Extraordinary win for the Conservative Party

Blyth on the Northumbrian coast includes the town of the same name,  once the leading coal exporter in Europe, and Cramlington – a new town – created amongst the former coal mining villages of South East Northumberland. Blyth  voted by more than 60 percent to leave the EU.

Blyth had been held by the Labour Party since 1960. At the 2019 General Election ex – miner Ronnie Campbell, who had been Blyth`s MP for more than thirty years, and had been at loggerheads with the Labour Party over his support for Brexit for some time, stood down.

This paved the way for an extaordinary win by the new MP Ian Levy for the Conservatives.

Coastal communities like Blyth voted strongly for Brexit. They were  exasperated by EU fishing policy that put a cap on British fishing quotas and allowed EU vessels to fish extensively in UK waters. I recall a visit to Setubal on the Portuguese Atlantic coast south of Lisbon. From humble beginnings as a sardine fishing harbour,  thanks to EU intervention and funding, Setubal is now to become one of the leading ports in the Iberian Peninsula with a new rail link into Spain planned.

Blyth

Blyth and Cramlington,  some 4 miles (6.4km) apart , are both situated on what was the Northumberland Coalfield, north of Newcastle upon Tyne in the south east of the county.( Map 1 )  Blyth is 13 miles (20km) north east of Newcastle and Cramlington four miles (6.4km) The A1 linking Newcastle with Edinburgh to the north lies to the west of both towns. Compared with Cramlington, Blyth is less accessible to both the A1 and the A19, which provides access to the Tyne Tunnel and the south. Given its importance as a port, which has a capacity to  handle some  2 million tonnes of cargo each year, a new road link to the A1 at Stannington to the west of Blyth is a major priority.

Built on coal

Blyth was built on coal. The Northumbrian coalfields extended well beyond the coastline and under the North Sea. Miners had to walk the rough narrow tunnels for huge distances to get to the working coalface. I have a family link to coal mining- a grandfather, several uncles and cousins all worked in coalmining. Went down the pit as it was nicknamed. Many social commentators romanticise the coal mining industry, but few families including mine escaped injury, illness or accidental death, and few mothers, wives or partners mourned its demise. But for most of the twentieth century, coal mining was Britain`s major source of energy,  and at its peak after the end of the second world war employed more than a million people.

Blyth`s success as a coal exporting port lasted for about a hundred years until the 1960s, as the demand fell because of the increasing use of oil, natural gas and nuclear power as energy sources. Coal mining was not the only source of jobs. Blyth`s shipbuilding industry grew from the mid – eighteenth century. The Blyth shipyards specialised in transport, particularly colliers, diversifying in the nineteenth century into convict ships and in addition provided many ships for both the royal and merchant navies. During the first world war Blyth built the first ever aircraft carrier, The Ark Royal, and during both world wars served as a submarine base.

Boom Town

At the end of the nineteenth century Blyth was a boom town and imposing civic and commercial buildings were built around the large market square. These included some fine housing in Bondicote Terrace, Marine Terrace and Middleton Street as well as public buildings including the National School, the Municipal Library, and the former police station built in 1896.Pevsner in his survey of Northumberland described it as probably the best building in Blyth. It is built of  red brick with ashlar dressings and lots of carved detail; the style is an Italinate Gothic. But the Victorian heritage has sadly been neglected. Despite the protection afforded by statutory listing, many of the older buildings  were demolished since the 1970`s, and many of the remaining buildings such as the former police station are neglected.

 

The renaissance of the Port of Blyth

The Port of Blyth is the port operating division of the Blyth Harbour Commissioners, an independent statutory trust established in 1887.Dredging has ensured that Blyth remains a deep- water port, and the trust has been extremely active in looking for new ways to use the large areas of wharf and quayside, some of which has Enterprise Zone status. The port itself has experienced something of a renaissance in its fortunes since about 2000.There are some 100 hectares of near estuary sites and a further 50 hectares of on estuary land. As the scale of off-shore wind farms operating in the North Sea increases, Blyth sees a role as a depot and servicing base for the off-shore energy industries.Indeed, it has already established a reputation for the testing of wind turbine blades and pylons in the large bespoke buildings built on former coal depot land. Here Catapult Offshore Renewable Energy are promoting the Blyth Offshore Demonstrator project which sees five wind turbines  with a total generating capacity of 41.5MW installed around 6.5km  off the coast of Blyth. This will produce enough low – carbon electricity to power some 34,000 households in the county and save around 57,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.Other current initiatives include the cable storage for the transmission cables being laid for the North Sea Link which will come ashore in 2021 connecting the electricity supplies of Norway and the UK.

 

The National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) founded in 2002 is already well established in the town, providing advice, research and laboratory testing for offshore wind power, wave energy, tidal energy and low carbon technologies. Narec gives the town  a significant international profile.Jobs and services  near the town produce a knock on effect of supporting the town centre. The port is also promoting local initiatives of community interest including a marine science building for Northumbria University and a port museum and restaurant in the former rescue life boat building.

Blyth has exchanged it leading role in coal export to become a significant player in the renewable energy industry.

 

Beeching Reversal Fund

In mid- November 2019 Transport Secretary Grants Shapps– ahead of the General Election – announced a “£500m Beeching Reversal Fund” to start “re-opening rail lines axed under Harold Wilson`s Government. And this would start in the North.” Re-connecting Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth and Newsham with Newcastle city centre and the Tyne & Wear Metro network would be a quick win in the next Parliament . Encouragement came in January 2020 with the visit of the Rail Minister Chris Heaton – Harris to Bedlington station to announce some £1.5 million of funding to drive forward the return of the passenger line.