Is the growth of ASHINGTON being deserted by Northumberland Conservatives?

 

Just prior to the public enquiry being held in Blyth Civic Centre on the validity and essential need for the reopening of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Northumberland  rail line we need to ask about the stand being taken by the Leaders of Northumberland County  Council?

Ashington had a lot going for its future, with the North of Tyne combined authority and its elected Mayor Jamie Driscoll working tirelessly on the project of helping an area which has been badly affected from the loss of its mining and heavy production industries with Alcan once sited on its doorstep along with Universal Credit cuts and frozen Triple Lock links with wage inflation currently damaging the area badly.

The North of Tyne combined authority, made up from North Tyneside, Northumberland and the City of Newcastle councils were challenged by George Osborne and David Cameron to design a Combined Authority with an elected Mayor to handle transport for the region and devolution issues and its opportunities as they arose.

The people elected Jamie Driscoll who has shown other areas how good an elected Mayor can be.

Most recently one of the prime projects for the North of Tyne group has been the reopening of the former Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line AKA the Northumberland Line which would bring immense growth to Ashington and open up opportunities for its residents to reach their goals and aspirations across a much wider area as places like Northumberland will be hit hard through the greening processes of our nation, with Mayor Driscoll writing to the Times along with a number of other concerned politicians to note research from the Centre for Progressive Policy which "identified 74 areas across Britain with a combined population of nine million people that are at particular risk of job losses and reduced earnings owing to decarbonisation". The group calls for "targeted interventions'' to protect vulnerable people and communities from the impact of a bad transition to net zero", and announces a five-point plan to "help our areas to build back greener and more prosperously after the pandemic". 

Northumberland, particularly the South East and the Tyne Valley will be negatively affected by net zero changes as the essential varied public transport choices are currently not available to maintain incomes once their old jobs disappear.

Yet with all of that knowledge openly available, the Leader of Northumberland Conservative Group, Glenn Sanderson whose deputy leader Richard Wearmouth, is the leading Conservative in the North-East region, being their Chairman, are backing off from working on any devolution deals with the North of Tyne combined authority.

Councillor Sanderson only wishes to keep 'normal relations' with Mayor Driscoll and the other authorities, leaving the combined authority in major difficulty in drawing down devolution cash from the Conservative Government in power to further expand the reopening of the Northumberland line as 'all the ducks aren't sitting in a row'.

We here at murky are unable to find any minutes to show that the Council has discussed this backdown from a Mayoralty at either its secret one party cabinet or its Council meetings, but we have found support articles from Anne-Marie Trevelyan the nations business minister and MP for Berwick upon Tweed and Councillor Wearmouth supporting more stopping trains at Morpeth and Berwick. Funny that they don't want them stopping in Ashington (not!).