Sanderson and Dodd for Leader and Deputy Councillors vote on 23rd September for

 

‘NO’ real change at NCC

The Northumberland County Council Conservative cabinet team have had to accept a change to their line up following Councillors from all parties and political persuasions joining together to kick out its former Leader, Councillor Peter Jackson.

The Conservative Group met on 11^th September and chose Councillor Sanderson its current Deputy Leader to head the front rank team and Councillor Dodd to move from his Business Chairs position to the throne of Deputy Leader.

The full Council meets via a zoom type format on 23^rd September to ratify or deny the changes suggested by the Conservative Group. In this short article we would like to explore the reasons why denial should be the stance promoted to Councillors by the public..

The Cabinet of Northumberland Conservatives have been reported to the Police and allegedly accused of Fraud, Bullying, Dodgy land dealings, Sexism, mismanagement of public funds, non payment of Business Rates, dishonesty in public office, and on top of that the residents of the County from all walks of life are openly commenting on how they have failed to instil trust into people that they all get a fair share of the spend on public services County-Wide.

As the only changes to that Cabinet Structure emanating from County Hall in Morpeth was to fill the vacancies left by Councillor Wayne Daley and Councillor Veronica Jones who resigned on principle following the suspension by Councillor Jackson of the Councils Chief Executive. Glen Sanderson was bumped up to the Council Deputy Leader Position and Jeff Watson brought in to replace Councillor Jones.

These moves have brought social media into play to point out that the whole cabinet which is and has been very secretive in its democratic processes, having halved the number of meetings where the public can have their say on the Councils progress since May 2017 is made up primarily of men who wear the Apron and even that they may have broken the handle off the lodge trowel trough their antics of late.

We thought we would look at their central team and the accusations made against them by the press and their own colleagues:

The attached company Advance Northumberland chaired by the now silent Councillor Richard Wearmouth finds itself embroiled in legal action that could cost the Council taxpayer over £5.5M on top of its recorded losses of £4M in each of the last two financial years in which accounts have been filed all because the Chairperson and the Company CEX could not follow an instruction from the Council shareholding officer, its suspended Chief Executive Daljit Lally OBE.

Councillor Glen Sanderson JP – Regional Lead Peer for the East Midlands, North East and Yorkshire & Humber for the Local Government Association a position from which he drives forward improvements in Council processes and practice. The question has to be asked, why when the Council lost its external auditor an almost unknown happening in Local Government through not following its agreed Governance Plan did he not drag his organisation, the LGA into the Council to report on its problems and as a Justice of the Peace why did he not get the Police involved and left it to an officer who his cabinet was tangled up in suspending. He is also accused of bullying highways engineers to the extent of seeking their sacking for not jumping to his every request, budgeted for or not.

Councillor Richard Dodd who has operated as the Business Chair of the Council and has an assistant Councillor Barry Flux are accused of ignoring dates for consultation on Government White Papers, particularly in the arena of planning where the Government has put forward changes that will affect Northumberland more than most Council areas locally and has not brought forward any suggestion of meeting as a full Council to discuss matters and has also denied the public the opportunity to lobby their Councillors regarding these changes. The whole process of the first white paper is closed down by Government on !st October 2020 and Northumberland haven’t even had a report to its own secret cabinet yet alone allowed Parish Councils to contribute particularly those who have or are in the process of formulating neighbourhood plans. In a fully Parished Council area this process was surely a must. What will he ignore when he holds the full powers of a Unitary Council Deputy Leader?

Councillor Oliver, what more can we say that hasn’t been said of this person who owes the Council £31,000 in business rates for a company he and his wife were fully involved in. He is writhing around like a landed fish telling people that he is appealing his need to pay the sum to the Council, well its normal that to lodge an appeal against the payment of taxes to a Council you must pay those taxes first, as an appeal is against the payment and not the non-payment surely? To add another matter to this persons reputation an FOI on ‘what do they know’ points out that Councillor Oliver pushed a report through the secretive one party cabinet in July 2020 that changed the Councils rules on Council Tax and Business Rates, we’d like to see the opinion of the Police and the external auditor on those changes!

Councillor and land dealer John Riddle, we will not examine the allegations further for fear of misleading any Police investigation but will guide readers to his dealings with former planning officers and his witness statements in the Czerepok v NCC tribunal (a matter of public record) for a few hints regarding his character.

We could go on but I’m sure you have the gist that some people who are not nice are getting away with Hans Christian Anderson level of story telling to cover their actions or as one wag this week commented when describing the mess surrounding false promises for the development of Pipers Place in Bedlington “you do mean those jackanory Tories from Morpeth, don’t you?”