‘How much’? Is my local council going to spend on regalia?

Blyth Town Council found themselves in hot water during the summer of 2022 when the then ultra right wing Tory MP for Blyth Valley came out against the purchase of high quality regalia so that at public events local people could easily recognise the towns Mayor elect, the deputy mayor.

The objection by the MP against the proposal which was designed to bring Blyth in line with other large parish councils both locally and nationally did halt the regalia purchase by the council.  

The publicity following this attack on the volunteer councillors working hard for their communities was seen as an attack on the Town itself, it drove down the MP’s popularity being branded a ‘Borisite’ verbally in pubs and clubs by Blyth’s Reform supporters losing out to Labour in the general election and losing the town Council to reform in the parish elections.

A recent suggestion by the Council has been another regalia purchase to aid them to enlist a cadet mayor for the Town. 

The Council has pledged to spend £1,470 on regalia for the cadet mayor, a figure questioned by social media commentators as mean. People are asking if the largest town in Northumberland's cadet mayor will be asked to wear ‘pandora’ next to the civic mayor's glittering chains of office.

Key Details on Proposed Regalia:

Cost & Budget: The new proposal (as of Oct 2025) has an estimated cost of £1,470.00, which was to be sourced from savings within the Governance Committee budget.

Purpose: The new items are intended for official civic events, commemorating the town's traditions, and establishing a Mayoral Cadet role to encourage young people.

Previous Controversy: In 2022, the council faced significant backlash over a £15,000 expenditure on chains, with critics labeling it a waste of taxpayer money.

Usage: Official chains and robes are typically worn by the Mayor at civic functions and remembrance services.

The purchase for the cadet  now branded in the second class and not quite what townsfolk want to see as an advert to improve the town's rundown reputation is not the only stumbling block to bringing in a cadet mayor.

Those in the know regarding looking after and not exploiting children and young people have submitted a freedom of information request into both the Town and Northumberland County Council whose role it is to ensure young folk are safeguarded which may throw the cat among the pigeons.

It's been estimated by wags that the safeguarding matters linked with the cadet mayor post will work out annually much more expensive than purchasing quality regalia for a deputy mayor each and every year a cadet is chosen and marched around the town.

The town council now being top heavy with volunteer councillors not holding advanced fully certificated checking papers known as DBS checks, may leave the council with a major eyeballing as it seems reform UK ltd the largest group on the council has more than its share of members nationally who aren't approved of by local residents with safeguarding and misogyny regularly mentioned in media reports. Therefore do the County Council social workers involved with safeguarding of children have faith that a Blyth cadet mayor will not be exposed to meeting undesirables during  civic events? In Scotland the SNP have shown they can't!

Blyth Town Council to spend £15,000 on decorative chains for deputy mayor during cost of living crisis | Chronicle Live https://share.google/rRHnjszD5UJ8bLo86

https://youtu.be/BoHL9sIXA-k?si=xz7ciHSJopIbVKlE

 

Leaked recordings show SNP councillors backed Jordan Linden | The Herald 

https://share.google/uys0iU6dSaGMQ76pT

‘How much’? Is my local council going to spend on regalia?

 

Blyth Town Council found themselves in hot water during the summer of 2022 when the then ultra right wing Tory MP for Blyth Valley came out against the purchase of high quality regalia so that at public events local people could easily recognise the towns Mayor elect, the deputy mayor.

The objection by the MP against the proposal which was designed to bring Blyth in line with other large parish councils both locally and nationally did halt the regalia purchase by the council.  

The publicity following this attack on the volunteer councillors working hard for their communities was seen as an attack on the Town itself, it drove down the MP’s popularity being branded a ‘Borisite’ verbally in pubs and clubs by Blyth’s Reform supporters losing out to Labour in the general election and losing the town Council to reform in the parish elections.

A recent suggestion by the Council has been another regalia purchase to aid them to enlist a cadet mayor for the Town. 

The Council has pledged to spend £1,470 on regalia for the cadet mayor, a figure questioned by social media commentators as mean. People are asking if the largest town in Northumberland's cadet mayor will be asked to wear ‘pandora’ next to the civic mayor's glittering chains of office.

Key Details on Proposed Regalia:

Cost & Budget: The new proposal (as of Oct 2025) has an estimated cost of £1,470.00, which was to be sourced from savings within the Governance Committee budget.

Purpose: The new items are intended for official civic events, commemorating the town's traditions, and establishing a Mayoral Cadet role to encourage young people.

Previous Controversy: In 2022, the council faced significant backlash over a £15,000 expenditure on chains, with critics labeling it a waste of taxpayer money.

Usage: Official chains and robes are typically worn by the Mayor at civic functions and remembrance services.

The purchase for the cadet  now branded in the second class and not quite what townsfolk want to see as an advert to improve the town's rundown reputation is not the only stumbling block to bringing in a cadet mayor.

Those in the know regarding looking after and not exploiting children and young people have submitted a freedom of information request into both the Town and Northumberland County Council whose role it is to ensure young folk are safeguarded which may throw the cat among the pigeons.

It's been estimated by wags that the safeguarding matters linked with the cadet mayor post will work out annually much more expensive than purchasing quality regalia for a deputy mayor each and every year a cadet is chosen and marched around the town.

The town council now being top heavy with volunteer councillors not holding advanced fully certificated checking papers known as DBS checks, may leave the council with a major eyeballing as it seems reform UK ltd the largest group on the council has more than its share of members nationally who aren't approved of by local residents with safeguarding and misogyny regularly mentioned in media reports. Therefore do the County Council social workers involved with safeguarding of children have faith that a Blyth cadet mayor will not be exposed to meeting undesirables during  civic events? In Scotland the SNP have shown they can't!

Blyth Town Council to spend £15,000 on decorative chains for deputy mayor during cost of living crisis | Chronicle Live https://share.google/rRHnjszD5UJ8bLo86

https://youtu.be/BoHL9sIXA-k?si=xz7ciHSJopIbVKlE

 

Leaked recordings show SNP councillors backed Jordan Linden | The Herald 

https://share.google/uys0iU6dSaGMQ76pT

Failure since 2022 rears its ugly head again.

During 2022 Northumberland Unitary Council Leader, Glen Sanderson promised the public that he would, in the true ultra right wing style of Putin or Farage, tackle the pay levels of Council officers to cut £1m from the wages bill while ignoring the fact that his Council has an adopted job evaluation scheme and therefore pays the accepted ‘rate for the job’.

His 2022 public promise glamorous Glen as he has been known by his mates for years made the pledge after it was revealed that in his party's view the council was paying huge sums to a large number of top officers.

Shortly after his promise was made he pushed up top officers' pay again when he recruited a new Chief Executive on a starting salary of £199,000. With the numbers rising from 20 paid more that £100k in 2022 to 26 in 2024 an unmitigated failure when tested against his previous promise.

The Council has since its inception in 2009 listed all posts with salaries over £50,000, to elected members then in 2020/21 a change to the Councils constitution forced in via the Council's audit committee brought the full list onto the Councils final accounts and on to the Councils website.

With his neighbours and locals commenting quite often asking how he has time to lead a Council when as a farmer during these post Brexit times he needs to spend more time watching his crops grow fatter every day and running his agri business. But ploughing on so to say and not delivering his promises at Council level he has recently decided to increase high level staff further.

In the background of his Chief Executive being remunerated close to a quarter of a million pound per annum following Glen accepting the begging bowls of officers delivered through his secret cabinet of decision makers, councillors attended their March 26 meeting dizzy through social media comments asking them most just couldn't answer.

So at this week's Council the Leader introduced a new job valued at £140,000. Some councillors were apoplectic, with a long standing lady councillor from the North of the county taking to social media with this message:

Northumberland County Council

** £100,000 + salaries **

At yesterday’s meeting, which you can watch back via * (Northumberland TV), the Council agreed to create a new Director post on a salary of £140,000.

I voted AGAINST this as did other Independent colleagues and a couple of Reform with one Labour abstention.

Recently, NCC was found to have the highest number of staff paid over £100,000 in the North East region for the FIFTH year in a row.  Despite assurances, new posts with these level salaries continue to be created each year.

I was rather surprised that the vast majority of Reform Councillors supported this given their stated aim of ;

“Reform UK aims to reduce "mind-blowing" local government waste by capping high salaries and cutting administrative costs. Proposals focus on stopping council tax hikes, reducing the number of executives earning over £100,000”

The Council labeled this week in the press by an MP as incompetent showed signs of the leadership breaking up with we suspect Reform gaining over the short term, the Councillor from the north’s advice to watch proceedings on tv are very valid and you will see the crumbling administration at first hand as it begins its journey towards dust blown away into history

Notes

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-wage-savings-25066598

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/new-chief-executive-at-northumberland-county-council-set-to-pocket-ps199000-salary-3896979

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/About-the-Council/transparency/structure%20and%20salaries/Senior-Management-Salary-Information-1-April-2025.pdf

Labour’s Mayor is right, but Northumberland Tories need to look with their other face if released promises are to succeed?

 North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has announced a £22 million investment aimed at driving the development of over 1,100 new homes, including a significant proportion of social and affordable housing across the region.

The sites her combined authority have announced are primarily brown field and former public use land with services either on or sitting close by. You may wonder why we have mentioned services in this way? The reason is that current accepted planning permissions in the region will suffer long waiting periods due to Northumberland securing 10 Data Centres and the top planning advisors Litchfields leafleting homes in West Sleekburn regarding their plans to site some more on land designated for industrial and commercial development.

The sites at Cambois and the Sleekburn area are ideal for Data Centre use although they don’t provide many jobs. The area is home to  the river blyth and sleek burns for cooling water along with the National Grid and a transformer plant that can manage oodles of power, currently coming in from Norway through the international link and about to accept offshore power from the Berwick wind farms and overspill from the Scottish wind and solar plants currently being built in the Firth of Forth/Fife areas as Scotland can’t use all of the power it will produce domestically.

The Housing federation has concerns regarding the growth of Data Centres as even with the Scottish and Norwegian incoming power the current and future plans set in place by the Tories

Northumberland Conservative led County Council who swamp the public in the County with glamour statements each and every day never ever backed up with medium and long term plans backed by the whole Council, as every cabinet decision is delivered in secret along with the Chairs of Council and scrutiny highly trained to kill off speeches and questions from opposition parties stifling debate at every turn, are unable to deliver on their promises but could if they change their ways?

The latest promise is that they have developed plans to deliver 11,000 new jobs across the County over the next nine years. This is the third time those same councillors have issued similar statements since 2017 and the plans have fallen by the wayside each and every time.

The main reason for potential failure isn’t just the lack of backing from all parties on the Council, its the lack of Council and affordable housing all over the County, a county filled with elderly people, care homes, second homes and nimbyism way beyond the norm with class hatred sitting alongside racism as always high on the development agenda of the Tories in office. The class hatred the farming leader of council displays is clearly shown on the national unison website “UNISON are deeply concerned over the statement made by the leader of the council in relation to staff wages. The comments made by Councillor Sanderson are wholly unacceptable and gives the impression that staff are unvalued and over paid. Jobs within Northumberland County Council are fairly evaluated through the nationally agreed job evaluation”.

Northumberland Conservatives whose overspends on social services on a regular and ongoing basis, the rundown of schools through the lack of children and the reason they struck 7000 applicants for Council housing off their lists is why they need to turn their second faces and look to see why housing shortages will deny them the opportunity of delivering their yet to be seen in public plans for those jobs and keep Northumberland locked in as a six week summer economy council for holiday makers for evermore.

This week the BBC issued this story: Grid connection priority needed to stop housing stalling: The Home Builders Federation has urged the Government and Ofgem to ensure that AI data centres are not given priority over housing developments in the queue for grid connections. Executive director Steve Turner said that as proposals are considered to prioritise "strategically important" projects - potentially including AI infrastructure, electric vehicle charging hubs, and industrial sites - it is "frustrating that regulatory, planning and policy arrangements effectively prioritise energy intensive data centres over energy efficient homes for families". Failing to prioritise housing, he said, would result in an "effective moratorium on new homes in areas where capacity is constrained".

In order to get around that Northumberland in particular among those members of the combined authority need to borrow and increase their Council housing stock by bringing empty properties back into use so that grid connections do not become and issue for them since they will be raking cash into the Councils coffers from the Data centres already underway at Cambois as well as the future plans from Litchfields.

With a housing waiting list topping 14,000, the affordability of social services adult care in negativity each and every year, Schools short of 12,000 pupils, 2000 recorded empty homes sitting across the County and a black mark sitting over the heads of the council from the housing inspectorate, the Council needs to u-turn to resolve it problems. Firstly they need to develop older persons Council housing on the North-east Mayors sites as all consultation with the elderly of which Northumberland has far more than others through historical population drift, lack of jobs since the Thatcher years etc., wish to stay in their own homes until the end of their lives if possible. An extended District Nursing and Care service already planned by Northumbria Healthcare foundation trust working in conjunction with the Council on new bungalow sites would be a start. 

Developing and bringing 2000 empty homes back into use as part of the housing stock will allow families to settle and have children in a safe long term environment then the building of some Council housing in each and every village would keep the schools alive close to other homes so that grid connection isn't a problem could help save Northumberland from the clearances that have made it so costly to develop jobs in Scotland pour over the border into England's most northerly County and the Tories long term plans need to recognise this!

The new motto for any incoming administration in the County needs to be ‘Develop for needs or die’.

Notes:

https://www.northeast-ca.gov.uk/news/housing-and-land/north-east-mayor-announces-22m-to-build-1-122-new-homes-across-the-region

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/council-approves-ambitious-plan-with-potential-to-create-up-to-11000-new-jobs-5627646

https://www.easterngreenlink2.co.uk/

https://www.northsealink.com/

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/jobs-blyth-employment-northumberland-cars-19435348

https://www.politicshome.com/members/article/the-innovation-premium-how-the-net-zero-transition-is-driving-economic-growth

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dn2znzez7o