Real Northumberland Murky: April 2024

Tuesday, 30 April 2024

Collapsing Northumberland , Conservative Empire caught out by The Times

Early election required, Government needs to enforce change to save dying communities from further exposure to rogue players.

On Tuesday April 30th 2024 the very pro conservative top newspaper The Times ran out their performance data based ranking of Councils in England two days before the local government and regional mayors elections.It shows that Northumberland County Council has slipped further down the rankings into 300th place only one place above the in trouble Nottingham City Council who are holding up the pile.

This Council who sat within the top 20 group of all purpose unitary authorities when run by labour between 2013 and 2017 has spiraled out of control in recent years, failed to deliver on their promises, never achieved any form of Best Value on behalf of residents and screwed County householders each and every year since gaining office by constantly issuing above inflation Council Tax rises.

It's been a Council in the doldrums simply managing by sucking the purses of its residents dry but this year were caught attempting to depleted their cash reserves to a dangerously low level leaving its treasury department sitting in an extremely low position in the rankings along with the complete and utter measurable failures within Planning, Waste Management, Highways with only the delivery of social care pulling them from rock bottom place in the performance rankings.

Complaints from the public are at an alltime high especially in the Street Care maintenance section of the Council with litter, fly tipping and pothole statements of dissatisfaction on the Government sponsored website ‘Fix my Street.com’ pouring in daily.

The problems are even more galling for the public particularly those who are former and current local government workers as they are aware that the Leader of Council was the leading improvement peer of the Local Government Association in the North for many years and was paid handsomely to tell other Councils how to develop and drive improvements right across their services. So in Northumberland proof exists that cobbler's children are worse shod as the failures of the Council increase daily and the statement from the Cabinet members and their leader remind one of Pinocchio's nose.

The Council will only improve for residents with a new Council being democratically elected in by residents and with people's confidence in the Conservatives being permanently damaged. Labour should make a comeback and resolve many of the failures this council in denial has developed over the last seven years.

The Government needs to call time on this Council early and let the people decide who should and can drive improvements without the interference of an aging LGA Peer Leading the Council who has forgotten to practice what he preaches.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8a31933e-b16e-44df-b745-0d5e5108eec3?shareToken=a9e6331a245aae6206ba3159fad52fe6

Friday, 26 April 2024

Northumberland Fire Sale to cover off disastrous spending habits is highlighted through Britvolt site fiasco.

Politicians twisting the truth appears to have become acceptable behaviour over the last 14 years, we just need to look at the lies told by Boris Johnson and the non-election by Conservative party members of Rishi Sunak whose ideas and tyrannical ranting not only haunts conservatives at all levels its destroying their own beliefs.

At our codgers meeting over the weekend as kids returned to the folds of their families in readiness for school we met in a group members garden which was decidedly warm in comparison with the long and wet months of this winter.

Our discussion quickly turned to opinions on the sale of the Britvolt site to an equity company to build a Data Centre that instead of producing the 8000 job spin off promised by Ian Levy MP to aid the regrowth of Blyth, Bedlington and Ashington’s industrial and hardworking past will according to data centre experts end up being home to an AI managed hub employing about 30 technicians, maintenance and cleaning staff which is 0.375% of the original promised figure. Boris Johnson visited Blyth on a number of occasions to push through the 8000 job growth plan which fizzled out quite quickly as backing from the Conservative Government failed to arrive.

The funding instead slipped over to the second battery plant for Nissan in Sunderland and to Tata in Somerset one of our team recalled that Rishi Sunaks mum in law was a top engineer for them in the past. May only be a coincidence? Leaving Blyth’s retail and commercial sector in tatters and job and jobless figures high right across South east Northumberland for those earning above minimum wage.

Northumberland County Council Whose site it is, really appears to have a death wish when it comes to dealing with business and especially Equity Companies. When it comes to seeking advice over and above their policy of self produced business plans, a poor system if ever there was one, paying for top advice seems to be reserved for lawyers to stop them being sued. Two dodgy companies have been found by Councillor Glen Sanderson’s team with both Britvolt and Recharge showing why more than one opinion when dealing with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of public assets should be taken, not a single report each time to simply produce the headlines for Glen on a regular and ongoing basis.

Headline Sanderson has hailed in the three companies and has expressed his opinion in how lovely they are and how they will bring untold wealth to South East Northumberland announcing a huge number of jobs for the data centre project (contradicted by experts) on the same day that Blyth’s largest company Draeger UK announced its moving away without a single comment in the press from headliner Sanderson.

His latest headliner is all about money, praising the offer of £110 million to sell 235 acres of development land from Blackstone, the third company eyeing up this massive site in Cambois. With land having planning permission for development worth a great deal more taking £468,000 per acre seems to be a gift for Blackstones yet the council only took a single report from land valuers before agreeing to this fire sale price, when with public money being involved they should have at least taken three. Oh well Glen Sanderson is a Conservative after all and just like Boris Johnson, they know best!

Notes:

https://northumberland.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s20666/03%20Northumberland%20Energy%20Park%20Phase%203%20site%20at%20East%20Sleekburn%20Delegated%20Arrangements%20for%20Sale%20Part.pdf

https://twitter.com/BladeoftheS/status/1682046667623743491

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=241214580683665

https://www.areadevelopment.com/data-centers/Data-Centers-Q1-2015/impact-of-data-center-development-locally-2262766.shtml#:~:text=Data%20centers%20tend%20to%20be,anywhere%20between%20five%20and%2030

https://www.business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/drger-safety-uk-build-new-28978970

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2022/Jul/Council-welcomes-Britishvolt-funding-announcement.aspx

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-64786314

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/business/councillor-wary-of-getting-too-excited-over-possible-britishvolt-sale-after-many-false-dawns-4017683

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw4rx2zxy7wo

Monday, 22 April 2024

Northumberland Conservatives pulling down 100 social homes in Blyth shows their supporting Braverman and Sunak’s views!

Back in November 2023 Suella Braveman lost her job as Home Secretary when she described homelessness stating “homelessness is a lifestyle choice” her comments were bounced by the Government's popularity gurus and she was sacked by PM Rishi Sunak.

The complete and utter failure of those same gurus to raise the PM’s profile has brought out this Billionaires true colours as he now thinks that attacking the vulnerable may halt the slippage of his party members over to Reform and put a block on Labour’s popularity as he announced in early April 2024 that he’s planning in true mad despot style to fine and imprison ‘rough sleepers’ as most have very little Sunak’s plans will fill prisons to bursting point.

Fully supportive of their Governments attitude, Northumberland’s ultra right wing Tories have decided to demolish 100 homes that they struggle to rent out through their infamous choice based lettings scheme Homefinder even though 4000 people are waiting for social housing and the Council is hammering the Government's Homelessness Prevention Grant and its own General Fund in conjunction with the Universal Credit housing allowance due to an untenable growth in younger homeless and section 21 evictions by private landlords increasing and the lack of help criticised by Northumberland Labour’s Leadership late last year.

The Council has been awarded £20m to modernise and aid the supply chain of new Council homes under another branch of levelling up funding. It has decided to pull down Council homes and in the reported words of Deputy Leader Councillor Richard Wearmouth that “we will be able to use the space to develop affordable homes”.

Widespread criticism of Councillor Wearmouth by known Conservatives on social media makes demands to know if that means the Council will lose control of new housing on those sites and affordable homes developed in line with the Government's guidelines which haven’t changed since 2016 leaving them exposed to being developed by builders and people being supplied a mortgage whose employment status makes it difficult to service regular mortgage payments. A number of Conservatives have said if they are to be Council homes, tell people they are to be Council homes.

But we codgers want to know how the Council under the current regime will change Homefinder to help young people stopping them getting lost among the 4000 others, almost 3% of the Councils households on the system seeking safe housing and to come clean by releasing the real cost of housing vulnerable young people in hostels, hotels and homes of multiple occupancy and the dreadful effect on them mentally for months while their cases are reviewed?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/04/fury-as-braverman-depicts-homelessness-as-a-lifestyle-choice

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/criminal-justice-bill-tory-rough-sleeping-open-letter/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-fine-we-have-nothing-what-the-homeless-think-of-tory-crackdown-8pzc3mwp7

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/blyth-flats-maisonettes-demolished-council-28975479

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/no-fault-evictions-21-northumberland-28142042

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38067626

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/community/ceo-sleepout-in-alnwick-to-highlight-heartbreaking-issue-of-homelessness-in-northumberland-4596663

Friday, 19 April 2024

Sanderson’s secret cabinet fails more times than his Government's monetary policies? Or your grandad's cheap watch.

“We need more money to deliver services” Why? Because we have lost control of our pay bill!

More Government Inspectors needed urgently.

During 2022 when the spend, spend, spend Northumberland County Council Leader, Glen Sanderson and his secret cabinet were caught out for the fourth time by funding the highest rich list payments in the North-east for their bloated top staffing team.The hard to embarrass leader of Council and his empire building cabinet members crept out from under their stones and promised to reduce the top earners pay bill by £1M. They went on to cut the pay bill all right, by £13.2 million by slashing jobs and slowing recruitment of skilled and professional employees by trying to replace them with a few apprentices.

The almost complete collapse of service delivery is entirely the fault of the leader of council and his deputy having no control at all over their empire building cabinet members who all want top paid advisors whispering in their ears while the men and women on the ground delivering services are being pulled from pillar to post as there’s nowhere near enough of them left to get the job done.

With 22 officers currently earning more than £100,000 and shortages on the front line firefighting to deliver repairs maintenance and social services, food inspections and planning enforcement as a brief example of Leader and Cabinets failings it shows how far from ever being delivered the Cabinet promises of Northumberland County Council were and still are.

It's time the Government appointed another inspector as one is urgently needed to run the Council until the May 2025 elections and get its service delivery back on track as the current set up where the Leader answers all queries from residents with “You are criticising our workforce” joins his other failures in the not wanted any more out-tray.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-wage-savings-25066598.amp

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/2024-town-hall-rich-list-north-east-council-with-most-employees-earning-over-ps100000-remains-northumberland-4596618

Tuesday, 16 April 2024

Conservatives fail to deliver their promised 8000 jobs in Blyth?

Instead they take 40 pieces of silver to clear off the site.

Getting involved with not one equity company but three shows that the wives, girlfriends and boyfriends of Northumberland County Conservative Councillors mustn’t have any say in their culture and brand of politics, or they would be reminded of Coco Chanel’s view of success when she said “Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”

Watching the Leader of Northumberland Conservatives, Councillor Glen Sanderson hum and haw his way through two television interviews stutteringly praising the fact that his and his compatriot ‘red wall’ Ian Levy MP’s promises have shifted dramatically from the position of failed twice already to a you never know position that won’t be properly analyzed or scrutinised until 2031 at the earliest.

Deeply embroiled in the fact that the Council has been labeled as being close to untrustworthy in a recent report into their activities, The Local Government Association peer who conducted this in depth review ‘heard mixed views on the effectiveness of relationships and processes in local areas’ utterly essential to trust between political groups.

In the recent TV interviews Northumberland Conservatives seem to be really happy that in seven years time they may deliver a few hundred jobs for data technicians a minimum of an 80% reduction in their former promises, when they have set aside £millions designing the closure of Blyth’s Town Centre spending public money to develop a college for the energy industry that this project they are giving full backing too illustrates is no longer required, as 8000 highly paid jobs to build batteries are going to Sunderland, Coventry and Somerset fully sponsored by the Conservative Government in Office who didn’t send a single penny to bail out Northumberland’s jobless figures a serious confidence factor towards pubic belief in this new project ever reaching its goals.

The single most factor for this busted flush of a council who not many weeks ago were being quizzed openly regarding their disappearing reserve funds appears to be the purchase price of the land within this sites bounds as for this 235 acre site The receivers handling the sale did not disclose the amount paid for the site, but Northumberland county council documents show the local authority will create a £110m “growth and investment endowment fund” as a result of the deal. An excellent sweetener to bail out a crumbling set of accounts.

So let's watch this space! As it looks like this tale will become very boring over the next seven years if Northumberland Conservatives manage to hang on and form an administration in May 2025.