Labour Cash Saving Motion Closed Off By Northumberland County Council

The very secretive administration at Northumberland County Hall who have halved the number of Council meetings, halted the open working groups, reduced the number of open scrutiny panels and fill in the time at Full Council meetings with questions and motions to themselves, have through their arrogance got the Council into a serious law-suit that could bankrupt the Council.

The law suit surrounds the removal from inspection by Government of the main planning document for Northumberland, the Local Plan and Core Strategy, every Council must have one to control housing numbers and be in a position to take advantage of well structured opportunities to improve the economy and jobs within the Counties boundaries whilst not damaging those same opportunities for neighbours.

On 5^th July 2017 a motion was put to the Council to withdraw the Core Strategy from inspection. The Council had taken legal advice but not shared it with all members of the Council. An amendment was put forward by Labour to defer the motion until all members had the opportunity to see the advice, as members should only make decisions on behalf of the public in the full knowledge of all advice and take all advice from officers. Officers gave NO firm advice to the Council on that day.

The amendment was defeated and the administration won the vote to remove the strategy from inspection. Therefore a decision was taken by Councillors without them having full knowledge of the implications of their decision making.

The decision has been catastrophic for Northumberland with developers winning appeal after appeal including the disastrous New Hartley planning appeal where an estate is to be built that will double the size of the village without the infrastructure improvements needed to support such a massive increase in population.

Developers who already had applications in train have also been hit by the removal of the strategy and of course are fighting back in legal terms and the Council is faced with a £200M law suit.

On July 2^nd in order to save the Council massive costs and avert a potential huge law suit Labour put forward a motion to reinstate its accepted and consulted upon core strategy. At the meeting ‘legal advice’ was produced that councillors were not allowed to pre-read or take advice of their own on and Labour had to remove the motion on that day. They still haven’t been issued with that advice as the papers were collected in at the meeting, the secrets are never to be revealed from the administration its rather like free masonry.

Twice since Labour have attempted to submit and have heard their motion only to have that route to safety for the Counties taxpayers cut off. The Council is only to be asked to hear three motions at each meeting and there is no opportunity for it to hear an emergency motion in the administrations altered Constitution. They filled the meeting with silly motions in September and have filled the agenda with similar motions for November blocking off the opportunity to reverse the decision of July 2017 or even letting the public hear the story of the mess their Council is in by making that uninformed decision