One of the richest men in the North East has been branded 'Scrooge McDuke' after he demanded an eye-watering rent that could derail plans to reopen the Northumberland Line railway service.
The Duke of Northumberland, Ralph Percy, is said to have requested a colossal £600,000-a-year in rent for trains to travel across his vast estates.
As reported by The Mirror, lawyers for the 65-year-old, who lives in Alnwick Castle, made famous by the Harry Potter films - is demanding the yearly rent over plans to build the Northumberland Line, which will restart passenger services from Ashington and Blyth to Newcastle.
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Council chiefs say the new line will improve job opportunities for cut-off and deprived communities. The Duke is worth around £445m.
A spokesperson for the Duke's Northumberland Estates said he supports the plans but there is a "separate and a long running dispute with Network Rail".
Rail tracks which cross land owned by Northumberland Estates, the company managing the Duke's vast 130,000 acres across the North East, operate under ancient "wayleave" rules - contracts between a landowner and a third party which allow building or access in exchange for money.
Richard Turney, representing Northumberland County Council, told a meeting: "The wayleave leases contain rent provisions which are archaic and predicated on the original primary purpose of the railway, to serve coal mines.
"These provisions are completely antithetical to the operation of a railway, in fact, the provisions of the wayleave have proved highly contentious.
"This has culminated in the Duke of Northumberland twice threatening to terminate the wayleaves in a dispute over rent, including after this application was made, with an extraordinary demand for more than £600,000 in rent.
"Provisions which give an individual such a stranglehold over public resources are inappropriate."
Residents and business leaders in Ashington and Blyth blasted the Duke for risking the future of the line.
Business manager Stephen Rowe, 45, said: "Ashington and Blyth are both less than 20 miles away from Newcastle but the only way to get there is by car or an hour on the bus. The towns are two of the poorest in the region and many people just cannot afford a car.
"A train line would transform the area because people could easily travel to Newcastle for work. People's homes would go up in value too.
"For the Duke to be holding out for more than half-a-million in rent every year is an absolute disgrace. It's money grabbing, plain and simple."
Blyth resident and mum-of-two Angela Whyte, 30, said: "He has probably never even been here but by some weird accident of birth, owns the land where the train will be built. He's already nicknamed Scrooge McDuke by people around here and you can see why.
"He's probably just sitting in his big castle counting his money while the rest of us are plugging away trying to make the best of what we've got.
"The Northumberland Line, formerly known as the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Line, was shut to passenger services in the 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts.
A spokesman for the Duke's Northumberland Estates insisted he was supportive of the scheme but had a 'long running dispute' with Network Rail. "We are and always have been fully supportive of the project and have already agreed access and new facilities with the county council," he added.
"Unfortunately, we have a separate and a long running dispute with Network Rail, who are attempting to claim private property rights without appropriate consultation and compensation.
"This disagreement is with Network Rail alone, who have been intransigent for decades, and is the only element of dispute for us."
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