U.K. shared prosperity fund and its effects on Council funding

U.K. shared prosperity fund is not a matter on everyone’s lips and ‘We’ as laymen suspect the majority of people reading this blog won’t have heard about it, in fact it is the scheme that will replace EU Regional Funding.

In the recent one year funding round exuded from the lips of one of the losing contenders in the recent Tory leadership race, Sajid Javid, losing to the known, according to the Supreme Court, liar and charlatan Boris Johnson hasn’t set a budget line to support the U.K. Shared Prosperity Fund but has uniquely spun out a situation where his electioneering single year budget hasn’t gelled with anyone other than those who want to see rapid free market economic growth and those who will benefit most from rising inflation.

Javid has also changed the goalposts in regard to funding with his promises for help in three areas in order to gather the headlines, health, police and education, leaving the other services we all rely on high and dry. He knows that the last spending round for Councils comes to an end in 2020 but has not begun to assemble a spending review that would allow councils to form new medium term financial plans.

The last fair funding spending review 2014-2020 allows councils to plan and spend up until 2023 to give them time to complete late projects. It’s expected that Javid will claw back all funds not spent by November 2020 to pay for the two high street funds, the stronger towns fund, of which the issued list of winning bids lines up with the Conservative marginal seats list and the future high streets fund whose dates of acceptance are quoted as being after the next general election. It’s expected those towns who are not won by the Tories will be struck off the list.

Charities are also expecting to be battered by the Government as EU funded projects unspent cash, not earmarked cash, as has been the case previously, will be clawed back at the rate of 66p in the £pound.

We all need to remember that under this Tory Government austerity is only eased for a single year leaving your Council without financial stability prior to the completion of a new spending review period and the current announcements will put local authorities into the hands of the free marketeers as they struggle to manage without medium term funding security.


 

 

 

The unbelievable Cath Homer extends library austerity an additional two years.

Last week the public across Northumberland were asked by the Comms and Press department of the Council to expect an opportunity to contribute towards a consultation to shape the future of the library service in the County. Today we learn that this consultation by Northumberland Tories is simply one with a pre-determined outcome in order that they can slash another £200,000 from the service. Library services nationally have taken some of the most severe hits through the Tories nine year austerity program and have become after the third sector, the most damaged service across most councils yet just two weeks after Tory ministers announce the end of austerity a leading Tory Councillor in Northumberland announces a slash and burn cuts package agreed by the single party Tory cabinet in Northumberland. Cath Homer is seeking a two year cuts package of £100K per year. Labour attempted to offset the austerity cuts to library services by sharing property costs with Active Northumberland but under the watch of the same Cath Homer, Active Northumberland has slipped into secret privatisation mode and Councillors removed from the board with the workers pension schemes slashed so that in the future, pensioners from Active will not have the same remuneration as their equivalent colleagues in the mainstream Council. If you have any interest in learning, history or the future education of people from more deprived areas including rural areas, you must ensure that we are wrong and when you complete the current consultation make sure you strongly comment about these further cuts. We do want to be wrong but we would like to get a bet on that were right. https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2019/Sep/Public-asked-to-help-share-future-of-library-servi.aspx

 

 

Stop the Lies, Spun News and Smears against My Town, My MP and My Football Club.

(By telling the Truth )

I am 71 yr old and have lived in Ashington all my life and have always been proud of my heritage and the way my local Council's, both County and District have managed things until now.

I can not stand the way my Town and my MP have been treated over the last four years by people who call themselves Tories. As their professionally adapted lies began the rounds in 2015 well before 2017 when they took power in Northumberland on the back of deceit and false news.

I have worked on both Colliery engineering and private engineering projects around the County and have worked for some of the most ardent Conservatives, the majority were a little bit tight with their cash but I suppose that's what conservatism is about, but none were as aggressive and nasty as the new breed of Tories running Northumberland County Council. It is my considered opinion that they are only pleased when setting communities against each other instead of trying to manage the needs of everyone who lives here which is what they are charged to do by the Acts of Parliament that formed this new and awful Unitary Council. Parliament should have demanded a different name so that people could not hide behind the old County Councils solid and untainted history.

This story is as close to the truth as I can recall so I have spoke with my pals from around Town and Ashington Community Football Club to try to fill in the gaps.

The story really begins in 2004/5 when the former Wansbeck District Council was approached by the grocery chain ASDA to sell Portland Park and develop a huge superstore on the site.

This was a huge project for the District Council who hadn't seen this coming and did not have the introduction of a shop of this magnitude into the urban setting of the Town in any of its planning documents. The Council sat on this matter for a few months, took advice and eventually released the information to the public and began a consultation that led to the production of a supplementary planning document by Northumberland County Council in 2010 that steered a new shape for the Lintonville area of the Town.

For the football club this was probably an ideal time to look for a new home, the Council were in receipt of regeneration funding from one North-East and had formed a regeneration and development arm which looked after the Colliery housing in Ashington, 'Wansbeck Life' it was busying itself with the remodelling of the Hirst Welfare and managed to secure land for a Community Football Club at the Woodhorn Lane end of their massive sports site.

Eventually ASDA moved forward with the purchase of the site and I attended the clubs last game in February 2008 at Portland Park before moving over to Woodhorn Lane when unfortunately Seaham Red Star beat us 3 goals to 2.

Because during 2008 the District Council was rapidly racing toward the formation of an interim Council which would eventually become the new Northumberland Unitary County Council a sum of money to help the football club relocate correctly and build a new stand, changing rooms, seating area, club house etc similar to Portland Park was not immediately available the money known as Community gain funding, or section 106 funding for this type of development and the club was given a grant and planning permission by the closing district council to erect a temporary pre-fabricated home which it duly did.

The section 106 funding worth many £M's at the time reported as £6.5M sat in the County Council coffers but was earmarked to develop a new Stand etc., for Ashington Community Football Club and draw down funding to assist in renewing the Leisure Centre in Ashington. A matter that the Tories in Northumberland would like to keep secret but unfortunately sometimes the 'truth will out'.

Late Councillors, John McCormack, and Jimmy Sawyer along with Jimmy Lang and Ken Parry took up the cudgel to locate this funding within the County Council's coffers and begin the good works for the community it was designed and given to produce.

The LibDems ran the new Council Council then and closed down Wansbeck Life renaming it ARCH who were given the task spend the section 106 money in the correct manner.

This is when the spin doctors from Northumberland Tories began their attacks on my Community and decried ARCH and our MP at every turn, inventing lies that I've been told the Councils and Arch's external auditors and the Police were not able to locate and attempting to criminalise the workers and board of the regeneration company. They weren't that successful as people could see with their own eyes the quality work that was being undertaken right across the County and although they threatened to close the company down in their pre-election manifesto it was so good and so effective they simply had to do as the LibDems did and change its name.

When at school I enjoyed my history lessons and it was said by Jospeh Goebbles the top Tory spin doctor of his day “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” I wish this story was going out to a newspaper and not to a blog but the power of social media is hopefully such today that by sharing this story the reputation of My Town, My MP and My Football Club can be restored, I hope enough dissent against these lies and liars is generated so that the stability of my Community can be returned to normal and the attacks on communities and the lies told about them right across this County should be highlighted against these dirty game players and they should be forced to cease immediately.

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Planning-and-Building/planning%20policy/Consolidated%20Planning%20Policy%20Framework/Section%20B/Part%201%20-%20Adopted%20LDDs%20(Not%20Statutory)/Ashington%20SPD/Ashington-Town-Centre-SPD.pdf

https://issuu.com/mandybarker1/docs/arch_corpstrategy_web

Councils to land grab in Town Centres as Tory Government changes planning policies?

Rumours and the construction trade have been concerned for some time about how the current government will kickstart its regeneration of high streets plans, and as the cowards they are they have decided to blame parents for the need to change planning laws and remove parental responsibility regarding their children’s dietary needs and stop shops being sited near schools.

 

In the many towns who qualify for future funding to regenerate high streets particularly those on the nation's eatern seaboard, councils have been building new schools near new housing developments over the last twenty years and by coincidence grocery chains also began to move out of town centres in order to gain access to larger sites to develop better car parking space for their customers over the same time period, taking shops ever closer to new schools on new estates.

 

Not allowing future development of shops within five minutes walk from schools is the desperate camouflage of nanny state cover Tories are using to make sure parents are seen as unable to look after their children’s dietary needs and that shops need to be put back on the high streets away from regular contact with children.

 

High streets in run down towns have a huge number of commercial landlords who own the vast majority of available space. This new change of planning emphasis from the money grabbing Tories may be sold to landlords and developers as the panacea to get the building trade and commercial property sector moving again using government cash to redevelop high streets and save children from obesity.

 

Will it happen like that, we think not. Tory Governments have shown over the years to deliver their plans whether it hurts people or not and this new idea could really hurt to commercial property sector as to resite a large store into a town centre will require Councils to use their compulsory purchase powers to assemble land packages to comply with what will become law.

 

Being on the sidelines as lay people we can watch this flower unfurl and see what nasty insects and nectar sucking Tory donors line their pockets with government cash being made readily available to do so. 

 

Northumberland Tories linked with “Career Psychopath” who’s made the Conservative Party into a

“Mean Minded Sect”

Durham Born media guru, Dominic Cummings who worked with the North-East Conservatives against the  Labour Parties wish to form an elected regional assembly has been attacked by the former PM Sir John Major who accused him of not caring a fig for the Conservative Party and Former Prime Minister David Cameron who wasn’t a fan, once described him as a 'career psychopath'.

Cummings has links into the heart of Northumberland society through his wife Mary Wakefield, the deputy editor of The Spectator magazine, whom he married in 2011. She is the Daughter of Sir Humphrey Wakefield and Lady Mary Cecil Grey, whose family own Chillingham Castle in Northumberland.

His early work which demonstrated his war-like defeat planning, bullying tactics and spin ability was when Sir John Prescott pushed the project to have elected regional assemblies and Cummings used what are now the accepted methods of ‘false news’ pushed out through the Tory press that has become the operating methodology of the Conservatives to break down Labour in the County.

Tory Campaigns that included attacking at every opportunity the Northumberland Labour Group former Deputy Leader, Councillor David Ledger, who was vice chairperson of the regional assembly for many years and a leading advocate of the Elected Assembly model to challenge the power growing speedily over the Border of the ability to fund regional economic growth via the Scottish Assembly.

Cummings who also worked with Boris Johnson on the fabric of lies that brought about a leave vote which kickstarted the Brexit fiasco was fawned over by Conservative media crew in the north-east region which included Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s press officer Ms now Councillor Georgina Hill and the vice-chair of the North-east Conservatives, Councillor Richard Wearmouth whose nasty party plans to discredit staff and opposition Council members have been disclosed during bullying cases against the Tory regime at County Hall, allegedly written in the discolored image designed by his mentor Cummings.

It’s said that ‘proof in the pudding is in the eating’ and now that the Northumberland Conservative term has only 18 months left to deceive and cheat the electorate we can point with the blade of a spoon towards the mixed flavours that make up what for the Tories may be a wonderful delight. The destruction of the reputation of the company ARCH and its directors and employees, the spin doctoring in Bedlington to bring in three Tory Independent councillors who said they had an agreement to redevelop their Town Centre, a quality redevelopment that died with the ending of the Arch model. The downscaling of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line project to cut out Labour held areas from the benefits and growth the project would bring and the huge spend on an almost worn out County Hall building in Morpeth which is a vanity project beyond belief.

When looked at in conjunction with the retention of a hole in the middle of Ashington and the Cummings style attack on Labour using right-wing activists in Blyth over a planning matter, all of these pseudo Tories operating in this blindingly obvious scam, hope to become Independent Tories after 2021, we all can now see why the ex-Tory PM, John Major, stated that Dominic Cummings and his disciples have turned the Conservative Party into a “mean minded sect” and we trust that your estimation is completely correct.

 

  Northumberland Tories linked with “Career Psychopath” who’s made the Conservative Party into a

“Mean Minded Sect”

Durham Born media guru, Dominic Cummings who worked with the North-East Conservatives against the  Labour Parties wish to form an elected regional assembly has been attacked by the former PM Sir John Major who accused him of not caring a fig for the Conservative Party and Former Prime Minister David Cameron who wasn’t a fan, once described him as a 'career psychopath'.

Cummings has links into the heart of Northumberland society through his wife Mary Wakefield, the deputy editor of The Spectator magazine, whom he married in 2011. She is the Daughter of Sir Humphrey Wakefield and Lady Mary Cecil Grey, whose family own Chillingham Castle in Northumberland.

His early work which demonstrated his war-like defeat planning, bullying tactics and spin ability was when Sir John Prescott pushed the project to have elected regional assemblies and Cummings used what are now the accepted methods of ‘false news’ pushed out through the Tory press that has become the operating methodology of the Conservatives to break down Labour in the County. Tory Campaigns that included attacking at every opportunity  the Northumberland Labour Group former Deputy Leader, Councillor David Ledger who was vice chairperson of the regional assembly for many years and a leading advocate of the Elected Assembly model to challenge the power growing speedily over the Border of the ability to fund regional economic growth via the Scottish Assembly.

Cummings who also worked with Boris Johnson on the fabric of lies that brought about a leave vote which kickstarted the Brexit fiasco was fawned over by Conservative media crew in the north-east region which included Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s press officer Ms now Councillor Georgina Hill and the vice-chair of the North-east Conservatives, Councillor Richard Wearmouth whose nasty party plans to discredit staff and opposition Council members have been disclosed during bullying cases against the Tory regime at County Hall, allegedly written in the discolored image pushed out by his mentor Cummings.

It’s said that ‘proof in the pudding is in the eating’ and now that the Northumberland Conservative term has only 18 months left to deceive and cheat the electorate we can point with the blade of a spoon towards the mixed flavours that make up what for the Tories may be a wonderful delight. The destruction of the reputation of the company ARCH and its directors and employees, the spin doctoring in Bedlington to bring in three Tory Independent councillors who said they had an agreement to redevelop their Town Centre, a quality redevelopment that died with the ending of the Arch model. The downscaling of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line project to cut out Labour held areas from the benefits and growth the project would bring and the huge spend on an almost worn out County Hall building in Morpeth which is a vanity project beyond belief. When looked at in conjunction with the retention of a hole in the middle of Ashington and the Cummings style attack on Labour using right-wing activists in Blyth over a planning matter, all of these pseudo Tories operating in this blindingly obvious scam, hope to become Independent Tories after 2021, we all can now see why the ex-Tory PM, John Major, stated that Dominic Cummings and his disciples have turned the Conservative Party into a “mean minded sect” and we trust that your estimation is completely correct

Northumberland Tories linked with “Career Psychopath” who’s made the Conservative Party into a

“Mean Minded Sect”

Durham Born media guru, Dominic Cummings who worked with the North-East Conservatives against the  Labour Parties wish to form an elected regional assembly has been attacked by the former PM Sir John Major who accused him of not caring a fig for the Conservative Party and Former Prime Minister David Cameron who wasn’t a fan, once described him as a 'career psychopath'.

Cummings has links into the heart of Northumberland society through his wife Mary Wakefield, the deputy editor of The Spectator magazine, whom he married in 2011. She is the Daughter of Sir Humphrey Wakefield and Lady Mary Cecil Grey, whose family own Chillingham Castle in Northumberland.

His early work which demonstrated his war-like defeat planning, bullying tactics and spin ability was when Sir John Prescott pushed the project to have elected regional assemblies and Cummings used what are now the accepted methods of ‘false news’ pushed out through the Tory press that has become the operating methodology of the Conservatives to break down Labour in the County. Tory Campaigns that included attacking at every opportunity  the Northumberland Labour Group former Deputy Leader, Councillor David Ledger who was vice chairperson of the regional assembly for many years and a leading advocate of the Elected Assembly model to challenge the power growing speedily over the Border of the ability to fund regional economic growth via the Scottish Assembly.

Cummings who also worked with Boris Johnson on the fabric of lies that brought about a leave vote which kickstarted the Brexit fiasco was fawned over by Conservative media crew in the north-east region which included Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s press officer Ms now Councillor Georgina Hill and the vice-chair of the North-east Conservatives, Councillor Richard Wearmouth whose nasty party plans to discredit staff and opposition Council members have been disclosed during bullying cases against the Tory regime at County Hall, allegedly written in the discolored image pushed out by his mentor Cummings.

It’s said that ‘proof in the pudding is in the eating’ and now that the Northumberland Conservative term has only 18 months left to deceive and cheat the electorate we can point with the blade of a spoon towards the mixed flavours that make up what for the Tories may be a wonderful delight. The destruction of the reputation of the company ARCH and its directors and employees, the spin doctoring in Bedlington to bring in three Tory Independent councillors who said they had an agreement to redevelop their Town Centre, a quality redevelopment that died with the ending of the Arch model. The downscaling of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line project to cut out Labour held areas from the benefits and growth the project would bring and the huge spend on an almost worn out County Hall building in Morpeth which is a vanity project beyond belief. When looked at in conjunction with the retention of a hole in the middle of Ashington and the Cummings style attack on Labour using right-wing activists in Blyth over a planning matter, all of these pseudo Tories operating in this blindingly obvious scam, hope to become Independent Tories after 2021, we all can now see why the ex-Tory PM, John Major, stated that Dominic Cummings and his disciples have turned the Conservative Party into a “mean minded sect” and we trust that your estimation is completely correct.