Newcastle City Council insists there is “no evidence” of collusion or improper conduct surrounding a land sale controversy in the city. City officials have come under major pressure over a hugely contentious plan for a new 239-home estate south of the A696 in Newbiggin Hall.
Locals in the Outer West suburb had been pleading with Newcastle City Council to designate a new country park to protect a popular green corridor, connecting Oulton Close to Newbiggin Dene, from being used as the location for an access road to the proposed Persimmon Homes development. But it later emerged that the local authority had already struck a deal in 2025 to sell the key strip of land, with claims that the council stands to make £3 million from the agreement if planning permission is ultimately granted.
Extraordinary council meeting called
An extraordinary council meeting to debate the issue is due to be held on Wednesday night, where local residents and opposition Reform councillors will plead for the council and Persimmon to cancel the sale of what has been described as a “green oasis”. In a report published ahead of that meeting, the local authority said that “no evidence has been identified of inappropriate contact” between the council’s property and planning departments in relation to the Newbiggin Dene site.
It added: “Similarly, no evidence has been found to substantiate allegations of collusion or improper conduct in relation to the handling of the transaction or associated planning matters.” The report also confirms that council officers have asked Persimmon to “consider entering into a mutual agreement to terminate the transaction” due to the community concerns, alongside efforts to find an alternative access route, and proposes that a formal review of the matter be carried out to establish “lessons that can be learned” at the Civic Centre.
Land sale details and timeline
The strip north of Oulton Close was transferred to the council’s ownership in 1987 and the report confirms that the “intention at the time was that the land would be retained and managed as public open space”. A notification of the sale was issued in April 2025 and the property transaction completed in January this year, after which a public notice of the council’s intention to dispose of almost 35,000sqm of land at Newbiggin Dene was published this February.
Council director Vicky McDermott states that a decision to dispose of the public open space followed the land sale agreement, rather than after Persimmon’s planning application was actually approved, with the “objective of concluding the transaction in the most effective and legally robust manner”. Persimmon’s planning application is still live and the developer had argued that the “existing green space and existing public right of way would remain, either side of the new access road” and be supplemented with “significant amounts of public open spaces and new tree planting”.
Political reaction and calls for alternative route
The council’s Lib Dem administration has sought to place blame for the situation at the door of the Labour councillors who ran the authority prior to May’s local elections. Newbiggin Hall’s former Labour councillors, including ex-deputy council leader Alex Hay, issued a statement on Monday stating that they oppose the construction of an access road through Newbiggin Dene and want the land returned to public ownership.
They claimed that they had been told that detailed plans would be “shared and scrutinised through public consultation” and that the land “would remain unsold unless planning permission had been granted”. They added: “The land was then sold without our knowledge, before planning permission had been granted and without the public consultation we understood would happen. The opportunity for residents to challenge the proposals before the sale was completed never came.”
Reform UK councillor Brian Moore has called for developers and the council to pursue a “logical solution” of a different access point from the north west corner of the proposed housing development and protect a “wildlife corridor that so many residents enjoy every day”.
