There are more sensible ways to spend an afternoon than travelling around in the weather we've had today.  We haven't had anything like as bad as some parts of the country, even locally, but it's been tricky enough at times.
This afternoon we had a briefing for members of planning committee along with Ingleby Barwick, Thornaby, Eaglescliffe and Yarm councillors and planning officers on the latest developments in the traffic modelling for the areas of new housing development.  Three Eaglescliffe councillors duly travelled to Norton to find out what was being predicted as a result of the developments taking place in the area.  None of the Yarm councillors was there.  Only one of the Ingleby Barwick councillors attended and none of the Thornaby members.  Three members of planning committee and the cabinet member for regeneration and transport made up the remainder of the attendees.  8 councillors out of the 25 invited.  Granted that some are at work during the day it was still a poor attendance for what sounded like a pretty useful and important session.
As it turned out, the work that's been done so far was of least interest to the ward that was best represented!  The concentration of effort so far, understandably, has been on the traffic which would be generated by building an extra 735 houses on Green Lane.  The answer seems to be "Too much".  The developer there is probably going to have to scale back significantly on what they're planning if they want to get permission.  However, who knows the vagaries of the planning committee.  We'll have to wait until the February meeting to see what happens.
The work on the Eaglescliffe traffic will have to wait until later in the process because the Urlay Nook development isn't coming to committee just yet.

None of which helps in fighting the application for Yarm Independent School's extension into the river bank land below Egglescliffe village.  That one won't be won or lost on traffic generation but on the environmental impact of the development - is Tees Heritage Park sufficiently important to the borough or no?  Tomorrow afternoon will bring the answer.