Corbridge skatepark to stay where it is

Last year a confidential council memo revealed the bill could reach £20,000 as officers prepared to buy the site they had wrongly built on and leave the park on land south west of Corbridge bridge.

Fears were raised at the time that taxpayers in the village would be left to foot the bill for the purchase of extra land.

Now, it has emerged that the parish council has signed a 50-year lease for the site from landowner Charles Beaumont.

The Journal was last night told the money to pay Mr Beaumont had come from the now defunct Tynedale Council out of money it had left over in March, shortly before its demise, rather than the parish.

Tynedale documents show the council had allocated £11,070 to help the parish out, though more funds may have been provided.

With the lease resolved, the parish has now submitted a retrospective planning application to Northumberland County Council to keep the park where it is, under the name of chairman Kate Oliver.

The proposal is currently subject to public consultation and will be determined in around eight weeks.

Parish councillor David Walton last night said the council had always intended to proceed with the park in its current location.

He said: "The application is to leave it where it is now. It has always been the policy to go ahead with the project.

"Once the situation was sorted out earlier in the year with the lease and everything else, the council proceeded with what it intended to do.

"We will just see how it goes. It is a shame it has taken so long."

The blunder was subject of an inquiry conducted by Tynedale, in which criticism was aimed at the parish council and Hexham based agent Crawford Higgins Associates, over lack of communications and documentation between them.

Crawford Higgins is still involved in the scheme and has carried out a flood risk assessment of the site as part of the new application.

Earlier this year it emerged that the council had not even agreed a lease for the site on which the park was meant to go, despite papers having been signed claiming a 25-year agreement was in place.

Three parish councillors, including chairman Bill Grigg, and their clerk have resigned from their posts since the error came to light.