Anne-Marie Trevelyan has written to Arch, the regeneration and development company of Northumberland County Council, to arrange a meeting to discuss regeneration and the situation regarding derelict sites around Berwick town centre.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan said; "Everyone knows Berwick to be a very attractive place with fantastic natural assets and a high proportion of listed buildings but sadly the town centre is blighted with sites standing vacant and derelict, including some of its most important and iconic buildings".
"I want to talk to the Arch team about improving the lines of communication with the private owners of these sites. They need to tap into, and provide the tools to assist, those community minded individuals who are prepared to take matters into their own hands to improve the look of their town centre".
After taking a tour of sites including the old Kwik Save building, Youngman’s corner and the Cowes buildings, Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “Following the controversy over the Portas Funding, I think it’s really important for Arch’s team to increase, several-fold, their dialogue with the local community. I want to help Berwickers address these issues directly with John Lord and Arch representatives and will be calling for them to hold a public meeting to talk with residents about their plans for the Cowes building and the old Kwik Save site. It seems to me that we have had too many years of inaction from the County Council towards Berwick’s building assets. These iconic sites have deteriorated and are blighting our town. The residents and visitors to Berwick-upon-Tweed deserve a better deal from their County Council in supporting the town’s redevelopment potential”. Peter Jackson, the leader of the Conservatives on Northumberland County Council, backing Anne-Marie Trevelyan's call for a public meeting, said; "ever since Arch was founded, I have been lobbying for them to take as much care of key towns like Berwick, in the North of the County, as they do with Blyth and Ashington" and accused them of displaying a "bias to the South East, spending many millions there whilst paying lip service to towns elsewhere and that it was time they woke up to the huge potential of Berwick and the needs of the rural economy".