Councillor Sanderson is hiding behind a ‘we are learning’ when he hasn’t and didn’t.

What’s going on at Northumberland County Council?

It’s audit committee has received reports that are in the public domain which define how badly the Council has been run over the last six years, yet it’s Leader told the press that he wants to have these unlawful matters dealt with as ‘lessons learnt’ and appears to expect a soft landing which he doesn’t deserve.

The current Conservative leader of Council has been in post since September 2020 following the demise of Councillor Peter Jackson’s term of office, shortened due to several issues involving alleged bullying of staff and his well exposed personal life but Councillor Sanderson told the press last week he had been in post for two years.

In his time we have as Northumberland’s public entered a period when both rural and urban families needed extra help from their local authority yet his administration spent over £1m on ‘unlawful’ in the eyes of the external auditor, compromise agreements to ensure his ‘secret council’ gagged those leaving his employment to keep the whereabouts of his teams buried mismanagement under wraps.

The Tories also signed up to an international trade agreement that has run without proper accounts and unlawfully paid officers huge sums of additional wages each and every year, money that could have been diverted to aid the Counties collapsed social services department deliver help to those in greatest need.

The Council has a rapidly growing social housing list and homelessness grows almost daily yet he has bought an almost redundant shopping centre in the town of Blyth from Northumberland’s richest family for in footballing parlance, an undisclosed sum, breaching his own Councils constitution by not clearing the purchase through full Council. Yet he has had his officers state it’s to be demolished next year and may be redeveloped as this and that. This is from a Council who stopped the redevelopment options of both Bedlington and Ashington in May 2017 leaving both townships with now famous ‘holes’ where new areas of development were under construction.

We have also been led to believe from known Tory social media that the same audit committee led by the former disgraced leader of Council, Peter Jackson and aided by his former financial guru Nick Oliver are to hear about similar matters surrounding the Conservative huge list of arms lengths companies sitting under the banner of Advance Northumberland in private or is that ‘secret session’ as it may be in a similar lawless and parless state. A state the the international auditor EY could not find in Labours company ARCH after a very protracted and costly deep dive investigation. Following criticism for not finding what’s not there EY resigned their commission at the Council.

Giving Councillor Sandersons ‘secret regime’ a soft landing should not be considered by the public as he has had years to change matters and hasn’t. His administration did not take any notice of the Max Caller report nor the forced onto them improvement board which he removed as soon as he possibly could and in the eyes of most commentators a change of leadership and Council direction is required immediately if not sooner. The whole council should interview its next proposed leader and any promises made to issue enough information to scrutinise his or her administration followed to the letter!

 

Hybrid cars will have to be produced for decades without a reset of bus funding for 50% of the UK?

 A recent report commissioned by the County Councils Network has revealed that more than a quarter of bus routes in rural and county areas have already been lost over the last decade through ill devised long term Government strategies and a nation relying on personal promises that the Tories could ‘fix it’ for Britain from all of their varied PM’s.

Only 32%, £363m of the £1.1bn in funding awarded through the Government's National Bus Strategy went to the 37 largest county and rural councils with Northumberland and South Yorkshire, Counties which adjoin cities and metropolitan areas with public transport executives further losing out on vital funding.

This minority funding in areas which represent 50% of England's population shows why and how the rural vote is slipping away from the Tories grasp and is being picked up by Labour and the LibDems. 

The 37 most rural areas required much more than £363m to persevere with and support bus transport to ensure car use is diminished over time. Its reported that the figure the tories doled out represented just 10% of the funding sought by county and rural areas. Vehicle miles in rural council areas have dropped 26.5% between 2010 and 2022, while the annual number of passenger journeys was down by 44% over the same period, from 780m to 435m according to the County Council Networks report.

The Governments pipedream of replacing cars with electric vehicles by 2035 is just that, a pipedream for 50% of the nations population who still need to access services which aren't available in the countryside that are treated as ‘normal’ by urban society, such as hospital visits and supermarket shopping just to explain two simple things that are difficult for rural dwellers without adequate public transport and up to press private electric travel with heavier vehicles and short recharge times don’t cover.

Hybrid vehicles are and will be required long into the future, not only for rural living but companies are counting the cost of their workers sitting at charging points for what feels to drivers like hours and are asking how much support they will get from future Governments for a changeover that means via health and safety their representatives of whatever company, are out of the office or their homes travelling longer than HGV drivers are allowed to?

The woods are too deep for Northumberland Conservatives to get out of?

 

Ravaging the high streets of Blyth, Bedlington and Hexham and leading Ashington folk to hang by a thread in the hope that if they hang there long enough a white knight may come and cut them down, Northumberland Conservatives have secretly lived in hope that no one asks about their hush hush policies before the next election.

One of the big problems facing the Conservatives in Northumberland is that most took English Lit. at O level as they weren't able to grasp math (and we do suppose Liz Truss did the same). They were probably forced to read George Orwell’s 1984 in which he said “If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself”! 

As poor politicians they absorbed that nugget and deliver on it daily and it was today's topic at our codgers park bench chat, the last one before schools break up for another Northumberland wet and cold break, which illustrates the fact that Northumberland County Council has opted out of world membership; as most areas quote suffering Global Warming, with Northumberland unable to do so, but shhh! It's a secret that must only be quoted at covert cabinet meetings in the very costly to modernise County Hall which it is expected will go over as a community asset transfer to the freemasons just before the next local government election.

This brings us on to the word most associated with secrets and that is the word lies.

Secrets and Lies weld the rhetoric of the Conservatives together well, with Conservative Leaders being found out and shown up in the public arena and displays why they have sat behind their decision papers at all levels. In Northumberland those cabinet papers led to the tragedy Northumberland Towns are facing even after being caught out by the Governments Max Caller and the Councils independent  improvement board who both instructed them to share information and data regarding their decision making..

The broken Conservatives and their well damaged leadership have tried their damndest to shoo away the bluebottle flies circling the anus of their derelict Town centres but the populations of towns ravaged by the Conservatives mishandling of the economy, the steadfast increase in getting cash across to investors and the rundown of traditional voting trends as the truths within the Gordon Brown reports come back to haunt this Government of the day and it is full of truths, anathema to the Conservatives.

The newest secret which is bound to pull them a little deeper into the mire is the purchase of the Keel Row shopping centre in Blyth from Northumberland’s elite family, the Percy’s whose family head is the Duke of Northumberland, at a secret cost to the County Council. It's been purchased to close it down. Possibly to bring ever more retail onto Cowpen Road away from the Town Centre and closer to the Bebside rail station due to open next year.

That cost is one every reporter worth their salt wants to break in public.

A long serving Councillor from the North of the County has described County Hall in Morpeth as an information sieve on a number of occasions and reporters will be hovering around pubs and clubs listening for a leak.

But in political circles it's a disaster for Northumberland’s largest town  as the lack of political will and skill won’t boost Blyth Town Centre anywhere near  as much as Labour’s purchase of Manor Walks in Cramlington, with Labour turning it into a fantastic product in its own right which returns a huge profit to the County Council through its popularity with both Northumberland and North Tyneside’s shoppers.

Were sure that the above information is also a secret yet those same ruthless corsairs in the Northumberland Conservatives criticised Labour heavily at the time and have not apologised for their serious mistake. They are proven wrong almost daily and when Conservative Councillors pop in to shop at Manor Walks they often whinge about not being able to get parked, and that's the truth, not one of the Conservatives secrets nor lies buried in the woods growing between their ears, but it is a truth they sit in woods that they can’t escape from, and its a truth we codgers informed you of in May 2022.

NOTES

http://realnorthumberlandmurky.blogspot.com/2022/05/has-glen-done-deal-to-buy-keel-row.html

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2023/Jul/Council-acquires-Blyth-shopping-centre-with-major.aspx?fbclid=IwAR3r8YXQeFPXktQe0LiJ2q_EY5172vk68Ie15dX-JdXmekQggNPihN6-FZc

https://www.northumberlandconservatives.org.uk/news/council-ps120-million-spend-shops-branded-wreckless-punt-opposition

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/business/keel-row-shopping-centre-in-blyth-to-close-due-to-unsustainable-losses-and-be-redeveloped-by-northumberland-county-council-4224350

Remember the choice between VHS and Betamax,

The Conservatives are offering you three Hobsons this time, as well as the new POLE TAX?

With Northumberland County Council Conservatives still not able to distribute decent broadband in rural areas or advise all those who fall under the category of being eligible for a Council tax reduction due to their low income or need to claim benefit that they should also be registering for social tariff broadband with a Northumberland provider who can deliver. We codgers have to ask how they will fare when in 17 months time they have to be able to implement the change from analogue telephones in your home to a workable digital telephone system.

With this conservative council failing to deliver on so many fronts, where is the advice for the Counties residents on which of the three systems should be sitting in their hall on the padded telephone seat? Should It be Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Digital Voice or All-IP telephony.

This may sound like clever stuff but with so many vulnerable people relying on analogue telephone lines to their home which operate warden call systems and emergency need calls as well as direct alarm calls to the Police for business and domestic premises the Councty Council who has to drive this on constituents behalf and give sound advice to service users and residents must be relied upon to deliver the best change possible and not be veered by commercial advertising and representatives slaver. (were not commenting on palm greasing).

The Government said: “For the vast majority of consumers and businesses, this change will be straightforward. Nobody will have to lose their landline service because  of this change, as there will still be the option for a ‘landline only’ service should a customer not wish to purchase a general internet connection. Telecom companies will continue to be bound by the same regulatory obligations as they are today”.

Top people are very concerned regarding that last statement from the Conservative Government in power as several think tanks have noted that it may be manna from heaven for local Government who will demand that retained street poles have to have costly planning permission attached to their retention and in Northumberland poles are commonplace particularly in rural and semi rural areas and with only 4% on the County not classified as being rural, Councils may be able to bleed telecoms companies through the new ‘POLE TAX’ for decades and pass those cost as increased standing charges onto the consumer who want to keep their analogue service.

Another National Cinema Company gone under,

 

 How much will Northumberland County Council be paying Jam Jar to keep Blyth’s proposed three screen cinema viable? And will Cramlington’s VUE cinema survive?

Social media has been full of extra hype this week as planning permission to spend £millions on the creation of a monolith on Blyth’s marketplace using ‘Blue Blood’ money from the Tories levelling up fund gained planning permission.

The ‘monolith’ the design of which was heavily criticised at the County Council’s strategic planning committee by leading long term Tory civic champion Councillor Ian Hutchinson who is the County Councillor for Haltwhistle and has served as the Civic Head of Northumberland County Council. Ian serves as the Chairman of the Licensing and Regulatory Committee for the County Council and is also a Trustee of Haltwhistle Partnership and a Director of Kielder Partnership.

The design of this building wasn’t praised either by Labour’s spokesperson on strategic planning, Blyth Councillor, Anna Watson, who when her thousands of spoken chapters were broken down by mainstream reporters simply said: ‘Blyth people are sick of consultations just get something built’, not a really fine way to support a building that will disgrace Blyth’s Town centre for decades.

But putting aesthetics aside as King Charles is unlikely to visit Blyth to criticise the design, the real problem is that the Council based in wealthy Morpeth is planning to bring a cinema and community centre to a town suffering major deprivation which is filled with community centres and is home to two cinema projects, One at the Phoenix theatre and one sited in St Mary’s church hall a few hundred feet away from this costly proposed site which now has been enriched with planning permission. All to be done under the auspices of levelling up by developing a tarpaulin like cover up to let people think a free market economy project is being set up that will test the competition and enhance the town.

Of course it's completely Tory Twaddle, a scam of the first order, with the building being fully paid for by the taxpayer and the cinema project fully funded through Council Tax.

With the news this week that the huge Empire Group of cinemas has entered administration as Cinema visitor numbers have dwindled rapidly since the pandemic. One of those cinemas about to close is sited in the the City of Sunderland which has a huge population to call upon. It is very worrying that the long term viability of the Blyth project is suspect and may be a complete waste of public funds. Those funds are really needed to support local and social services across the County of Northumberland and action in that respect is not forthcoming from County Hall in Morpeth nor the Tory Government in Westminster.

The use of Cinema as a social activity has been seriously damaged by the Government’s full frontal attack on ordinary people to shift more cash over to investors, the Economic Crisis affecting social spend nationally is crucifying businesses in the Leisure sector: then the question must be asked how will this huge input of taxpayers cash affect the survival of Cramlington’s VUE cinema?

Presently the open war between Old Tories representing Cramlington and their New Conservative ultra right wing associates in power at County Hall shows that the current administration has no real interest in Cramlington and if the Vue Cinema fails due to ‘Blue Blood Money’ and Council support for a Cinema in Blyth draining local services budgets from next year onwards it's probably seen as a feather in the cap of of those who hold the pursestrings in Morpeth.

We suppose eventually that we will hear the voice of the Local MP who due to Boundary changes won’t be the MP for Blyth after the next general election as he has declared he is fighting for a seat that covers Cramlington and Killingworth, but if the net effect of ‘Blue Blood Money’ spend issued to Blyth to support his ‘Red Wall Win’ at the last general election will damage his chances in the forthcoming race to maintain his seat in Westminster what will he say? And will he say it in the very near future?

Ed’s Notes

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/read-this/uks-empire-cinema-group-enters-administration-full-list-of-closures-4211230