents & I were obviously devastated that our farmhouse, steading, a third of our land including our caravan storage business, the airfield & 116 years of our family history was to be wiped out. However the DV reassured & promised us, in front of our agent GFW, that they would offer us a full "lift & shift" for my entire farmhouse & steading to a new plot on the [] side of the remaining land. This was questioned by us, our agent & solicitor several times & we were reassured by the DV that this would happen, quote "We've done it before, we can do it again" at which point the other members of the team all nodded & agreed. Further to this, we have 2 emails from the DV to our agent GFW, confirming that they agree to the cost basis of relocating the farmhouse & steading exactly as they stand to a new site on the remaining land. On this basis, we were also advised to engage the services of a chartered surveyor, at my expense, to provide measured drawings & costings for the redevelopment of Charlton Mires Farmhouse & steading. Since then the DV has reneged on this & has even refused to pay for the pre-planning application to allow us to relocate to try & rebuild our lives. We did request from HE to please keep their land take on the west side of the A1 to an absolute minimum & after countless reassurances from them they would, even going so far as to provide us with a revised set of plans showing a slightly reduced curve onto the flyover to try & fulfill this request. However upon receipt of the blight notice they have earmarked 2 large blocks of land over & above what is needed for the actual road but HE have consistently refused to provide any details as to why they require this extra land take. We currently have an underpass which is just usable due to being very narrow & very low. HE's suggestion to simply extend it in its current form but to now pass under 8 lanes of traffic as opposed to the present 2 lanes & onto land either side that we will no longer own, is completely impracticable & simply would not work as it will be impossible to force livestock through such a long, narrow dark tunnel, as we have told HE numerous times. Quite clearly the loss of a usable underpass will drastically reduce the value & efficiency of my farm. HE & the DV are refusing to even discuss this with us or find a solution to this major problem. We were also promised by the DV that on acceptance of the blight notice & submission of the DCO that we would be entitled to claim 90% of the DV's estimated valuation. Now they are insisting that a contract must be signed with staged payments etc & a considerable amount of the compensation to be withheld until completion of the scheme. Even though we were promised (again!) by the DV that all compensations would be paid up front apart from the disturbance element. This year the DV & HE are refusing to pay our expenses, including agents fees, solicitors costs & the £10,000 accommodation works promised by the DV to go some way towards paying for new stables after having to relocate the horses because of HE conducting surveys & trail pits, even though this was in front of our agent GFW & our solicitor, []. I have been forced by HE to pay for the release of the mortgages & the DV is refusing to reimburse me for this as well. Until that is, I agree & sign to a wholly undervalued offer from the DV which he threatened that if I did NOT accept by the 15th August 2020, he was going to reduce it. [] has an email from the DV confirming this. We then, in April 2020 along with the general public in North Northumberland, received a substantial booklet entitled "Preliminary Environmental Information Report" which stated that ALL compensation had been agreed as part of the scheme with the occupiers of [] This is quite clearly false & more misleading information to the general public & a great surprise to us!! We are going to be left with no farmhouse, no steading, no airfield, no usable underpass, no income from our caravan storage business, a significantly devalued & unsustainable farm business. Our cottage at West Mires will also be significantly devalued due to the fact the line of trees that presently screen the A1 is to be completely removed despite the fact that after numerous meetings, site visits & emails confirming that the trees would be left in place, we discovered that this is completely untrue & they are all to be removed. My elderly parents & I have been manipulated, misled & are being pressurized, bullied & intimidated by the [] into accepting less than market value for our property & all our losses. On this basis & for the above reasons we, Martin E Beal, George G Beal & Gladys A Beal wish to OBJECT to this DCO. 14th October 2020