Councillor Richard Dodd There's a True Tory behind his True Story?

 

For the first time since being deposed by Morpeth Tories from his highly paid job as business chair of Northumberland County Council, in the rout by the current leader to show who’s boss over the partly modernised and greatly expensive to run almost empty monolith known as County Hall, Councillor Richard Dodd has come out in the local northumberland press to talk to readers about the future problems and perceived costs of dealing with a dreadful disease affecting ash trees across the County.

His completely true message warns the general public of the mammoth expense of removing trees on the scale he describes, up to 40% in one of the most rural and wooded areas in the UK are expected to be infected over the next few years.

The plea contained within his story is that landowners and the County Council who between them own the 190,000,000 trees which grace this huge County is that in disposing of diseased trees will need Government help and the experience of himself and others following storm Arwen is that tree removal on such a large scale is both time consuming and costly.

The Tory behind his story isn’t contained within the annals of the local newspaper who describes Councillor Dodd as a farmer?

That's not untrue, but much of his rural business is taken up with processing and selling timber for fuel to those living outside smokeless zones who own wood burning stoves and Councilor Dodd’s wealth and riches rely on an unending supply of timber.

The Tory in him pleading for Government help to fell trees is the innate being within all real Tories to profit from the downfall of others as wouldn’t it be good if his timber processing for profit excluded the cost of felling to increase supply.

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/environment/millions-of-northumberland-ash-trees-dying-due-to-disease-warns-councillor-3927573

 

Blyth Town Square Is it a ‘village grey’?

 

Have you walked across Blyth’s Town Square and Market Place over the last twenty years?

Have you attended events and entertainment put on by the former Blyth Borough Council, Blyth Town Council possibly the civic switch on of the xmas lights or the Town summer carnival, or Northumberland County Council such as the military Freedom of the County or either of the Tour of Britain cycle events etc.,

If you have, you may know and begin to realise that this Town and market square is currently ‘public open space’ which is about to be built over, a decision taken by Northumberland Conservatives to develop a 3 mini cinema rooms and two training rooms building in Northumberland’s most deprived town, according to a recently released report from Northumberland County Council. 

This development is scheduled to take place at a historical time period when even Children in Need couldn’t raise anywhere near their target income this year and cinemas are crying out for help from Government as the nation enters an expected long term recession and income reduction period with stealth taxes and higher Council tax filling the headlines of the mainstream media.

The town square and market place in its current form was sponsored by ONE NORTH EAST and was bought out from two private owners at great expense using European Regeneration cash during financial year 2004-5, and altered to suit their ONE NE’s plans during 2006 and may have covenants embedded into the sales by the well heeled families of the former owners.

The laws to alter and build on areas which have used Euro funding normally don’t allow land to be developed further for a minimum of a 10 year period after the funding date. Even though we have had Brexit and a promise of removal of Euro laws by Prime Minister Sunak the law covering public open spaces and rights of way may be very difficult to alter as they appear to include village greens and historical rights of access and Tory backbench MP’s and Councillors will be quaking in their boots knowing that they could be facing time claiming Universal Credit if the wheels come off these changes and either are affected by our prime ministers wish to appease his parties right wingers.

The realisation of this development and its access minimisation may bring ramblers and walkers who register these things to pay a visit to Blyth and as its being developed to build a business that doesn’t seem to have a profitable future and which may force a volunteer run cinema at the Phoenix theatre a few hundred yards away out of business we all need to know what Conservative levelling up is all about?

https://www.bedeacademy.org.uk/public-consultation-24-november-2022/

Abused by Council Chairman Gentleman can have his say online?

 

Shouty, bullying, business chair of Northumberland County Council, Councillor Barry Flux who was recorded lacing into women Council members at last week's meeting of full council had prior to the meeting abused a member of the public.

 A member of the public whom out of courtesy we will not name, has really strong feelings regarding the development of a ‘Culture Hub’ on Blyth’s town square and market place. He is against the development using levelling up cash and has stated so on social media.

 He had previously been evicted by police from the Council chamber for asking questions at question time which had not had the required written notice so that Councillors could develop answers which suited their cause.

 On this occasion according to known Tory social media the business chair of Council had telephoned the police before the meeting began and had him thrown out without making any attempt to assist his questioning, rather like the way many describe the bullying of staff, brought out and bought out during the Tory Council’s dealings with its former chief executive Mrs Lally.

 The Culture Hub to be developed in Blyth is very unpopular with residents and that unpopularity has been hardened in over the last few weeks as the plague of traffic and parking problems in the South Shore area of Blyth were amplified when 20,000 visitors attended the Blyth parish council’s fireworks event and another round of indiscriminate parking took place to the detriment of residents who now know that the culture hub will mean that the parish council will have to halt its events program in Blyth Town Centre and hold more events at the South Beach site.

 Its well recorded by various bodies that the ‘Culture Hub’ Is being pushed by the Deputy leader of Council and Council Officers as the easy option to do something however short sighted in the centre of Blyth as a levelling up gesture to pacify the natives.

 A further opportunity for people to express their feelings about damaging a large public open space takes place online via the link below on 24th November. The proposed development, which will hide the shops around the town square and marketplace and therefore the fact, that in the last twelve years of Tory government most of Blyth’s shops have drifted away and that the policies of the Tory County Council is to support the amazingly successful shopping centre the Council indirectly owns through its venture company ADVANCE in Cramlington where there are few is any shops void for any length of time.

 That support for Cramlington is hardened in with the County Council's Blyth relief road scheme where the only real improvement is the development of a high speed road to take residents of Blyth rushing into Cramlington to do their business in their shops and banks.

 
Residents, businesses and workers in Blyth are being encouraged to visit the Keel Row Shopping Centre in Blyth between 2pm-7pm on Thursday, 24th November and between 10am and 2pm on Saturday, 26th November and online via the link below from 24th November.

 

https://nland.cc/BlythCultureHub

 

Social Housing in Northumberland Where’s the scrutiny of living conditions? Or is it another Council secret?

 

The coroner's report on the tragic death of two year old Awaab Ishak who died from a respiratory condition caused by mould in December 2020, despite his parents' repeated pleas to social housing staff in Rochdale to improve their living conditions.

His shocking death known by housing authorities and responsible client authorities for some time seems to have brought to light that many Councils nationally scrutinise the condition of social housing stock they still own or have let out, or in some cases sold to Housing Associations and links with democratically elected Councillors. 

Most housing authorities who scrutinise their housing providers or housing teams managing their own Council housing stock  have a complaints process to have special cases similar to that of the Ishak family heard and dealt with by providers.

Councils and Councillors who scrutinise living conditions for residents of the areas they serve receive reports from housing providers mandatory stock condition surveys  and in areas of mixed provision like Northumberland also receive reports involving the conditions of tenants in the private housing sector.

Regular readers of this blog will already know how critical we are of the very secret Northumberland County Council who hate any information seeping out about errors that may be made and have choked off true scrutiny of anything they deal with. Do not release Key or Local Performance indicator figures to elected Councillors sitting on scrutiny committees and would certainly hate to have any scrutiny or even a peek at the Councils social housing stock conditions surveys, gas and electrical inspection rates of their own and local housing association stock, and how far they are in delivering the moves towards a ‘Decent Homes 2 programme’ to and for the benefit of tenants.

With 4.2M people needing access to social housing nationally and the building programme set by the last Labour administration halted on the change of administration in May 2017 Northumberland Councillors need to look at their own performance on housing deeply and sincerely and in how they help tenants to avoid missing safety problems and what the Councils targets on safety for existing tenants and report on the size of its much maligned Homefinder list or as the Council tell prospective tenants ' we don't have a list its a needs based bidding service'? Well thousand have needs but ebay housing provision and hiding behind rules and regulations need opening up to full scrutiny to really help those in need.

Northumberland Councillors from all parties need an urgent look at the national affordable rent programme cost on average more than £200 a week, over 50% higher than local social rents. The council’s social housing waiting list has risen markedly in the last five years and the need to know why Northumberland has not built any new Council houses since May 2017 and appear on the housing supply failure list of Goves levelling up department.

Councillors need to report in public on social housing and the conditions of all forms of housing in Northumberland, be trained in how they can help tenants and prospective tenants discuss and have their problems resolved and look deeply at the cost differences in rents and how they as a Council can begin to at least buy into higher numbers of empty properties in the County to help people get a decent home over their heads at a reasonable and truly affordable cost.

Also Councillors, staff bullying may have been a big issue, as is help for those who need 100% rebates on Council Tax, but Housing Needs are the nation's real BIG ISSUE so get stuck in and be honest with yourselves and your residents who need help not rhetoric and certainly not secrets.

 

Don’t get blindsided by Sunaks 5 year Windfall Tax.

 

It's a scam so big that the Cayman Islands will possibly sink under the weight of your cash from this unbelievably disgraceful long term stealth tax on consumers' pockets!

New chief spinner, the CONservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is reported to be mulling over the possibility of bringing in a five year ‘Windfall Tax’ on energy costs valued at £8Bn per year.

 £8Bn is the current excess obscene quarterly profit of Shell with BP recording a £7Bn profit over the same period with consumers being ripped off in the UK through the complete lack of control over the last 12 years of the energy market by the state.

 With a Government and Cabinet redesigned over the last decade to have only very simple aims and that is to support the rich over the needs of the rest of the nation and allow free market forces to rip consumers off via all of life's modern necessities, food, water, communications, travel and now energy.

 Just 25 miles from our shore the French consumers haven’t even noticed that there’s much of a crisis in the energy markets as their Government has taken control of costs through management of its energy producers, the largest being EDF.

 With wholesale Gas prices plummeting and energy companies making obscene profits, reasonable governments would be talking up huge investments by those free market operators into renewable energy sources such as the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm schemes and offshore solar farms to save agricultural land onshore for increased food production. But no, the magic roundabout of conservative energy ministers has done nothing but talk up “in thirty years time” for that project, a figure plucked out of the air by Chris Huhne in 2012 and which hasn’t shortened to this day.

 
Why? you must ask. Because top Tories are simply getting richer from ripping off the public and many including our unelected and without mandate, the Prime Minister Sunak, has a company to pour his investment profits into in the Cayman Islands. His proposals of an £8Bn per annum windfall tax for five years shows how blatant the Tories have become in office and why they are talking up ‘the longest recession in history’ to rip UK consumers off for as long as they can and were gullible enough to think a Tory Government will somehow feel it should protect and look after its residents. In true pantomime style their input into any part of social justice or thinking deserves the response of: Oh no they won’t!.

 

South Beach and South Shore Residents Fear Town Centre and Beach Shopping Mall Development?

 

Following another ‘space raid’ in streets near the beach in Blyth by indiscriminate drivers who abandoned their vehicles, blocking off residents and emergency vehicles to attend Blyth Town Council’s free Fireworks event on Saturday 05:November:2022 residents of both affected areas demand action to prevent further incidents from taking place.

 Local residents were left fuming that the event, fully funded by their own Town Council which included low cost Park and Ride from the Town Centre was not policed correctly by the Town Council’s partner in all things highways, Northumberland County Council and that dangerous and illegal parking was allowed to take place by drivers who didn’t give a damn about local people’s needs for access and egress to and from their homes.

 Local people posted pictures and comments on their own and the Town Council’s web sites and social media and were incensed that the Town Council had removed the posts before answering the questions regarding future parking problems near their homes and seeking answers from their responsible partner Northumberland County Council.

 Extracts and comments from social media included, comments on the fear that the new shopping mall at the beach will lead to further parking problems and that the development by the County Council of a massive monolithic building and play area on Blyth’s market place will mean that the Town Council who use the marketplace for many events throughout the year will be forced to use the beach area more and more as the valuable open space to hold events disappears under bricks and mortar.

 Blyth Town Council’s events attract thousands of visitors and the massive ranch car park was reported to be packed with vehicles with people seen walking along from Seaton Sluice car park to enjoy the event. 

The Council’s park and ride scheme did attract a good number of visitor users but residents of South Beach area reported in comments on social media that there was loads of space left in all of the Town Centre’s car parks which could have been used by the illegal and indiscriminate vehicle owners and comments on the lack of traffic management by the County Council were illuminating in their language to say the least.

 Big events have been held in Blyth previously including drawing in 250,000 visitors to a tall ships event in the harbour area of the town. Residents noted that during the tall ships event temporary residents parking permits were issued by the County Council and many commentators want that facility reopened to and for residents use to alleviate the danger and inconvenience of parking on narrow estate roads in future and demand full policing of non permitted vehicles by County Council parking and street wardens.

 The conversations about lowering the events opportunities in the Town Centre through the County Council spending levelling up cash building on the marketplace were manifold and some wanted all events cancelled by the Town Council until promises that market traders won’t demand to move to where the people park in huge numbers at the beach and have the market stalls relocated to the Beach car parks to better their trade. Questions were also asked regarding how the Town Council will manage xmas, summer carnivals, bank holiday events and a demand for a full impact assessment and a judicial review of forcing a change through developing on the market place to include the effects on beach area residents appeared to garner a good deal of support.

 

What was the point of the Caller Report?

 

Six months ago the Government’s local government inspector, Max Caller produced a report looking into the wrongs and wrongs, yes wrongs and wrongs, you read it correctly, being delivered in the name of Northumberland County Council.

His report gave a bleak glance to the public of how Councillors had bullied staff, how the Council spent £millions on paying off anyone they didn’t like the look of. How staff reacted and he exposed the facts that a number of Councillors were facing serious conduct charges and industrial tribunals had been lodged.

Other elements in his report criticised the Councils handling of freedom of information requests, the lack of openness and therefore scrutiny, in the Councils dealings not only with the public but between political groups and how fractured politics was and still is within the ruling team and its extended secrecy at a level which puts democracy in doubt.

An improvement team was sought and eventually put in place to try to rectify matters and they will report in the future but things have drifted from bad to worse in the interim period and we wish to provide a few examples which have used public funds to colour the scene between reports.

The buy out of industrial tribunals and council standards board cases, as part of the deal between the Leader of Council and the beleaguered former Chief Executive, we’re led to believe from press reports that the Leader of Council personally negotiated away the tribunals and standards board cases against his own group and its well rumoured that his first offer of £25K as compensation to the CEX was upped towards a quarter of a million pounds of public cash to achieve his main aim that of any pouring of light on the dark side of the actions of himself and his colleagues.

As a lead protagonist in all things wrong, the shouty Leader appears to have left one of his own out to dry to possibly take the blame and Murky will name this person as soon as more information drips out from the rotting carcass that sits in power at County Hall in Morpeth.

On the shouty subject and bullying at last Wednesday’s full Council which was televised, the public were able to see and hear the Business Chair of Council shouting at unnamed opposition members following his inability to respond in a reasonable manner to a member of the public at question time. His lack of skill illustrated why and how the Council’s bullying reputation hasn’t gone away. The business chair called the Police to have the person asking questions removed instead of attempting to aid the person's need to know in a civilised manner.

Moving on with the need to know and the abject failure of scrutiny at Northumberland County Council.

When running the Council with a Leader and Cabinet method as opposed to a Committee system, Councils must be scrutinised by members of opposition parties. That scrutiny of the business of Council and its public face covers all things undertaken in the Councils name except planning matters. According to reports from the LGA, Councils organising body, that scrutiny of the Administration must include accurate performance figures as well as up to date reports from officers of the Council. Those figures are produced through set targets known as ‘Key Performance Indicators’ they are harvested by Councils an a regular basis from figures collated on the ground by the councils employees feeding into ‘Local Performance Indicators’, In the papers and reports from Council its obvious that opposition scrutiny members do not receive information from Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) or the Local performance Indicators (LPI’s) which are used as targets leaving them unable to pinpoint problems across such a huge geographical area or question the target setting and service delivery process.

Its noticeable that a recent Freedom of Information request issued via the Government website ‘What do they know’ seeking Key and Local performance data to see what's gone wrong with service delivery across the County of Northumberland has been refused.

We hope that opposition Councillors who may read this blog begin to realise that scrutiny is a major failure and that they themselves must demand the figures and data which allows them to hold the Council to account and begin to break down the secrecy and open up the activities the public pay dear to have delivered on their behalf to shine a light on what's really going on, particularly when the Leader of Council states he is going to save £1M per annum on top staff wages when he has to offer his new Chief Executive over £100,000 a year more than he was paying his outgoing CEX as half of her wages were paid by the NHS.

Much more to come as panic sets in prior to the improvement board reporting in public.
 

Gove: Lets build 300,000 per year including Council and Social Housing, allow Interest Rates to soar and slash Capital Spend!

 

Michael Gove, leveling up secretary and the chief spinner of all things Governmental was on TV and in the media this week contradicting himself every couple of minutes.

 His plans to build 300,000 per year shared between the private and social housing sectors are admirable and his only caveat was that ‘building materials are hard to come by’.

 He seems to have forgotten that his Government’s financial crisis is raising interest rates by ANOTHER 0.75% this week and raging unrestricted inflation is pressing families on multiple fronts. He also didn’t turn a hair when asked how he expected Councils and Housing Associations to fund future building programs.

 His plans leave construction companies to either force the hands of Councils weak local plans and develop homes in countryside where they can still demand high prices from the few or contract business and center their businesses on the Continent to grasp the opportunities which are still available when trading with the other 27 Countries in the Euro bloc.

 Gove also indicated that an out of London project, HS2, will be slashed. That revelation  doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone viewing the Tories lack of infrastructure spend if it falls outside benefiting the capital. Travel into London for meetings has now been superseded by ‘Whats app’, Teams and Wire and Birmingham the proposed HS2 terminus also has an international airport with great rail links into the city if face to face is an issue for business in the future.

 
The last 14 years have seen the Tories gamble with the lives of the public and make many classes of society poorer. That element of their work is still ongoing and until they not only come clean about how many times and how many MP’s have lied to Parliament we will never get a national debate about how pathetic and if you're from Northern Ireland Tory negotiations to leave Europe were and still are very dangerous indeed, then just like we have come to expect from Tories everywhere and at every level, this Government fears a debate on Brexit labeling everyone who lost in the gamble remoaners. They will certainly want one after the next election, when people will vote just like Brazilians for freedom and democracy and not be mithered by the lies of a Government who only want to make ordinary people suffer to help the rich get richer.