Real Northumberland Murky: The fiasco continues: Not only do Northumberland Conservatives not accept their financial ineptitude, they claim Labour has recently introduced policies they already had in place and now blame GOD for all their woes!

Tuesday 13 August 2024

The fiasco continues: Not only do Northumberland Conservatives not accept their financial ineptitude, they claim Labour has recently introduced policies they already had in place and now blame GOD for all their woes!

The unbelievable gall of Northumberland Conservative Leadership is rolling on and on they had not only pushed up the Council Tax charges to the highest in England since 2017, they have now decided while the nation is still in the grip of an economic crisis of their making that they will force an additional 4.99% increase in council tax onto the Counties long suffering residents.

This latest financial decision has forced up Band D council tax since the Conservatives took over by £40 per week.

This isn’t the only shock to come, in their most recent financial decision, they are also cutting £57,000,000 from their spend on services. Even using the Local Government Association highest average local government pay estimate of £37,500 the £57m cut in services is the equivalent to £1,520 jobs and as no schedule of cuts has been issued with their single party Leadership and Cabinet decision to slash services we can assume it's a jobs massacre they are planning in order to pay some of the myriad of debt that they now owe.

Their 2018 decision to not complete the third GRIP study into the Northumberland Line and bring in a price competitive contractor to deliver GRIP 2½ instead has led to them not building up any form of reserve to cover inflation over a medium term even through they made a medium term financial decision during 2019 to plough on regardless. This has left them with a now known £130m overspend with at least another financial year to run on this huge, out of kilter and out of control high spending project.

But that same Cabinet team who can’t deliver services this year with street weeds and potholes reaching epidemic proportions in most towns and villages even when the Town and Parish Council for various areas have made decisions to help finance much of the costs for Grounds Maintenance, Street Litter Collections and public realm maintenance the failures show when simply walking or driving around you local area and they don’t seem to care at all, with cuts so great the next council from May 2025 will struggle to pull them back into shape in one cycle.

But the Leadership of that one party state political melodrama known as the Conservative led Northumberland County Council have begun idiotically blaming the new Labour Government for policies introduced during the 14 years of Conservative self indulgent Government the nation has just relieved itself from.

Councillor Glen Sanderson has been caught out by local reporters making an utter fool of himself by following up an article that appeared in the right wing press that the Labour Party will be charging electric car owners mileage tax. A policy introduced by the Tories. He is also a farmer who has at his his disposal massive machinery using fossil fuels to bring home his bacon to line his pockets further and to many who know him his two faced assault on the environmental impact of road charges for heavier pothole producing electric vehicles is pathetic.

His Party Group at County Hall in Morpeth are also whipping up opposition to building homes in the green belt as a Labour Policy when the Tories introduced this Policy a number of years ago.

These are just two examples of the spin being pushed out from County Hall in Morpeth to cover over the mess that Northumberland Conservatives through their secret one party cabinet have placed at your door if you're a Northumberland resident.

But the public ineptitude doesn’t stop there, The Council’s Leader when asked at a recent meeting of the Council’s Audit Committee about the Council’s serious debt problem and how its affecting service delivery blamed GOD.