. Tory Councillors simply collateral to damage in order to hook in builders as permanent sponsors

 

This week will see a major split between long serving Conservative Councillors and the Boris Johnson Government as those sitting on silk cushions in rural constituencies, fully Parished and with locked in neighbourhood plans coupled with Local Plans and Core Strategies that have been designed in harmony to keep property prices up and homes in short supply will be expecting that their MP’s will be baying for Dominic Cummings and premier Johnson’s blood and expect a U-Turn on the proposed changes to Planning Law.

The Governments changes include an algorithm to determine the level of new housing in each area its the prime element of the new sweeping changes to planning law being imposed in order to ensure developers and builders continue the money supplies pouring into the coffers of the central party. The assurance builders need is that they will have an unending land supply by being able to develop more and more housing in popular places to develop highly overpriced housing in rural villages and market towns to lock in their returns to shareholders for the next 40yrs until the scope of this planned national policy change runs out.

Testing the proposed algorithm has shown that old Tory Councils will have to supply ever more housing numbers with both Labour held and areas surrounding ‘ex red wall’ MP seats now having to deliver less. The Law changes will also allow urban councils with land shortages to redevelop redundant offices and Council buildings into affordable or social housing stock, the Government would like that to be the norm in town centres to bring back life and vigor to waning high streets whilst in tandem developing a steadier set of family leaning night time economies whilst they continue reaping the bounty from builders who will be developing on former green belt in the Countryside.

But his rural backbenchers, many of whom spent a decade wiping out well entrenched LibDem MP’s particularly in the West Country and the Scottish-English border areas are supporting their Councillors and its known that 40 of them are actively engaged in attempting to develop a coup.

The political media is poised for this activity this week as a U-turn on this matter by Government will see a massive split between the Government, many of its prime sponsors who stand to make £billions and its Party base in the Shire Counties. Any change will bring the Tory grassroots voices into play to remove Johnson from office complete with his ‘Mad Monk’ Cummings and take a chance on losing the massive prosperity of permanent sponsorship to keep them ahead of the game in political cash terms.

Neither a Party split nor the Law changes proposed will please everyone but the winners in this debacle will be the losers over the next two decades at least, so will it be the minion Councillors back in the shires who will be kicked into touch in favour of LibDem and Labour candidates whose popularity growth has shot up while the Country is led by a fool or the developers waiting with baited breath to reap massive harvests for their shareholders for years to come.


Certainly worth a watch.


Ed.




 

Tory Councillors simply collateral to damage in order to hook in builders as permanent sponsors

This week will see a major split between long serving Conservative Councillors and the Boris Johnson Government as those sitting on silk cushions in rural constituencies, fully Parished and with locked in neighbourhood plans coupled with Local Plans and Core Strategies that have been designed in harmony to keep property prices up and homes in short supply will be expecting that their MP’s will be baying for Dominic Cummings and premier Johnson’s blood and expect a U-Turn on the proposed changes to Planning Law.


The Governments changes include an algorithm to determine the level of new housing in each area its the prime element of the new sweeping changes to planning law being imposed in order to ensure developers and builders continue the money supplies pouring into the coffers of the central party. The assurance builders need is that they will have an unending land supply by being able to develop more and more housing in popular places to develop highly overpriced housing in rural villages and market towns to lock in their returns to shareholders for the next 40yrs until the scope of this planned national policy change runs out.


Testing the proposed algorithm has shown that old Tory Councils will have to supply ever more housing numbers with both Labour held and areas surrounding ‘ex red wall’ MP seats now having to deliver less. The Law changes will also allow urban councils with land shortages to redevelop redundant offices and Council buildings into affordable or social housing stock, the Government would like that to be the norm in town centres to bring back life and vigor to waning high streets whilst in tandem developing a steadier set of family leaning night time economies whilst they continue reaping the bounty from builders who will be developing on former green belt in the Countryside.


But his rural backbenchers, many of whom spent a decade wiping out well entrenched LibDem MP’s particularly in the West Country and the Scottish-English border areas are supporting their Councillors and its known that 40 of them are actively engaged in attempting to develop a coup.


The political media is poised for this activity this week as a U-turn on this matter by Government will see a massive split between the Government, many of its prime sponsors who stand to make £billions and its Party base in the Shire Counties. Any change will bring the Tory grassroots voices into play to remove Johnson from office complete with his ‘Mad Monk’ Cummings and take a chance on losing the massive prosperity of permanent sponsorship to keep them ahead of the game in political cash terms. 


Neither a Party split nor the Law changes proposed will please everyone but the winners in this debacle will be the losers over the next two decades at least, so will it be the minion Councillors back in the shires who will be kicked into touch in favour of LibDem and Labour candidates whose popularity growth has shot up while the Country is led by a fool or the developers waiting with baited breath to reap massive harvests for their shareholders for years to come. 


Certainly worth a watch.


Ed.

Saving the rights of the Cornish Pasty is more important to Boris Johnson than saving Nissan Jobs in Sunderland.

Yesterday the Government rolled out what they called a historic ‘Free Trade Deal with Japan’. A deal that should have hailed good news for the North East workforce but how good is it and what does it do for the protection from recession in the North-East?

If your reading the right wing press today even those reporters who are the most ardent supporters of Boris Johnson and his hedge fund administration are not exactly crowing about it and on top of that the deal contains this dark matter: ‘in the car manufacturing and electronics sectors, Japan has agreed to count products with a significant amount of EU components as a UK export’.

The agreement will be spun out by the Government over its current period of administration as ‘brilliant’ but for the North-East of England its certainly a lukewarm future as slippage of car manufacturing or electronic component work to the EU from the UK will be covered off by any stability in the EU export market and job protection on the Continent as a UK success story whilst our skilled workforce languish in the Universal Credit doldrums with the former opportunity of working in Europe closed off to them through the Johnson and Cummings plan to crash out and support the gambling hedge funds and not UK jobs.

As a nation we should be informed how much members of our parliament have locked into hedge fund gambling to see why there’s no enthusiasm for a trade deal with the EU. Is it so that as we the public who now sit muzzled behind our face masks and locked down in a right wing media stretched Covid fear campaign are unable to take to the streets and complain as the Law now stops us meeting in groups larger than six?. We’ve now become the most controlled and watched nation outside China and UK freedom of any sort is fully curtailed.

So as you can see we need different deals to save the majority from future problems of jobs, food and energy shortages and this Governments lack of investment for the last decade will come home to roost when the top Tories have relocated offshore to the Bahamas or the Caymen Islands with their pockets full of hedge fund winnings.

It seems its alright to protect the name of a pasty or a variety of cheese but that won’t fill the shelves in Asda or Aldi and it won’t employ the nations workforce  so Boris change direction now and U-turn on something important for once!

 

 

 

 

Councillor Glen Sanderson Ignores plight of Cowpen Road residents may find himself exposed following legal challenge against his Government!

 Following the removal from office by fellow Councillors of the Leader of Northumberland County Council Peter Jackson a Farmer from Ponteland, the new interim Leader of Northumberland County Council Glen Sanderson JP seems to have gone into hiding.

For the last three years he has held the portfolio for Highways and Local Services and just like many of the portfolio holders from the Tory cabinet at County Hall in Morpeth he has spun out stories about what he will deliver for the people of the County.

One of the prime targets he rambled on about in his early days in office during 2017 was his support for the development of a Cowpen Road bypass to spread Blyth’s traffic across a wider network of roads and ease pollution for the thousands who live in the Cowpen/Kitty Brewster areas of Blyth, Northumberland’s largest town.

The County Council has borrowed £880M since he released his promise and spent it mainly on schools and highways in rural areas of the County. His latest spend of course is the promise given to the three Bedlington Councillors to build a swimming pool and leisure centre in their town in exchange for their votes to save his predecessor in the post of Leader, Councillor Peter Jacksons job. This type of unbudgeted spend of course puts back promised projects and the Cowpen Road bypass is the prime one to suffer.

The latest news from the Financial Times today is that the Government faces a legal challenge over clean air plans
The UK Government is facing a legal action to force an early review of air quality targets, as evidence suggests severe coronavirus cases are linked to air pollution. The challenge is being brought by the Good Law Project alongside campaign groups Mums for Lungs, the UK Climate Coalition, and Students for Global Health. A growing number of studies, including analysis by Harvard University, suggest high levels of air pollution can raise the risk of dying from COVID-19. But there is still significant debate over the strength of the link between the two issues. Lawyers making the challenge argue ministers have a legal obligation to act, even if the scientific evidence is not yet conclusive. They are seeking a judicial review, which would examine whether Defra followed the rules in reaching the decision to refuse an early review of the strategy.

Through Councillor Sanderson ignoring the plight of the people in the Cowpen area he is just a guilty as his Government for the illnesses people have suffered since May 2017 when he first made his promise and local people have told us they are keeping a weather eye on the progress of this case and may also seek judicial review to force Councillor Sanderson to keep his promises.

https://www.ft.com/content/7c93b653-50fa-4329-9ba2-cc3342dbe36f

 

Northumberland Care Homes ‘Forced to take in Covid 19 patients’

 Less than twelve hours after announcing that Tory led Northumberland County Council were investigating issues raised by its suspended half time Chief Executive Mrs Daljit Lally, who in a series of e-mails to the Tory Leader Peter Jackson expressed concerns of corruption and illegalities, the voice’s of the Tory Party, Daily Mail and Telegraph ran out a story that the Company Wellburn Homes were paid extra from the public purse to take Covid patients into their care. Wellburn Homes have a number of care homes in Northumberland.

The other half of Mrs Lally’s time is spent as a senior official of the Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust and care for the elderly is handled by the Council she is CEX of. We understand her job at the NHS is to manage patients out of hospital to be supported or nursed out in the Community keeping the NHS trust figures at a low level.

This dual role was bound to lead to conflict. It seems it has but whose role is it to investigate the happenings and will this exposure colour the obvious failings of good governance in Northumberland County Council and the extremely muddled mess both the Tories who are accused of mismanagement and corruption and their CEX now find themselves in?

https://trendswide.com/care-homes-bribed-to-take-coronavirus-patients/
 

Labour in Northumberland has said the Government’s new planning reforms would ‘drive a bulldozer through local councils’ and people’s rights’.

 

Cllr Allan Hepple, the Northumberland Labour Group’s shadow cabinet member for housing and planning, said: “In Northumberland, local people and some 150 town and parish councils will no longer have any say or influence on planning applications in their area through their local council. The Government has robbed them of their long-held rights.

The New Government White Paper forces 885 new homes per year on Northumberland and removes decision making from Councils leaving neighborhood planning by Town and Parish Councils abandoned and the former Tory Localism Act discarded.

Under the new plans being rolled out from the Conservative Government last week and now out to consultation, Northumberland will have to find land which will allow builders to develop areas one and a half times the size of the Town of Newbiggin by the Sea every 10 years.

Councils will not pick up any real contributions towards the building of Council Housing or help Housing Associations develop new stock in Northumberland, damaging the hopes of the young to get a safe home over their heads from a quality landlord.

The Conservative administration at County Hall scrapped the former core strategy in May 2017 to halt any development in and around Ponteland in order to maintain house prices for the wealthy. They then went on to try but fail to produce a new local plan following statements from their Leader Cllr Peter Jackson that he could have one in place in three months. Three years on and its still not ready but the work they have done dumps the majority of development smack bang in the South East of the County and the rural coalfield attempting to concrete over the area where more than 50% of the population already dwell in 4% of the County Area.

This week following criticism from Labour the Council ran out the note below.

It doesn’t help ordinary people at all!

Planning White Paper

The Government have issued a new planning White Paper last week. There are some significant and complex changes. These have been summarised below:

Substantial changes to future Local Plan. Requires a new approach to designating land. Depending on when the white paper is enacted, we will talk to PINS about implications for current work.

• Land will have to be designated as either a growth area, renewal area or for protection. Depending on its designation, there are impacts for planning approvals.
• May impinge on Local Plan review. We will also need to discuss the role of a new approach for the Blyth area to best support the port/energy catapult etc

• A new interactive approach to developing the Local Plan which will include a visual and map based approach. We are already involved in a national project on this.

• A new statutory timetable for preparing and reviewing local plans (30 months) will be introduced by the legislation which would result in significant impacts for the Council if they fail to achieve the timescales. Additional resources may be required to ensure the Council achieves the 18 -20 month timetable for preparing a plan. Threat of intervention if timescales are missed.

• A new approach for engagement for the Local Plan’s – Government requires more engagement but to be achieved in shorter timescales. More engagement on plan making, less at application stage.

• A new NPPF which will set out national development management policies, removing this responsibility from the Council. The Council will have potentially less opportunities to influence local policies in the area

• Publishing new guidance to set out how new homes will be zero carbon through the introduction of efficiency standards, beyond 2025.

• Reforming the Community Infrastructure Levy and the current system of planning obligations to a nationally set, value-based flat rate charge. Need to understand how this will impact us and if the national set tariffs could result in further viability issues above those discussed at the EIP.

• A real positive of a standardised tariff however is that permitted development schemes will be expected to contribute towards infrastructure – where currently they don’t.

• Council can borrow against future tariff payments to frontload infrastructure.
• No Duty to Cooperate requirement in the future, but clearly we will want to via the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

• Removing requirement for five year land supply. The Housing Delivery Test will be used in its place. Either can work for us

• New Sustainable Development Test replaces existing soundness tests
• A standardised housing required for each Local Planning Authority – this could reduce aspirations for housing delivery – we need to ensure that the government makes this a minimum

• As anticipated, there is more emphasis on urban design.
• More responsibility for the Council to prepare Design Code for development which will have to be actively consulted on again with the community. This is in motion.

• A fast track system will be introduced to automatically permit proposals for high-quality developments where they reflect local character and preferences. Unclear how this will be achieved in practice.

• Introduction of new standardised process for planning decisions and contributions . In addition, there will be the introduction of new software for making and case-managing a planning application. This will have implications for Council IT systems. We are already involved in a MHCLG national pilot on this (with Lambeth).
• More powers for authorities to secure affordable homes on site via the new infrastructure levy.
• In terms of development management, land identified in the local plan as:

Areas identified as Growth areas would automatically be granted outline planning permission for the principle of development. Renewal areas would have a general presumption in favour of development. Therefore, for development would be granted in one of three ways:

• For pre-specified forms of development such as the redevelopment of certain building types, permission will be achieved via a new permission route which gives an automatic consent if the scheme meets design and other prior approval requirements.
• For other types of development, a faster planning application process where a planning application for the development would be determined in the context of the Local Plan description, or.
• A Local or Neighbourhood Development Order.
• Protected areas - development proposals would come forward through planning applications being made to the local authority (except where they are subject to permitted development rights or development orders), and judged against policies set out in the National Planning Policy Framework.
• For all types of planning applications, the time limits of eight or 13 weeks for determining an application from validation to decision should be a firm deadline – not an aspiration. There will be an automatic refund of the planning fee for the application if they fail to determine it within the time limit. This may well lead to more refusals if information is not submitted on time by applicants
• Local planning authorities will be subject to a new performance framework which ensures continuous improvement across all planning functions from Local Plans to decision-making and enforcement – this will allow the government to intervene if problems emerge with individual authorities.
• Support for climate change and biodiversity net gain.
• Consulting on changes to the NPPF in the Autumn.

The paper expresses that following the consultation there will be a transition period. It acknowledges that there will be skills gaps and will add costs. It states that the cost of operating the new planning system should be principally funded by the beneficiaries of planning gain – landowners and developers – rather than the national or local taxpayer. If a new approach to development contributions is implemented, a small proportion of the income should be earmarked to local planning authorities to cover their overall planning costs, including the preparation and review of Local Plans and design codes and enforcement activities.






Notes
https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/concerns-over-how-planning-changes-will-affect-northumberland-2944538

Starmer more trusted than Johnson on Culture and the Economy in ‘Red Wall’ seats

 Sir Keir Starmer’s popularity has risen greatly in both red wall and former red wall seats say latest polls. With the Brexit differences fading into oblivion on the back of rising unemployment and the lack of economic judgement by the Tories across all walks of life.

The polls show that the indifference shown towards NHS workers following five months of bulling up and praising those much needed workers has been a prime mover towards the change in attitude of voters who believe they can’t rely on nor trust the Tories statements of intent as the United Kingdom begins to unravel much more rapidly than it was formed.

In marginal seats with high levels of rurality a swing of almost 10% towards Labour has been quick to emerge as the current Governments changes in planning law appear to be bypassing local councils and skipping the part played by planners to maintain local democracy. Its felt by voters that the Tories are clearly benefiting the needs of developers and profits over the needs and wishes of local people. The huge break from the Tory designed policy of ‘Localism’ is seen by traditional Conservative voters as a stab in the back.

With a noticeable change of voter attitude as Brexit slips into oblivion, politics is seen by pollsters as drifting back into left, right and centre ground. On the matter of culture Sir Keir Starmer is streets ahead of both the Tories and the SNP with their popularity being challenged by former LibDems in the North of Scotland and Labour across the Central belt. Any move by the SNP towards a second referendum on delivering an unaffordable Scottish Exit Plan from the UK will be challenging indeed as the Tories are once again raising the cost parallels between regional spend in the North, particularly in the red wall seats they hold and that as supplied to Scotland through the Barnett formula.

Another prime move away from the Boris Johnson style of Government by voters is the lack of trust in the power given to unelected political advisors and the fact that Boris Johnson no longer wishes to speak with the electorate and is enlisting the help of a media face to deliver his message for him, its seen by voters as a change too far in British politics.