A Reminder from Monica

We already know about Cllr Sanderson’s attempts to put party before the residents o Northumberland regarding council decisions.

It now appears more is coming to light. All of which can be evidenced when this state of affairs makes it to court.

In January 2020, Cllr Sanderson was advised of serious breaches of health and safety issues (including risk to staff life and limb), in a number of local services workplaces. Cllr Sanderson chose to collude with a local services manager, to the extent that the Council’s executive team made the decision to parachute in external capable staff to oversee and rectify the identified health and safety breaches. These breaches were so significant that either it could have resulted in the death of a staff member, or the council could have been sued for a significant amount of money if the Health and Safety Executive had conducted a visit and found the conditions as they were.

During the lockdown period Cllr Sanderson again, on numerous occasions, failed to act in the best interest of Council staff. He tried to force the Council’s management team and council staff to reopen local and environmental services, prior to the completion of health and safety risk assessments. Had his pressured requests been allowed, the health and safety of hundreds of frontline council staff would have been put at significant risk. The constant pressuring of council staff is unacceptable.
In a meeting of the informal cabinet in June 2020, Cllr Sanderson made a racial slur against Chinese people. The slur was made in front of numerous Council staff including members of the executive team, more junior staff and numerous cabinet members.

Cllr Sanderson, along with other current and previous cabinet members, has sought to influence the purchase price of a site in Hexham commonly known as the “Bunker” site for a car park, which falls within his Local Services portfolio. The Chief Executive and Council property staff were put under significant pressure to direct Council resources to this car park site, due to the biased relationship between the previous Leader and Cllr Cath Homer. 

The property staff were pressured to “find a way to” inflate the price, as per the developer’s request. Cllr John Riddle then sought to pressure planning staff to speed up the planning process. Cllr John Riddle was reminded that all planning must follow due process. Cllr Sanderson raised the purchase of the site numerous times and the removal of the Chief Executive was partly due to the cabinet members wanting to purchase the site under delegation to Rick O’Farrell who they felt would be more agreeable. There needs to be a clear investigation into this matter.