Northumberland and the rest of the region know that levelling up has failed us, so the question is how crap will a new combined authority be and will your street still be covered in weeds, litter and dog muck when the cash is slipped into investors pockets?
The complete and utter lack of trust in Northumberland County Council’s
current administration due to the now proven liars, cheats and bullies at the
helm. An administration who currently wants to eliminate Council jobs and
remove dignity from workers and families who have helped communities across the
County for decades has brought a fear and toxicity to any cries for a
mayoralty.
The fear is that any mayoralty in the north east will strip out further cash from Councils and put up the nations highest council tax in its lowest wage region and just like Gateshead who’s leader Martin Gannon is extremely sceptical that any benefit will arrive for the residents of Gateshead from this Tory led devolution deal, Northumbrians are fearful that they will once again become the whipping boys and girls of London's ruling Normans, oh sorry Tories!
In Northumberland the current Government is represented by the worst kind of Tory Councillors who keep everything secret until it's too late to criticise, taking the Council’s poor response and the Tory Government’s lack of funding towards Britishvolt and 8000 jobs for the region as an example along with the decisions not to dual the A1 great north back lane or the A69 accident alley through the County, fully complemented by a giant black hole in the funding available to reopen the former Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line across the South East of the County where more than half its population live and the Tories decision to centre their borrowing requirements on cycle lanes in the wild west which will force even more jobs to be removed from the workforce, Northumbrians have the right to believe this is not for them.
Northumberland’s Government puppets have been forced in recent weeks to possibly and note the word possibly please, to begin to consult on this huge, no that words not big enough, massive change which is similar to large regional failings from the past which ran for a short time before being dissolved such as Tyne and Wear County Council, Cleveland County Council and the biggest of them all Strathclyde all of which failed as communities felt distant from democracy and decision making. A mayor isn’t going to improve that at all and the Council member for Berwick, the northmost outpost of England Councillor Georgina Hill was right to press ‘glamorous Glen Sanderson’, Northumberland’s Tory leader who its said has a selection of sports jackets of ‘sun god’ proportions on the matter at last week's full Council meeting, held in the crystal palace of County Hall in Morpeth where fortunes have been spent to emulate Versailles, does Versailles flood when it rains and have a sump hole outside its front door? You may ask. But it is almost empty and devoid of life so similarities have been part of the design and alter multi million pound facelift.
County Durham have also been forced into this tryst with a lack of love for the Tories latest project being expressed by its LibDem Leader in the often heard in the past ‘their tekin the breed from wor mooths’ Durham war cry followed by her Geta Garbo stance of ‘Durham I want to be alone’. Sceptical, well of course she is!
With a nation reeling from crisis to crisis and local volunteers coupled with working family donors being the saviours of society proving to anyone suffering at the hands of the hapless Tories that small and local is best then this is the wrong time to create something that people don’t really desire but it's probably time to ask how do we form smaller Councils nationally, fund them correctly to delver what people want and keep our areas trim clean and communities vibrant? then go back to the future and leave regional development to a series of agencies which can deliver on the big stuff and not create divisions between brothers and sisters in arms.
Regionally this mayoralty isn’t about having a replacement development agency to attract jobs, it's about creating a dauphin of regal proportions so that Westminster Tories can close the door on the North-east of England's unfair land forever.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/north-east-forced-devolution-deal-25894558
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