Panic at Morpeth County Hall As Tory MP's keen on supporting Councils through the sale of their assets.

 

"House of Commons is expected to vote on proposals to allow statutory Council meetings to be held remotely later this year: Conservative led Local Government Association".

Following the experimental period of on-line meetings during covid and the Government's acceptance of ward equalisation through the boundary committee for England's recent remodel of many councils nationally has drawn the Government into a new look at the 1972 local government act.

With Councils going bust mainly through the lack of stable grant supplies from Government and £millions having to be spent by local authorities in the bidding wars for capital funding with the inequality factor of having to use much needed revenue funding in an ever faced battle by town halls for funds, with only 11% of bids winning backing of any sort to help develop much needed projects in their areas Councils are now on their last legs with cash reserves dwindling rapidly and the demand for their services growing daily.

The Government whose prime backing has been leant towards Tory metro mayors and 'red wall' seats gained in 2019 under the jokingly called 'Levelling up' strapline are now being looked at as their economic crisis has made the position of Councils untenable.

With the Government unwilling to claw back millions allegedly dodgily spent during covid in order to use the cash to support Councils, they are now viewing a fire sale of local authority assets as the way to fund Councils in future and the one simple way to do that is to revise the Local Government Act of 1972 and halt the need to have Councillors meet at a single time in a single meeting place. Effectively making Town Hall assets redundant.

Online meetings live on you-tube will let Councils ditch valuable land and property assets as the Government has already changed planning regulations to alter buildings such as shops and offices into housing to let voters think they are somehow managing the national crisis in homes provision.

In Northumberland, this will cause spiritual nausea among those welded into the retention of County Hall who refused to move the Council five miles to a cheaper office in another Town and make a profit out of the sale of the current County Hall site which could have been used to support such things as Social Services or Fire and Rescue for instance. Instead they secretly set out to spend an undisclosed sum on the modernisation of County Hall whilst at the same time slashing the workforce so that it will sit in all its expensive glory empty until a real decision is made to flog it off.

The vast modernisation sum may never be disclosed but a clue may sit in historical accounts as between financial years 2020 and 2021 the council reduced its total reserves (that means spent) from £293,389 to £133,258 and the work is still ongoing at County Hall moving into year six.