Furious Berwick parents have slammed Northumberland County Council’s ‘arrogant contempt towards the people of Berwick’ after a promised Local Area Committee (LAC) meeting in Berwick on 30 January was moved to Alnwick and the pledged Schools item was omitted from the agenda. Parents accuse NCC of ‘lying’ and underhand tactics.
NCC Councillor Guy Renner-Thompson said: ‘As an Academy, the County Council is under no legal obligation to do anything to the school. But we are building world class mainstream, SEND and further education facilities in Berwick because it’s the right thing to do for the town and the whole north of county.’
Estelle Dodd, of pressure group Berwick Schools Deserve Better (BSDB), said parents were: ‘deeply disappointed…This directly contradicts the assurances given by the Chair at the previous meeting … that the venue for the January meeting would be in Berwick and that an item would be added to the agenda.’
Father of three Berwick schoolchildren, Kevin Sangster, said: ‘NCC have been lying to us from the beginning and they continue to do so today!’
The row comes as North Northumberland MP, David Smith, raised the subject of Berwick Academy’s rebuild in the House of Commons on 22 January.
Chair of the committee Councillor Gordon Castle, an Alnwick NCC councillor for 26 years, told The Bridge:
‘At the Berwick meeting in November I did say that it was my intention to hold a LAC Meeting in Berwick this year to deal with questions that could not be answered then,’ said Cllr Castle, ‘but that would have been an additional meeting to that already scheduled for Alnwick today [Thursday 30 January], which is and always was to be a budget presentation – as you can imagine this is a major issue for members in all LACs county wide. LAC meetings in the North of the county alternate around suitable venues at my discretion, the last two having been in Rothbury then Alnmouth.’
But at the November 28 LAC meeting, which The Bridge attended, Cllr Castle promised the parents that he would organise a meeting on 30 January in Berwick. He went as far as to say that they would probably need a larger venue because a lot more people would wish to attend such a meeting saying: ‘We will have a proper session with questions asked and answers given.’
Reaction on the BSDB Facebook page to the change of venue and agenda was uncompromising:
‘Northumberland County Council possibly misleading parents in Berwick and letting them down, who would have thought it? All of us I expect, they have treated us with utter contempt from the start,’ said Helen Tait.
Kevin Sangster said ‘They [NCC] have managed to buy another 2-3 months of time where we are kicking the can down the road under the impression that NCC want to engage with us when actually, the opposite is true.
‘The action of NCC just displays an arrogant contempt for the people of Berwick….rearranging the venue was, in my opinion, specifically to stop us going!’

22 January 2025
North Northumberland MP, David Smith MP, on 22 January, raised the issue of Berwick Academy in the House of Commons stating: ‘The delays to the rebuild [of Berwick Academy] are incredibly frustrating for parents, teachers, and students alike. We need a complete rebuild and we need it now.
‘Berwick deserves – not just a good – but a FANTASTIC school that drives the town forward and is a hub for #SEN [sic – Children with special educational needs and disabilities – ‘SEND’] support, further education, and local enterprise. I have been working behind the scenes for months to boost this ambition.
‘This project is entirely within NCC’s gift. Yet the Tories have had years and we’re still stuck in meeting after meeting. So, I have to ask: what is going on at County Hall?’


Cllr Castle said in response: ‘I’m very sorry that the local MP has seen fit to criticise the council without fully assessing the situation so he could form an accurate, balanced view.
‘His comments are robustly rejected by officers and cabinet members who keep advising the public that, as well as spending £50M on the project and defusing union strike threats regarding teachers jobs, the council is moving at the pace needed for completion properly. It is in no hurry to get things wrong and has learned much from the Alnwick School 2 tier move in 2016/17, applying these lessons to the Berwick Schools project. The council is not taking its eye off this ball!’
Councillor Guy Renner-Thompson is NCC Cabinet Member for Inspiring Young People and told The Bridge: ‘There is a lot of game playing and disinformation going about around the school at the moment which I suspect is due to the local elections being round the corner. But the plans plough on regardless, the children are the most important in all this.’
Cllr Renner-Thompson was previously quoted as saying : ‘As an Academy, the County Council is under no legal obligation to do anything to the school. But we are building world class mainstream, SEND and further education facilities in Berwick because it’s the right thing to do for the town and the whole north of county.’
A spokesman for the council said: ‘There has been an enormous amount of work put into schools investment in the north of the county by our officers over the past three years. Any suggestion otherwise is very disappointing and counter-productive.’
The Bridge asked Cllr Renner-Thompson what the ‘enormous amount of work’ entailed to which he said: ‘Two years of consultation with schools and public, public meetings in Berwick, Wooler and Belford, all the legal work to do the statutory changes from three tier to two tier, negotiations with Union officials, meetings with all school governing bodies, separate meetings with all school teachers, now it’s on with builders, planning applications for the first schools, plans being done for a new community centre in Wooler in the old middle school, meetings with MP’s and DfE officials. Plenty more which is confidential.’
Parents travelled to Alnwick for yesterday’s meeting. Further updates to follow in due course.
Berwick Schools Deserve Better (BSDB) Facebook page here
A national consultation which seeks voters’ opinions on all levels of governance including town and county councils is open for all until 26 February here
My full quote as reported in the Chronicle/Journal was
“ Conservative Education Chief Guy Renner-Thompson said “It’s no surprise that an MP parachuted into the area from Sunderland 6 months ago doesn’t understand the amount of work that’s gone into changing an entire education system and rebuilding a school.
As an Academy, the County Council is under no legal obligation to do anything to the school. But we are building world class mainstream, SEND and further education facilities in Berwick because it’s the right thing to do for the town and the whole north of county. It’s is happening because it is Northumberland Conservatives policy and no other reason.
Despite manoeuvring to try and take some sort of credit for the scheme, our MP has so far failed to convince his colleagues in London to contribute a single penny. Much like his failure to convince them to dual the A1”