What will Northumberland look like in 10 years time?

 

Leader? and the Glennettes try to get 'Misty' back in the charts!

The stand in leader at Northumberland County Council who epitomises the words to the song 'Misty' is trying openly to get his group, the Glennettes back into the charts.

He and his backing group as usual 'is as helpless as a kitten up a tree' as he leads out on a commercial motion this Wednesday hidden under the 12 days of greenness being pushed out through COP 26 in the media to back the Glennettes move to make more people richer, particularly farmers as Glenn wishes to alter the Government's new energy policy and ensure its designed to let farmers and local businessmen grow energy locally and sell it from the farm gate or corner shop to local users as if it were eggs or potatoes as currently it's more profitable than growing food? 

Or is it, considering the number of small energy suppliers who have gone under recently, and when they go bust in this very volatile market, friends of the Cabinet may be waiting to buy the land they are currently guardians of where the turbine or solar bank sits, as land, apart from expensive properties in London is one of the few things the Tories in Government haven't managed to sell off in great numbers to anyone other than UK house-builders and agri conglomerates since the second world war.

The Leader of the largest Group on the Council, the star himself, Glenn, is a farmer and possibly should declare an interest, but in 'not knowing his hand from his glove' the resolution to his motion simply wishes to get glamorous Glenn and the Glennettes into the media and then tell all MP's how well he and his group have done. But this County is still without a ‘County Plan’ after fourteen years of Tory domination in planning the whole County is still reliant on outdated planning issues put in place by former District Councils which offers no protection to those Councillors who may be in denial that this motion is nothing but a misty smokescreen to cover up commercialism and have dreams that it will deliver ‘green outcomes’; Also the County can’t deliver this through the localism agenda as without a ‘Local Planning’ document in place what is local? as they are reliant on National Planning Policy and outdated former Councils wishes.

The motion may simply be to provide a future dream to owners of businesses who can sell this energy locally. Those businesses in recent weeks have had the Tories slash the spend of low paid earners and pensioners and with the drop in middle class incomes being rated by a think tank the IFS as being 40% down on where they should currently sit, dreams are all that's available to the majority of County residents.

Being a long serving Councillor and former Castle Morpeth stalwart the Leader and his band are famous for sitting in smoke filled rooms but since the tobacco bans 'Misty' is as bad as it gets but whatever this motion is dressed up as, ratepayers in northumberland need to know if in those misty rooms plans for new nuclear power plants set against our wonderful coastline whose end produce, energy can be sold from your corner shop or farm gate sit on the drawing boards? and will that be the trade off the Government wants for buying a copy of Glenn's latest CD.

This abomination of a motion is expected to gain universal support from this Tory majority Council even without any information as to the end result or how it will affect where you live, but this motion could set a precedent nationally ‘that major change can be accepted by a major Council without any knowledge at all of how the impact of this motion will affect people's lives’, also what infrastructure will be built across northumberland onshore or what will change in how you live in the future without any public debate on the matter when the policy of this Council is simply to support offshore energy infrastructure and supply, battery plants in the River Blyth estuary and an undersea energy cable from Norway to Cambois.

Residents need to remember the noise the Glennettes made every time planning inspectors passed onshore wind farms, what makes this change of rhythm from the Glennettes any different to the former tune, oh! the supply, distribution and sales weren't owned by their farming and business buddies maybe?