Tories and Greens spinathon will kill more villages and empty the countryside

 

There’s time to listen to others and time to read what the truth is?

With Northumberland County Council’s Leadership acting like absentee landlords of the early 1800’s involved in the highland clearances and Irish inactions for completely ideological reasons. Today their composite beliefs have led to not only a crisis in housing they have decided to change tack and turn it into a calamity.

Long running protests emanating from the Tory led County Council and the Northumberland Tory Party claiming that Labour’s plans to build enough homes to safely house the nation's population will destroy woodland and drive animals from the ‘face of the earth'.

In order to show the world that they are ‘protectors’ of this huge rural Council they wrote off 7,000 applicants from their social housing register to ‘improve’ their choice based lettings scheme, Homefinder and ‘save the countryside’.

It's acutely obvious that those objecting to housing growth have never read the policy set out by Labour leaving it solely to planning officers to read to them at bedtime; and because of that the Tories who want all land held by them tied tightly the Greens of the former North of Tyne Mayor who are sadly trying to form a following on a fabric of spin really have so much in common, but if the Greens don’t want to house those in need they should come out and say so as they have in Bristol the largest Council they politically hold.

Labour's housing proposals on the other hand are really simple and do NOT include the  fear factor nonsense being talked up by protestors with the old adage run out by the Tories to keep house prices up by always having a shortfall attached to ‘Labour will concrete over your county’ a clear statement from Tories that is a load of rubbish.

Labour’s housing proposals aim to build 1.5 million homes over five years  by adopting a "brownfield first" strategy and developing "grey belt" land. Key proposals include reforming planning laws, building new towns, and setting "golden rules" for development, such as 50% affordable housing on some sites.

The Tory Housing Councillor Colin Horncastle who dwells close to the very empty moorlands of South West Northumberland near the foothills of the North Pennines spoke at a Council meeting when the housing numbers were released that he believed the County only had to deliver 600 new homes as per the adopted four year old Tory local plan. His statement showed he was completely unaware that an average of 1,552 new homes have been constructed annually in Northumberland since the 2016/17 financial year, with a peak of 1,802 homes built in 2018/19. Very close to the new figure of 1,700 per year as sought by the Labour Government in office.

The anti new homes stance of Northumberland Tories was criticised by Labours Councillor Dickinson and the MP for North Northumberland David Smith.

David Smith MP told the house of commons and a commons committee that the County Council was aware that 2,000 families are in urgent housing need and that 6,000 were in dire need.

Councillor Dickinson was more vocal and as the Chairperson of Northumberland Labour Group 2013-2017 oversaw the building of 400 new Council Homes and the repair and modernisation to the decent homes standard of another 8,000.

Responding to the criticism, Northumberland Labour leader, Mr.Councillor  Scott Dickinson said: “Given the Northumberland Tories record on housing and the inability to deliver the basics for social housing tenants of the council, these Conservatives would do well to get their house in order.

“The housing crisis left by the last Tory Government is being addressed by this Labour Government. There are thousands of people in need of homes.

“The Government is bringing in new rules around infrastructure too, so communities aren’t flooded like they were under Tory years. We saw minimal housing being delivered, but where it was communities were being overloaded.

“Before criticising others for fixing their mess, they should get on with fixing damp and mould in council housing and improving the living conditions of thousands following their disastrous housing regulator judgement.”

The Council has adopted some of Labour’s policies on housing in particular its Principal Residence Policies (PRPs), clarted around by the last Tory set up and strengthened by the New Government, which restrict new builds to be used only as a primary home, often in coastal or tourist hotspots.

The whole of Northumberland and the national park are tourist hotspots covered by this policy and have been used in both Beadnell and Seahouses to stop second home growth. This Council now needs to use the new policies on housing to increase its Council housing stock to help the thousands who need it.

Under the changes councils in England can now build or acquire new homes that are exempt from the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme for 35 years. These reforms are designed to protect new social housing stock, enabling councils to build more homes without immediately losing them, with changes including increased tenant qualifying times to 10 years and higher retention of sales receipts.

Change your views Councillors and help instead of hindering families across the County.

EDITORS NOTES:

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/warning-northumberland-could-change-immensely-due-to-new-housing-targets-6572082

https://www.facebook.com/nlandgazette/posts/warning-northumberland-could-change-immensely-due-to-new-housing-targets/1532714052196329/

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/north-northumberland-mp-david-smith-30256757

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1347198466575394

 North east bylines article 

Home  Region  Northumberland

The Reform councillor, the unpaid debts and the paper trail that wouldn’t go away

Public records, company filings and reported claims relating to one Reform councillor now face growing scrutiny

byWilly and Bill

 20-04-2026 07:00

in Northumberland, Politics

Reading Time: 9 mins read

A A

Reform UK logo Public domain

Share on Bluesky

Barry Elliott was elected to represent Newsham in May 2025. Since then, the public record around the Northumberland Reform councillor has become harder, not easier, to ignore: company liquidations, reported unpaid judgments, a care-home operator that entered liquidation, a court fight with his own council over tax and business-rate debts, and fresh allegations from people who say businesses linked to him left them badly out of pocket.

Barry Elliott is not just a businessman. He is a sitting public representative. Northumberland County Council records show he is the Reform UK councillor for Newsham, and his published register of interests describes him as self-employed and a “Director of a number of companies – semi retired”. Once somebody asks the public for trust, the public gets to inspect the paperwork as well.

Reporting by the BBC sets out the sharpest version of the case against him. Three retired couples had already said they were owed a combined £140,000 by companies Elliott owned or ran. Then more people came forward. Among them was Rebecca Brown, who said Elliott’s care-home business owed her almost £20,000 after overcharging her grandparents’ care fees. She said she obtained a court order, but before she was reimbursed, the company entered voluntary liquidation. That remains reported material, not a court finding on every wider claim. But the BBC account does not describe one isolated dispute. It describes several people saying they recognise the same sort of story.

Official records

Part of that picture is visible in official records. Companies House records of Barry William Elliott’s appointments show a long list of company roles across firms that are now dissolved, dissolved after trading, or in liquidation, including Blenheim Homes North East Ltd, The Sporting Group Ltd, Nosy Parker Ltd, YBV Ltd, Buildersbum Wholesale Ltd, The Homes Warehouse Ltd and Abbie Dean Developments Ltd. The same appointments record also includes Alcyone Healthcare North East Ltd, the care-home company linked to Baedling Manor, which Companies House lists as being in liquidation. Its officers page still shows Barry William Elliott as an active director.

That does not, by itself, prove wrongdoing. Companies fail. Directors appear on multiple records. Companies House itself says it does not verify every piece of filed information. None of this proves intent, conspiracy, or criminality. What it does show is a public record that is repetitive, substantial and politically damaging. When the same name keeps appearing beside dissolved firms, liquidation notices and reported unpaid claims, voters are entitled to ask what exactly they were being asked to trust.

The care-home strand

The care-home strand is where this stops being abstract and turns back into people. Families. Fees. Elderly residents. CQC records for the archived Baedling Manor service show the home, run by Alcyone Healthcare North East Ltd, was rated Inadequate before the service was archived following a provider change. The later service at the same site, Birkinshaw Manor, run by a different provider, was rated Good after inspection in January 2023. Same site. Different provider. Different result.

Meanwhile the company itself entered creditors’ liquidation. Companies House records for Alcyone Healthcare North East Ltd show the company in liquidation, while a Gazette notice recorded the type of liquidation as creditors’ and the appointment date in June 2023. That is the documentary backdrop to Rebecca Brown’s reported claim in the BBC material. A family says it won a court order, but the money was not paid before the company went into liquidation. That does not establish every allegation that has been made. It does leave a sequence of events that any voter is entitled to find troubling.

Northumberland County Council

Then there is the fact that Elliott also ended up in dispute with the very council on which he sits. North East Bylines reported that Northumberland County Council was pursuing him for council-tax and business-rates arrears dating from 2020 to 2025. The same report said the amount being sought was just over £37,500, made up of roughly £28,539 in business rates and about £10,000 in council tax. It also reported that Elliott had challenged a statutory demand, but the court ruled the liabilities were payable.

That would already be politically damaging. Then came the chamber scene. North East Bylines further reported that, at a full council meeting in January 2026, monitoring officer Stephen Gerrard told Elliott in public that he was “in substantial arrears of council tax” and warned that if he spoke or voted on the relevant council-tax items without declaring that fact he would commit an offence and any vote would be disregarded. Elliott disputed the position and questioned the timing of the intervention. Even so, residents were left watching a councillor argue with the council’s top lawyer over whether he could take part in council-tax business because of his own reported arrears. You do not need satire there. The scene arrives with its own.

There was then another turn. Yahoo court reporting said Northumberland County Council had been attempting to recover £37,525.97 from Elliott, arising from 14 liability orders. AOL later reported that the bankruptcy petition against him was dismissed after he made full payment, including costs. The judge was quoted as saying he was pleased Elliott had found the funds to pay. So the story did not end in bankruptcy. But the debt had to be chased to that point before it was settled.

That matters because payment under court pressure is not the same thing as never owing the money in the first place. A dismissed bankruptcy petition is not political vindication. It means one strand of the story ended with payment rather than insolvency. The broader record remains exactly where it was: dissolved companies, a care-home operator in liquidation, reported unpaid judgments, and a public clash over liabilities to his own authority.

A Reform problem

This is where the story stops being just a local embarrassment and becomes a Reform problem. Reform UK sells itself as the party of plain speaking, standards, disruption and contempt for a rotten political class. Fine. Then this is the test. If you campaign as the smoke alarm, you do not get to complain when voters notice smoke coming from your own candidate file.

That is the contradiction. Reform asks the public to see it as the clean-up operation, the outfit that spots rot, names rot and clears rot out. Yet here it is carrying a councillor whose public record already contains enough filings, disputes, liquidations and court-linked embarrassment to raise obvious questions in any party claiming to stand for standards. The issue is no longer whether every case is legally identical. The issue is why the same name appears repeatedly across similar types of public record and reported disputes.

There is also a wider Northumberland point. Local politics is often treated as a small stage where almost anything can be hidden under personality, grievance and turnout collapse. But local office is where reality gets a date stamp and a public register. A county councillor has to sit in a chamber, vote on tax matters, file declarations of interest, answer reporters and live alongside the documents. The councillor profile and register of interests are not gossip. The Companies House filings are not gossip. The CQC record is not gossip. The court reporting is not gossip. It is the file.

At some point this stops being complicated. It stops being filings, technicalities, disputes and process. It becomes a very simple question: how many times does the same sort of record have to pile up before a political party admits that the record itself is the story?

The careful version of this is already bad enough. It is not necessary to allege action or intent that have not been established. It is not necessary to pretend every liquidation proves deliberate abuse. It is not necessary to inflate one court fight into a grand theory of character. The documented facts already leave a  political question hanging over Barry Elliott and over Reform UK itself: why should residents trust a councillor whose public life now sits beside this much trouble in plain view?

Because that is the issue. Not whether every allegation becomes a judgment. Not whether one debt was eventually paid. Not whether a press operation can hide behind procedure and hope the room gets bored. The issue is that ordinary people say they are still out of pocket, official records show repeated corporate collapse, and a man elected to public office has spent months appearing in public reporting not as a steward of the public interest, but as the subject of a public record that voters are plainly entitled to read and judge for themselves.

If Reform wants to call itself the party of common sense, it can start by explaining why its version of common sense always seems to arrive after the final demand.

You can find Willy and Bill on substack

Reform problem in Northumberland

 

Home  Region  Northumberland

The Reform councillor, the unpaid debts and the paper trail that wouldn’t go away

Public records, company filings and reported claims relating to one Reform councillor now face growing scrutiny

byWilly and Bill

 20-04-2026 07:00

in Northumberland, Politics

Reading Time: 9 mins read

A A

Reform UK logo Public domain

Share on Bluesky

Barry Elliott was elected to represent Newsham in May 2025. Since then, the public record around the Northumberland Reform councillor has become harder, not easier, to ignore: company liquidations, reported unpaid judgments, a care-home operator that entered liquidation, a court fight with his own council over tax and business-rate debts, and fresh allegations from people who say businesses linked to him left them badly out of pocket.

Barry Elliott is not just a businessman. He is a sitting public representative. Northumberland County Council records show he is the Reform UK councillor for Newsham, and his published register of interests describes him as self-employed and a “Director of a number of companies – semi retired”. Once somebody asks the public for trust, the public gets to inspect the paperwork as well.

Reporting by the BBC sets out the sharpest version of the case against him. Three retired couples had already said they were owed a combined £140,000 by companies Elliott owned or ran. Then more people came forward. Among them was Rebecca Brown, who said Elliott’s care-home business owed her almost £20,000 after overcharging her grandparents’ care fees. She said she obtained a court order, but before she was reimbursed, the company entered voluntary liquidation. That remains reported material, not a court finding on every wider claim. But the BBC account does not describe one isolated dispute. It describes several people saying they recognise the same sort of story.

Official records

Part of that picture is visible in official records. Companies House records of Barry William Elliott’s appointments show a long list of company roles across firms that are now dissolved, dissolved after trading, or in liquidation, including Blenheim Homes North East Ltd, The Sporting Group Ltd, Nosy Parker Ltd, YBV Ltd, Buildersbum Wholesale Ltd, The Homes Warehouse Ltd and Abbie Dean Developments Ltd. The same appointments record also includes Alcyone Healthcare North East Ltd, the care-home company linked to Baedling Manor, which Companies House lists as being in liquidation. Its officers page still shows Barry William Elliott as an active director.

That does not, by itself, prove wrongdoing. Companies fail. Directors appear on multiple records. Companies House itself says it does not verify every piece of filed information. None of this proves intent, conspiracy, or criminality. What it does show is a public record that is repetitive, substantial and politically damaging. When the same name keeps appearing beside dissolved firms, liquidation notices and reported unpaid claims, voters are entitled to ask what exactly they were being asked to trust.

The care-home strand

The care-home strand is where this stops being abstract and turns back into people. Families. Fees. Elderly residents. CQC records for the archived Baedling Manor service show the home, run by Alcyone Healthcare North East Ltd, was rated Inadequate before the service was archived following a provider change. The later service at the same site, Birkinshaw Manor, run by a different provider, was rated Good after inspection in January 2023. Same site. Different provider. Different result.

Meanwhile the company itself entered creditors’ liquidation. Companies House records for Alcyone Healthcare North East Ltd show the company in liquidation, while a Gazette notice recorded the type of liquidation as creditors’ and the appointment date in June 2023. That is the documentary backdrop to Rebecca Brown’s reported claim in the BBC material. A family says it won a court order, but the money was not paid before the company went into liquidation. That does not establish every allegation that has been made. It does leave a sequence of events that any voter is entitled to find troubling.

Northumberland County Council

Then there is the fact that Elliott also ended up in dispute with the very council on which he sits. North East Bylines reported that Northumberland County Council was pursuing him for council-tax and business-rates arrears dating from 2020 to 2025. The same report said the amount being sought was just over £37,500, made up of roughly £28,539 in business rates and about £10,000 in council tax. It also reported that Elliott had challenged a statutory demand, but the court ruled the liabilities were payable.

That would already be politically damaging. Then came the chamber scene. North East Bylines further reported that, at a full council meeting in January 2026, monitoring officer Stephen Gerrard told Elliott in public that he was “in substantial arrears of council tax” and warned that if he spoke or voted on the relevant council-tax items without declaring that fact he would commit an offence and any vote would be disregarded. Elliott disputed the position and questioned the timing of the intervention. Even so, residents were left watching a councillor argue with the council’s top lawyer over whether he could take part in council-tax business because of his own reported arrears. You do not need satire there. The scene arrives with its own.

There was then another turn. Yahoo court reporting said Northumberland County Council had been attempting to recover £37,525.97 from Elliott, arising from 14 liability orders. AOL later reported that the bankruptcy petition against him was dismissed after he made full payment, including costs. The judge was quoted as saying he was pleased Elliott had found the funds to pay. So the story did not end in bankruptcy. But the debt had to be chased to that point before it was settled.

That matters because payment under court pressure is not the same thing as never owing the money in the first place. A dismissed bankruptcy petition is not political vindication. It means one strand of the story ended with payment rather than insolvency. The broader record remains exactly where it was: dissolved companies, a care-home operator in liquidation, reported unpaid judgments, and a public clash over liabilities to his own authority.

A Reform problem

This is where the story stops being just a local embarrassment and becomes a Reform problem. Reform UK sells itself as the party of plain speaking, standards, disruption and contempt for a rotten political class. Fine. Then this is the test. If you campaign as the smoke alarm, you do not get to complain when voters notice smoke coming from your own candidate file.

That is the contradiction. Reform asks the public to see it as the clean-up operation, the outfit that spots rot, names rot and clears rot out. Yet here it is carrying a councillor whose public record already contains enough filings, disputes, liquidations and court-linked embarrassment to raise obvious questions in any party claiming to stand for standards. The issue is no longer whether every case is legally identical. The issue is why the same name appears repeatedly across similar types of public record and reported disputes.

There is also a wider Northumberland point. Local politics is often treated as a small stage where almost anything can be hidden under personality, grievance and turnout collapse. But local office is where reality gets a date stamp and a public register. A county councillor has to sit in a chamber, vote on tax matters, file declarations of interest, answer reporters and live alongside the documents. The councillor profile and register of interests are not gossip. The Companies House filings are not gossip. The CQC record is not gossip. The court reporting is not gossip. It is the file.

At some point this stops being complicated. It stops being filings, technicalities, disputes and process. It becomes a very simple question: how many times does the same sort of record have to pile up before a political party admits that the record itself is the story?

The careful version of this is already bad enough. It is not necessary to allege action or intent that have not been established. It is not necessary to pretend every liquidation proves deliberate abuse. It is not necessary to inflate one court fight into a grand theory of character. The documented facts already leave a  political question hanging over Barry Elliott and over Reform UK itself: why should residents trust a councillor whose public life now sits beside this much trouble in plain view?

Because that is the issue. Not whether every allegation becomes a judgment. Not whether one debt was eventually paid. Not whether a press operation can hide behind procedure and hope the room gets bored. The issue is that ordinary people say they are still out of pocket, official records show repeated corporate collapse, and a man elected to public office has spent months appearing in public reporting not as a steward of the public interest, but as the subject of a public record that voters are plainly entitled to read and judge for themselves.

If Reform wants to call itself the party of common sense, it can start by explaining why its version of common sense always seems to arrive after the final demand.

You can find Willy and Bill on substack

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