Business Improvement District in Blyth - Tory business rate whammy Is it just another Tax?

There are a number of businesses in Blyth who are rightly looking at the BID 'bid' with some suspicion. After the Richard Wearmouth led farce in Hexham which saw the council taking hard working businesses to court for not paying their BID 'levy', it's clear that there are questions not answered and should be by the time (29 Nov) when the votes are in from hard pressed businesses of Blyth. 

The BID scheme was imported directly from the States and was a good idea when the economy was booming in the 2000's but it is now being sold to the unsuspecting shopkeepers in Blyth town centre as a panacea for the ill's of a Tory economy that is strangling smaller and larger traders alike where shops are closing primarily due to the undeniable challenge from on-line trading, where even the big boys and girls are feeling the pinch.

So what is the BID scheme in Blyth and why was it such a disaster in Hexham? 

The introduction of Business Improvement Schemes in small coastal towns with empty shops can be an opportunity for Local Development Trusts who usually openly volunteer to organise BID schemes, building them up as being the solution to difficult trading conditions and aiding redevelopment in the town. An allegation levelled against BID schemes is that they are 'autocratic, non-responsive and secretive' (which maybe describes the leader of the BID scheme in Blyth, Cllr Richard Wearmouth of Morpeth). These allegations were certainly levelled against the scheme in Hexham and were a major part of its downfall. 

Another charge is that the proportion of cash which is raised/taxed from local businesses ends up paying wages and very little else to deliver the plan they sell the introduction of a scheme on.

In the South and West of the Country where the majority of BID schemes took off early we see ever more discontent as Councils who bankrolled the improvement scheme plans can no longer manage to do so due to austerity cuts and the lack of prudential borrowing power from Government. There is also major discontent in Parish areas from Councillors who feel the BID schemes are competing with the principle of the precept, local service delivery and in some cases, duplication. 

In the North-East of England where its estimated that the on-line pinch is the greatest and of course cash to spend on the High Street is the lowest in the UK we have seen a scheme fail in the Town of Hexham before the end of its first tranche date. Hexham an abbey town of great antiquity is thought of as one of the ‘more affluent’ towns in the North-East and the BID failure was dramatic with business owners prepared to go to jail rather than pay the levy, the Council a Tory led Unitary County was forced to abandon the scheme. That Council has had a further embarrassment when a BID scheme promoted by  Arch Chair Richard Wearmouth, failed to get a yes vote in the town of Morpeth where the Unitary County Council is based and he is a councillor. 

BID schemes in big cities are a different offer and one of the largest and most successful is also in the North-East, NE1 based in Newcastle upon Tyne where over 30% of the companies are licensed premises. It is a very wealthy scheme that funded an Ed Sheeran Concert to bring in outside trade at one of the City’s most quiet periods. But even it has its critics from the small business sector as large schemes expect and get higher percentage levy’s, something small towns and their schemes can’t harvest and with proposed rises in business rates the question must be put, ‘Is it just another Tax'?

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/controversial-hexham-bid-axed-next-15112543

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/business/business-news/morpeth-businesses-vote-against-forming-14517917

Arch desecration special

 How does a company worth £320m last year get sold to the people who already own it for £4.2m ?

Or how to wreck a public asset for Tory greed, spite and lies and the rise of Hillmouth syndrome

This week will see Full Council 'debate' and make a decision to commit Arch to the dustbin of history. We use the word 'dustbin' deliberately as this is the culmination of a three year campaign by the current Chair of Arch Richard Wearmouth and his 'other half' the Chair of Audit, Cllr Georgina Hill consisting of lies, smears and deliberate dissembling, aided by long time Arch Director Peter 'the whistleblower' Jackson. We've given him that sobriquet because Hill called him a 'whistleblower' in a newspaper story which raised serious questions about actions as a Director of Arch. It can be seen in this story  https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/call-for-investigation-over-arch-breach-1-9196821

You will be surprised to learn there was no investigation. Not.

Wearmouth and Hill have worked as a tag team to turn a successful business which last year paid Northumberland County Council £9.4m which was used to offset Tory cuts from national government. So much so they've been tagged Hillmouth and their actions have been likened to a syndrome. 
But in their rush to smear, Wearmouth and Hill have made mistakes which will prove to be very costly for the taxpayer. Mistakes like the 'secret reviews, reports and investigations' carried out by Crosland Consulting, a shadowy company which seems to effortlessly pick up 'investigations' without transparent tender processes. 
So far, we've had a lot of blunder and bluster, threats and predictions but no hard evidence. Why is that? Could it be because this is a massive 'fishing expedition' carried out at the taxpayers expense into ' Labour spectres and ghouls' created in the Wearmouth/Hill blogosphere? 

Wearmouth claims that the main reason Arch is changing names is because the brand is 'toxic' but who made it that way Richard? He'll predictably say 'Labour corruption' but let's look at the evidence tabled. 

Evidence and fact are different from conjecture and spin Richard so now here is a lesson in fact for Northumberland County Council 'star crossed lovers' Wearmouth/Hill or as they have been affectionately named 'Hillmouth'. 

Fact 1 

The strategic review into Arch has never been publicly tabled even though it has been used to halt massive regeneration projects. No one can even say if it really exists or is just a figment of Hillmouth's imagination. 

Fact 2.

Evidence of illegality has been passed to Northumbria Police with 49 lines of enquiry. It's now passed the 1 year anniversary of this claim by both the council and Arch yet nothing has happened. Why is that? Why have the police confirmed in 4 separate quotes 'there is no criminal investigation'? This begs the question what exactly are the police doing with this if it's not criminal doesn't it? 

Fact 3

The 'evidence' tabled at Audit committee has never been made public. So where is Hillmouth's famed transparency?  All we've had is the following. The former CEO house was bought from him at a market rate, has been generating profits for Arch and 'there is no criminal investigation'. Arch used a forum in Cannes used by 50% of local authorities across the country to try and generate jobs for Northumberland - the staff stayed in budget hotels, drank responsibly and a report presented to Arch stated this contributed to over 240 jobs coming into Northumberland. That has brought at least £6m into the Northumberland economy but Hillmouth managed to turn that into 'toxic event'. 

We should also echo Northumbria Police official statement. 'There is no criminal investigation'. 

Hillmouth have conducted a totally unjustified campaign of harassment against Ashington Football Club. At every stage they've tried to hammer a local amateur football team because it has links to Labour politicians. Ashington as a town is proudly Labour so it would be logical that Labour politicians would be involved in the town's cultural groups and teams. Not in Hillmouth's eyes. When they've claimed Arch implying somehow 'illegally' that the team was 'given £1.5m' from the taxpayer they forgot to mention that the club moved from its original ground (which is now a big Asda), Asda created a £6m endowment which transferred to the county council when Wansbeck was abolished. Hillmouth have also created the conditions to go after some of Arch previous contractors. This is a shocking abuse of their powers (which are prescribed in law) to further personal vendetta's and imagined party political slights. They have paid at least £80,000 for 'Crosland private investigations' which have never been tabled or seen outside the Hillmouth 'lair'. To repeat the refrain though and to quote Northumbria Police 'there is no criminal investigation'. 

Fact 4

Arch never paid any money to Northumberland County Council. Lie. The sad point though is Hill made audit officers dance around to make up a report to 'spin' there was no Arch dividend which is borne out by the facts. For one, how does the council audit a company constituted under company law? Arch Director of Finance Paul Czerepok (who has been hammered by Hillmouth) agreed that the company would have paid at least £25m to the council in, what Arche described 'the Arch dividend' over the cycle of the council Medium Term Financial Plan (4 years). When you consider that Arch paid the council £9.4m last year and made a £5.5m profit. Why would Hillmouth try and reconfigure the facts? Why would the council shareholder allow them to deliberately spin, what an auditor described as 'apples for pears'? Could it be that there was a plan to publicly dismantle Arch whatever the cost to the public purse? That does sound credible doesn't it? When Arch director Peter Jackson launched his manifesto in January 2017 pledging to scrap Arch he set out on a journey which is bedevilled by difficult questions for this council. Like why was a director allowed to talk his company down? Why didn't he resign? Why wasn't he declaring his interests which is a major issue for Northumberland Tories? Why did he start an unlawful review of Arch before the Tories had taken over? Hillmouth also have complaints about them leaking confidential information from the company. Why haven't they been investigated? Who authorised the settlement with Galliford Try for Portland Park prior to 21 June 2017? There's a serious question over who authorised a payment to Galliford Try against the wishes of the company's official directors. The payment is at least £7.5m and possibly more. What has CEO Alison Joynson (she of three jobs and Tory post 16 travel campaigns) been doing in Arch? As CEO she hasn't made a single statement. 

More questions than answers definitely. On Wednesday Hillmouth will be squawking in the council chamber salivating over their destruction of a company that was set to contribute more than £25m to council coffers. 

They'll do this without 

1. Releasing the company accounts for their first full year in office
2. Refusing to reveal how many assets they've sold from the £320m portfolio. 
3. Denying that the company is a vehicle to transfer investment and resources out of Northumberland to China despite claiming they would stop investing outside Northumberland. 
4. Refusing to investigate serious governance complaints while preferring to make the business of the company political
5. Failing to inform their tenants (1000+ homes) what will be their future (apart from 'nothing will change' comment) 
6. Explaining in a report what advice has been given about tax liabilities. 
7. Pulling the £1m charitable donation from Active Northumberland despite identified risks around that
8. Tabling a risk appraisal and then tying the council down to 'deal with future creditors of the company' 
9. Ever tabling any document to evidence any of the allegations trumped up by Hillmouth of company wrongdoing which Northumbria Police have said 'there is no criminal investigation'. 
10. Substantiating the true cost and loss to the council taxpayer of this exercise in political spite. 

All in all - more questions than answers and we hope Labour continue to seek answers and we hope Ian Lavery and Ronnie Campbell get their wish of a full independent enquiry.

After all, if you've got nothing to hide, why does the king and queen of transparency continue to dodge answering questions and tabling real information? 

This is how you get to the situation where a council owned company worth £320m is sold off to the same council for £4.2m. It happens when politics is put before any other consideration including potential criminal actions. It happens when the conditions for a 'syndrome' come together. Or in this case, it should be a sin-drome because that is what it is - a sin.  

No transparency should = no decision on Wednesday until at least the company accounts have been released. 

#releaseArchaccounts