The latest annual returns for Sir John Hall’s company Cameron Hall Developments Ltd – the applicant for the controversial developments at Woolsington – reveal a drop of over 25% in cash reserves and total current assets. Since the applicant’s finances are at the heart of the controversial enabling development, Save Newcastle Wildlife has written to the Secretary of State and Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell, regarding this. The Newcastle Chronicle has reported on the company’s loss in an article entitled ‘Cameron Hall confident of profitable year as it awaits Woolsington Hall verdict’ with the assertion that the final verdict on the applications has been delayed by ‘party conference season’. There is no acknowledgement of any opposition to the applications, the complications in the lead up to the planning committee’s decision or the 10,162-strong petition opposing the plans. Furthermore, Newcastle City Council has recently refused planning permission for 280 homes on a brownfield site on ecological grounds, yet in granting permission for the Woolsington applications, they went against their ecologist’s recommendation for refusal, giving the green light for plans which will involve the destruction of one the city’s largest areas of mature woodland to make way for 72 millionaire homes in the green belt! The brownfield site provides habitat for the rare Dingy Skipper butterfly, whose presence was cited as one of the main reasons for refusal, yet Woolsington Woods provides much greater biodiversity and provides habitat for the endangered red squirrel. The scoping opinion submitted for the Woolsington applications states there is a possibility of the Dingy Skipper on site and the even more endangered White-letter Hairstreak butterfly; however, no surveys were done to ascertain the presence of either! Why such extraordinary contradiction in Newcastle City Council’s planning policy? We have highlighted these inconsistencies in our correspondence with the Secretary of State and Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell.