Conservatives in Crisis pleading for help from above!

With Tory support melting away in Northumberland as voters, even hardened Conservatives have begun to tell candidates what they think of their only actions over the last four years with ‘mateism’ sitting front and centre in the Cabinet Office at county hall and the complete and utter lack of action in delivering projects in the townships across the County has become running open wound in their crucified sides.

Our friends in Westminster have broken a story that we expect will be sensationalised and spun out by the top DJ for Northumberland Conservatives, the beleaguered and reputationally damaged Councillor Richard Wearmouth, the stranded chairperson of the bust Tory company ADVANCE Northumberland, which has become a major drain on the coffers of public money being held in reserve to benefit those in greatest need right across the County. 

His Cabinet at County Hall decided to strip out £8M to bail his mess out at ADVANCE Northumberland from Covid finance and when challenged by Labour and Independent Councillors on the matter decided that they would strip it out of Adult Care reserves instead, leaving the most vulnerable in society underfunded in order to pay debt on a company set up and mismanaged by the Tories and its Chairperson over the last three years.

We have been informed that councillor Wearmouth and his cronies have been pestering Ministers and Secretaries of State to help them out of the hole in the ground they have created for themselves by pleading on their bended knees to receive any utterance Government can muster regarding finance for the proposed ‘British Volt’ battery factory that may be built in the river Blyth basin.

Its expected that a pledge of finance will be given to the project, a project that only eight weeks ago the Prime Minister thought was to be built in Anglesey and had to be corrected by his staff that he and his cronies had already steered the plant to the north-east from the two sites earmarked for its construction in Wales to try and protect their red wall wins as the Tory vote was already slipping away in the principality.

Its believed by our contacts that £200M will be pledged and that Councillor Wearmouth will spin this out as a massive election booster for his dispirited and caught out ‘nasty party’ team at County Hall in Morpeth.

Whist reading this and hearing his spin later this week you may be asking how we know this is only a story from the Conservatives and not the real truth?

Well in order to handle Government cash of this magnitude a Council has to press the project and its supporters and they have to undergo a series of tests known as due diligence as you the taxpayer will be held responsible if anything goes wrong.

With the current record of ADVANCE Northumberland and Labours pledge in their manifesto to scrap the company and bring it back in-house, there's plenty to go wrong, the Council officers whose job it is to protect the public purse have engaged an expert in due diligence to carry out the process and as due diligence is what it sounds like, diligent, the results of that work will not be known and reported on to cabinet and Council until after the elections on May 6th.

Confused of Cowpen

Spinning Stories just like his mates!

I find it quite amazing that the Tories across Blyth have decided to expose the frailties of a system their members redesigned in 2017 to ensure capital projects put forward by Independent and Labour County Councillors get put on the back burner while projects the ruling Tory Group want completed get rushed through.

In criticizing the outgoing Cowpen County Councillor, Susan Davey and accusing her of not spending £55K in her ward shows that on the second policy change made by his mates that of not recording projects until they get underway he is also miles out of kilter.

I contacted Susan who informed me that she has waited to add to her pot to build a new classroom at the Empire School of Boxing, an organisation who has over 250 Blyth children from some of the Country’s most deprived wards through its doors each week when covid hasn’t been stopping play.

Susan said: “Its pathetic that a Tory candidate is acting in such a childish manner when his Group runs the Council and he must not have noticed in his obviously confused state that his Tory cabinet member for Finance still hasn’t spent £55K in his ward and the former Leader of Council Peter Jackson has £31K unnallocated”

“The building work at the Boxing School will go ahead as soon as it gets through the planning process”

New Hartley Building Site

Planning refused by Labour, brought in by Tories

through their ‘Concreting over the County Policy’

Following a very successful campaign organised by the Seaton Valley Labour Party in partnership with local people during 2015 & 2016, the planning application 15/01182/FUL for 285 houses on a greenfield site adjoining the village of New Hartley was refused in February 2016.

This refusal, much to the delight of the villagers who had worked tirelessly with their County Councillor and current Leader of Northumberland Labour Group, Councillor Susan Dungworth to put forward an argument in planning terms that it was an overdevelopment of a village which lacked infrastructure to support such huge growth was seen as an unmitigated success story that could be duplicated wherever huge developments were being promoted in unsuitable (in planning terms) locations.

The loss of the Council elections in May 2017 left the village exposed once again, now to a Tory County council and a developer who is a well known giant donor to the Conservative Party.

A new application was slipped through during 2019 on the back of the Tories unwritten but very prominent developers charter to concrete over the County and their removal from statute of the Councils ‘core strategy’ planning document and the dreadfully slow progress made to replace it with a much weaker Local Plan allowed the big boys to come and mop up sites wherever they and their Tory mates decided was profitable. 

Councilor Dungworth fought hard but the permission was granted and the village of New Hartley will suffer for decades to come from the effects of the Tories actions.

Yet we have a Tory candidate running around blaming the Labour County Councillors for allowing this development to happen. People need to look at the above application number on the Councils planning portal and reassure themselves that this Tory isn’t keen like most of his colleagues on telling the truth, or does he even know what the truth is?

‘CON’servatives make residents wait almost four car wrecking years to have their road resurfaced.

Residents of Malvins Road and its feeder streets have been forced by Northumberland Tories to wait four years to have their street resurfaced, one of the busiest roads in Blyth, while those same Tories spent £100M each year re-engineering and renewing roads to remote rural farms and hamlets.

Way back in 2016 an application was made to close Malvins Road for six months to bring services and drains to supply the new homes being developed on that street. Labour County Councillor Susan Davey lodged a formal objection on behalf of residents which was withdrawn with the agreement of residents when they were informed that the developer would contribute heavily to having the road resurfaced on completion of their services work. That contribution was later planned to be increased as the road was closed for over a year.

Labour’s candidate for the 2021 elections, Town Councillor and deputy Mayor of Blyth, Margaret Richardson who was brought up in the area said: “ I have been watching this closely since the Tories took over in 2017, they have sat on this job which was placed in the Local Transport Plan to be resurfaced for almost four years until they could boast that they are having the road repaired”.

“The Tories brought up their MP for Blyth valley for a photo shoot as this is the only job anyone can name that the Tories have bothered to do in Blyth since May 2017.”

“All of my friends and relatives in Cowpen cannot believe the gall of the Conservatives who in the light of top level investigations into their activities as a Council administration have shown their disdain by blowing this resurfacing job up as a success story”.

Tories make DWP Complicit in Closing more North East Post Offices

 

Save our Post Offices:

Social media is alive with messages from local Councillors regarding the letter sent out from the Department of Work and Pensions to thousands of people on benefits and pensions that the Government intends to close all access to Post Office Card Accounts in November 2021.

Fears that this enforced change from a Conservative Government hell bent on central control of your data will be the final nail in the coffin for many sub post offices. 

Hundreds of thousands of people still get their pensions and benefits paid into POca accounts and manage from week to week on the cash they draw down locally. A change away from that system will place untold pressure on some people whose financial position is only managed through easy local access to funds to pay their way and would struggle to manage or even afford the bus fares in the case of younger people on benefits to travel into their local large Town Centre, the only places where some banks have survived. 

The Conservative Government's policy to run down the number of ATM machines is also heavily quoted as to why this Government needs to think again.

Post offices have suffered badly over the last decade of Tory rule. Councillor complaints on social media are currently most prevalent in rural parts of Durham, Cumbria, Gateshead and the massive almost completely rural County of Northumberland as well as the Tees Valley, but we have begun to notice a livening up of Councillors whose voters live on large densely populated housing estates in the Tyneside and Tees Valley conurbations as their post office branches begin to smell the damage this change will do to their businesses and that if service customers are steered to banks, estate based sub post offices and the shops which support them will not survive the change.

Across the whole of the North-East region post offices are an institution where under normal circumstances people like to meet their friends and neighbours and the weekly visit has become for many a real social event.

In Northumberland many community based social media sites are reporting that its three Tory MP’s are not interested in taking up the fight to stop this massive change and are steering their constituents towards making complaints to their local councillors.

We need to ask and receive answers to the question of why does this Government want to close your local post office? and why is it supporting banks over local post offices and you the people who rely on those post offices? as in most cases banks have deserted the people whilst sub post offices have remained loyal!

Cheapskate Antiquated Bridge Design Being dumped on Blyth's communities?

Last week the Ashington and Blyth Area Committee was held out of kilter on Thursday 11th February 2021 In order to

facilitate the special council meeting called to discuss the leaked report into the administration's handling of the suspension of its Chief Executive Officer.

The meeting followed its usual lines of raising issues of importance to local people and reports from officers on progress made in between meetings.

In the time set aside for any other business to be raised, Labour County Councillor Grant Davey of Kitty Brewster ward, reminded the committee that he was retiring from office as a County Councillor at the May elections but that he thought it was very important he brought the issues surrounding the recently released bridge planning application over the A189 to facilitate access to Blyth Bebside station to the attention of the Committee as the application would probably not be brought to committee before that date.

When discussing the bridge design Councillor Davey said: “This new Bridge design is antiquated and not suitable for the 21st century. Its been heralded as the access route for cyclists and pedestrians by the current administration yet doesn't meet the needs required for the disabled or families with pushchairs etc., never mind cyclists.”

Councillor Eileen Cartie joined in the debate to discuss the matter and told the Committee that “as a keen cyclist I was happy to see another cycle route being planned that would benefit people right across Blyth as the new bridge route links in with cycle ways and footpaths from Newsham farm estate and well as Cowpen and Blyth Town but to end in a flight of stairs is very disappointing indeed”.

During the wider debate Councillor Brian Gallacher spoke and told the Committee “I am also concerned about bridges planned for the Wansbeck area and have spoken with network rail as well as the Council about them and that if returned at the election in May I will keep an eye on the the matter as it is of great importance to a large number of people to get these matters right first time, the reopening of the AB&T Northumberland Line is a rail project for the future not the past.”

After the meeting we contacted Councillor Davey who told us: "I believe that an1881 style of footbridge is not what is required in this location, this new bridge should be designed as the safest of access routes for families with pushchairs, pedestrians, the disabled and cyclists to the new station  at Blyth Bebside".

"It services the population of approximately half of Blyth and is the only way to arrive under your own steam at the station without being exposed to the dangers of the Bebside roundabout." 

"The development of this bridge needs to comply fully with the disability acts as enshrined in law as is the the Bridge spanning the East Coast main line in Cramlington commissioned by the last Labour administration at County Hall and not be a cheapskate provision that locks out huge groups of users from easy access to a railway station in 2021."

"We have bridges in South East Northumberland which do comply and even one designed in the last century in Blyth over a disused rail line in the Isabella ward which is more user friendly than the proposed structure".

“At the earliest opportunity I will be speaking with the current Mayor of Blyth, Councillor Warren Taylor  on the matter as he has been selected as the Labour candidate for Kitty Brewster ward at the May elections and I know that he will fight tooth and nail to bring the right infrastructure project forward at this location.”

 

END

Newbiggin Sports and Community Centre Phase Two, a ‘Garden of Eden’.

The modernisation of Newbiggin by the Sea’s Sports and Community Centre is now underway. The project driven by County Councillor Liz Simpson and the Newbiggin Community Trust is designed to bring back much greater Community and visitor use into the Town and has the full support of the County Councils ‘Communities Together’ initiative.

The community centre which has degraded into a run down neglected space over the last few years primarily due to the impact of Advance Northumberland’s concentration on sporting activities and health & wellbeing work contracted by the County Council in partnership with the local NHS trusts, is about to be reborn and hopefully return to its heydays in serving not only the local community but also the huge increase in summer population as visitors flock into its caravan parks and with a new large caravan park gaining planning permission quite recently the need to prepare the centre for a post covid future is visionary indeed.

 Councillor Liz Simpson who is fully supportive of the project has also put forward plans to brighten up surrounds of the centre and has set aside £20,000 from her small schemes money to develop a public garden area at the centre which will be central to phase two of the current modernisation scheme.

 Councillor Simpson spoke with us and said “I’m so pleased that our Community Centre here in Newbiggin is being modernised and being brought back into full use once the pandemic is behind us.

As a Community Trust, we have been working behind the scenes for quite a long time to keep our community front and centre in the County Councils thinking”. 

“Working with the County Council’s Communities Together team has been a dream as they fully understand the problems we face and how a deprived area such as Newbiggin by the Sea needs to have a central hub in order to assist people face to face”.

 “The modernisation plans are so strong that I decided to add a second phase using my small schemes allowance and along with the Community Trust wish to develop a community garden at the centre”. 

“Myself and the members of the Trust believe it will not only enhance the centre but will give people the chance to mix with others who like to be in the fresh air and garden in a safe and secure environment and will be central to our grow and eat scheme.”

Its planned to complete the modernisation works by early summer and dates for an official opening will be set once lockdown restrictions are lifted.