Welcome to the Red Lion at Cotherstone. CAMRA Good Beer Guide Entry.

LocAles, craft ciders, open fires, beer garden, darts & dominoes.

We sell craft ciders, real ales, cask beers & bitters from local craft micro brewers. Always stocking, Yorkshire Dales Brewing Company - Butter Tubs, Golden Best Bitter & Aysgarth Falls, Blonde Ale.

We’re situated 4 miles from Barnard Castle and 6 miles from Middleton-in-Teesdale in the historic North Riding of Yorkshire.

Please browse through our pages and discover some of the charms of this cracking little pub set in the heart of Teesdale.

Promises of great interest from our new building society!

A budget released today for the doers, makers and savers of Tory constituent Britain and strong opposition cries of real life reductions in the standard of living served up by an out of touch Eton mess.
Today's announcements are very clearly the first signs of electoral campaigns and appeasing votes. As they all fight it out in front of an increasingly disillusioned electorate I sit and wonder what effects their bickering may have on this little village I dearly love.

...and of course the talk of the town in Cotherstone and Teesdale is affordable housing. Chancellor George Gideon Oliver Osborne spoke of some 120,000 new homes across the country to rebuild Britain.
Much like tackling the Borg, Is resistance futile?


"Not in our back yard," some cry
"but statistics and surveys show"
"There are three kinds of lies," bellows across the debate like a big bang style political echo from Disraeli himself. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."
"Social snobs; NIMBI; stuck in a time warp"

....and thus the housing debate rages on!


Ok, so where does the solution lie? Here's my problem, I'm just not sure at all.

Lets firstly adopt the broadly undisputed opinion that affordable housing for young people is needed within the area. Some young are leaving the dale for a combination of reasons but the inability to afford property in the villages where they grew up is certainly a factor. As I look around and chat with customers and friends, the striking fact most apparent, is the large number of young adults still living with their parents. Do they want to live at home or can they not afford to do otherwise? Your thirties now appear to be the new twenties and no-one looks like they're rushing to grow up. Would new developments of low cost starter homes entice our too comfortable at home children onto the property market or are we simply just building small eco-retirement homes in desirable areas for those who can afford to downsize? If this is the case then no solution has been found as our young can't afford the larger homes that are left vacant.
Then we have the question of where to build? Does Teesdale need its own, Ebbsfleet style, purpose build or is infill the answer? The things that define rural from urban are their spaces, scenery and landscape. Some people love the hustle and bustle of the town with all its convenience while others enjoy the still. There isn't a right or wrong answer to where someone wants to live, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Although I personally feel there is a right and wrong answer of where you should build. As a local business I may seem a little contrary to suggest infilling the village with more housing would have a negative impact. In theory new builds bring a larger village population thus more custom. That aside, I love the look and feel of my home. I like to walk between pavement and track, field and footpath. The desirability to live in Cotherstone, for me, is the way it makes me feel; to see hens scratting on in a field or have some inquisitive young cattle assist your village stroll. Its the pockets of open space and rural life within our village that define Cotherstone or any village up and down the dale for that matter. If we simply keep filling every available gap with unimaginative, soulless and energy efficient sweat boxes for homes the whole of the Teesdale will lose its character.

I could ramble on and on. I don't have the answers, just opinions, all I can offer up is food for thought and debate. What I can predict is an ease in the ability to build on green spaces and an uphill struggle for those who stand against it. There is a petition heading round the village for objections to our next proposed new build site behind Marwood Terrace/View. Anyone who wishes to sign their campaign can find a petition sheet on my pin board in the bar, although you'll have to be quick I think they're posting objections soon.

Back to more less contentious blogs next time and a quick little woo-hoo for the penny off the pint, cheers George!

ttfn

Richard