Will the ‘new mixture’ gift the local taxdodger the chance to run once again for Parliament?

 

The news that REFORM UK Ltd., has been found out in Northumberland has not come as a shock to most north-east based observers.

The reform group in the county was made up of ex-UKIP, BNP and oddball fascist chancers spreading racist fear through the mechanisms of Northumberland County Councils freedom of information scheme.

Infighting at a level not seen since Danelaw migrants ruled across Northumbria has dragged them down into life's maelstrom with bitter fireballs hurled verbally in public as internal control among the fascists who make up the bulk of the reform team completely collapses around their ears.

The battle scarred members of that team who have mostly sat silent and failed to tackle or even challenge the leading group of Tories on the County Council appear to have split through problems coming to light about their beliefs and lack of populist common sense, with the left being able to point quite clearly towards their former BREXIT lies and failures which kept ordinary people in their place through a low wage culture based on lies and inflationary need making millionaires into billionaires a culture openly preached by the owners of REFORM UK Ltd., every day whilst in a similar vein of culture sharing is harped back to by the Tories whose backers have sewn up their pockets and they urgently need to extend their membership numbers to be able to sponsor any future elections.

That's why the last fourteen years of austerity makes it clear that Tory policy in that regard didn’t reward hard work and people now try all ways to stay on benefits as it's more lucrative than lower grade employment as benefits offset inflation while wages haven’t kept pace at all.

The other right-wing chancers making up Northumberland County Council the conservatives, who are fully to blame for the state of the nation as well as the County as they rush to forget their faux pas years, see this as an opportunity to ditch the ever greedy and wanton independent group who they are having to nurture with promises of huge cash burning localised ward projects and see this breakdown of their fellows (and we codgers don’t use the term fellows lightly as both parties sit welded to the anti-female don’t take paracetamol when your pregnant blame culture), as an opportunity to add to their ranks people who unfortunately see the world through the same shattered panes as themselves.

The Conservatives have openly advertised their wish to embrace Reforms County and Parish Council teams and suck the flag flying commando rioting culture into their ranks to cast further pain on a public they seem to think deserves it.

One who may ‘and this is conjecture’ see this as a valuable chance is a Reform Town and County Councillor for Blyth, Barry Elliott who openly wears the technicolour dreamcoat as he has tried all parties to aid his way into Parliament but pushing out the failed Ian Levy could get him there but he has to cross another floor to gain that traction.

This story will no doubt run and run so we codgers will have to label it

EPISODE 1.

What are Northumberland Conservatives going to do with the Council’s constitution breakers?

 

With the Conservatives nationally stampeding towards a takeover of REFORM UK Ltd., Northumberland Conservatives seem to be ignoring reform opposition members faux pas, probably just in case they are vying with each other for County Council seats in the ‘New Transformer’ Party UK Co. LTD’. 

It's expected that the now disgraced tax dodger Mr Farage will be forced by public opinion strengthened by ACTIVE UK members on social media to resign with full on Tory toff Jacob Reece Mogg lined up to take his place.

But just in case we codgers have read the runes incorrectly we need to ask what if anything is the Leader of Northumberland County Council, labeled dysfunctional, going to do to ensure Councillors on this massive authority follow the rules of constitution and in some cases the laws of the land.

We have a Town littered with flags which are being used to signal the rise of the right, a Town where right wing activists have displayed racist comments at the Towns  monument to the fallen, a monument naming those who fought and died protecting the world from the extreme right wing views of the Nazis, now being glorified by Citizens who have ‘decided to forget’. Councillors on this Council are littered with those who have broken the Nolan principles and possibly the equality laws of the UK.

Let's begin by looking at the Nolan principles: which contains the need for Leaders of Councils to uphold those principles has this Leader decided to ignore them? 

A local Bedlington councillor has written to the press (article in the editorial notes) the Leader of Council has responded in the weakest way possible, drifting from the Nolan principles as far as he possibly can. With Universities supporting the view that flags put up for the enhancement of the ultra right of politics is frightening off the Bedlington Councillor’s residents.

The Leader of Council whose rose tinted glasses must have missed the huge higher education development rising from the ground right beside Ashington Town Centre whose students may feel the same way as their peers.

We next want to know what the Leadership group of the Council is going to do about Councillor Fitzgerald, an elected member who seems to be going to the extreme and is possibly an anti-multiculturalist in his personal beliefs when he demanded at a full council meeting that only Christian values should be taught in schools. Putting this mess on the back burner raises several issues and the Council’s leader needs to act quickly and not in his usual dysfunctional fashion.

The next collapse of the Council's very weak constitution has raised its head placing even more pressure on the Council’s Leader.

A Councillors who it was reported can not take part in any discussion on the Council’s budget as he owes the Council money. 

It's come to light through a freedom of information request that Councillor Barry Elliott representing Newsham in Blyth owes the Council more than £10,000 in unpaid Council Tax. Yet the Council’s leadership has allowed him to raise issues about finance and sit on the Council’s audit committee, a complete breach of the Nolan principles. 

Councillor Elliott has expressed the view that the Council needs to spend its revenue cash reserves. It appears that the Councillor who wants to be heavily involved in the Council’s finance does not understand how those finances need to be protected and what they can be legally used for while ignoring his responsibilities towards the public purse by allowing his debts to accumulate yearly denying the Council the opportunity to spend Councillor Elliott's cash to benefit the Counties communities.

Will anything be done by the Council’s Leadership group to resolve some of these issues or have the caretakers at county hall in Morpeth removed the tacks holding down the carpet yet again so that matters can be swept under?

Notes:

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/warning-that-flying-of-flags-is-causing-divide-among-residents-of-northumberland-town-5318054

https://inews.co.uk/news/flag-wars-scaring-overseas-students-unis-cash-crisis-3915643?srsltid=AfmBOor_UJiRmQX4TEMxudZhe3qD5RFVD1rghjTIj1Diyh2G3ecuFYfz

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/25464542.reform-uk-councillor-calls-religious-education-changes/

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/reform-councillor-claims-studying-non-christian-religion-could-brainwash-children/ar-AA1MtrJy

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/08/report-describes-fear-and-intimidation-at-northumberland-county-councill

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-reform-councillor-calls-council-32258991

Slashing the regeneration of Ashington budget while borrowing to build an academy school the Council has no involvement in is a dysfunction too far

 

From 2015-2017 Northumberland Conservatives ran a campaign against any spend in Ashington, a town with the second highest level of deprivation in this huge county.

But looking at other poorer areas, they have backed away from Capital projects to improve those areas as much as they can, the need for a new swimming pool in Prudhoe is a prime example of their hatred of those living in areas of deprivation.

The Conservatives have raised council tax at the highest rate allowed plus sticking folk with the huge extra of the social services precept each and every year since 2018 yet still mismanaged a huge overspend of £7.5m in the social services/children’s services area this year.

This overspend is so large it couldn’t be massaged into hiding by the secret cabinet as they weren’t strong enough to flatten the lump down under their pantomime magic carpet which adorns the leaders office.

On Wednesday 10 October 2025 the council is expected to accept slashing the Ashington regeneration budget to support the capital borrowing of cash to finish the environmental works, stations etc on the Northumberland rail line project. Costs were forced up through the lack of fixed price contracting and the Council not finishing the GRIP studies for the line and agreeing acceptance of a GRIP and a half that has led to this dysfunctional mess stealing the headlines.

That’s not all that will affect the Councils poorer areas as in the last two weeks the Council Leader has agreed to borrow to build a new high school in Berwick. It’s an academy school which is meant to be developed by a sponsor. It seems the education sponsors have hidden from this new build as the redundancy/pension costs to shed 60 teaching staff in order to open the new school runs into £ millions and it’s expected the Council will have to ruin service delivery across the Ashington and Blyth area to cover the stretch in their revenue budget this mess will cost.

All in all the issues found in the Max Caller report and the BEST report are coming home to roost and it’s noticeable the Councils finance guru Councillor Nick Oliver appears to have gone into hiding under a stone ever since he was promised the cash to build a cycleway near his home just in case anyone noticed.

Northumberland: God help all who sail in her!

Northumberland County Council Budget Crisis Consultation

 

Northumberland Tories are desperate to get people to join in with this years budget consultation.

This Council labeled as dysfunctional by a senior government inspector has continued in its secretive ways for the last eight years and has not delivered BEST VALUE to residents over any of their years in office.

It has moved from crisis to crisis and has no answers to the basic needs of its residents yet likes to borrow oodles of cash to deliver beauty projects at the expense of the people its meant to serve.

To join in with this consultation at a time of great need for many, residents have to feel confident their thoughts will somehow shape the improvements that will deliver respite from their suffering and to do that some basic information is required or social media will be filled with an unbelievable level of anti-government rhetoric from the few Tories left who haven’t succumbed to the boat people party of hatred and racism.

Residents of Northumberland need to forget the race to the bottom and tell the council what they really need to make their lives better.

We codgers have made a small number of suggestions following our regular trawl of social media to find what people are talking about. Those same people need to engage in numbers with this consultation and tell the world on social media what they are telling their Council.

Where’s the basic information the public need?

Lets take a look at what the public needs to be able to shape Northumberland’s massive budget setting and ask on social media whats going on.

Housing League Tables? Where does Northumberland sit in the housing delivery league tables?

With the reports last year that 14,000 families are desperate for social housing what has the council done in last years budget to increase the numbers of social housing across the county,  all we could find in our news media trawl was a promise to alter a few council garages into homes and a fight at planning to insist that Bernicia, a social housing provider, sets aside 8 homes in Seahouses to stop all of the homes they are developing in that small town becoming holiday lets. The only way to cure the problems people need is a proper plan to build more Council Housing and remember affordability is one of the reasons people can enter the homefinder scramble. Lets hope the 14,000 who need Council Housing and their relatives tell the Council so.

Transport requirements in both rural and urban areas?

The Council whether it likes it or not is responsible for transport across the County and can’t just spend £millions on an unfinished railway line in the South-East of the County.

Bus and road transport must become more front and centre as the rail line moves towards a finish during the forthcoming budget cycle.

The transport noise we can find other than comments on the proposed traffic calming on Felton Bridge which seems to be prevalent at the moment centres on buses and traffic congestion spots with ‘more buses Wooler to Berwick as the school closure programme hots up’ along with Cowpen Road bypass as being seen as more essential than a rail line being the most prevalent items to comment on if public opinion is to shape this budget at all?

Cost of social care?

The Council appears to be concentrating its efforts for more affordable social care in Blyth with plans to build a new home to be run by them or their contractors situated right next door to Blyths cottage hospital facility.

Great you may say but what about other areas with dementia patients costing families more than £1,000 per week if social media is to be believed. If true, charges of that magnitude need questioning in this budget cycle and families being stripped of their inheritance even more rapidly than the very vocal farmers its a matter of great concern to many as their loved ones age.

The rowback in street cleansing and grounds maintenance in order to borrow more for posh projects is riling many?

County wide social media is full of expressions of being let down as Northumberland County Council issues out some of the highest tax bills in England.

The state of everywhere is often questioned and the answer seems to be its good for the environment. Is it? Litter strewn verges doesn’t seem to attract more grasshoppers or hedgehogs and probably turns them away to other areas. The height of grass at highway corners and hedges overgrown must increase the possibility of danger for both drivers and pedestrians.

In this article we are simply trying to get Northumberland’s residents to think about how they would like to see changes made to help them and their families get the best value they can from their Council and lobby their Councillors from a distance to colour their democratic vision to wring the best they can from the massive payments residents make.

Links below will help you engage.

Good Luck.

Notes

https://www.citizensadvicenorthumberland.org.uk/northumberland-consultation-now-open/

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/24472231.14-000-residents-northumberland-council-housing-waiting-list/#:~:text=Notices-,14%2C000%20residents%20on%20Northumberland%20Council%20Housing%20waiting%20list,classify%20as%20'affordable%20homes'.

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/25415361.cost-living-crisis-tipping-hexham-people-over-edge/

14,000 families desperate for social housing but we’re going to build a nice new home for rabbits?

Ashinton, the Northumberland town with the best prospects for an outstanding future is being hampered by the lack of vision at County Hall.

Sitting at the railhead of the newly reopened to passenger transport Northumberland Line, Ashington has a chance to harvest opportunities most Towns would love to grasp and its local Town Council have been first in the queue to push the life chances that can be brought to fruition with a vision that supersedes the hatred shown regularly from Morpeth based Councillors who run the Counties unitary all purpose council, a Morpeth centric debacle.

During 2016 that hatred overflowed when a progressive Labour Party ran Northumberland and wished to sell off Morpeth’s County Hall site for a huge sum of money that would have benefited the Council Taxpayers and construct a much lower cost to build and run office block in Ashington. The site for that office has sat empty since 2017 and became known as ‘the Ashington Hole’ synonymous with Northumberland Conservatives' wish to slow down Ashington’s future whilst building hundreds of new homes around Morpeth and investing millions towards the lost cause of keeping County Hall from falling down, and eight years on that building is still eating cash yet its only half modernised.

Something they couldn’t stop in Ashington was the reopening to passenger transport of the former Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Line although they did manage to change its historic name to the Northumberland Line.

Luckily other organisations have seen the opportunities this Labour begun reformation has brought to the Town with Northumberland Group of Colleges opting to build a new huge facility within a few hundred yards of the station which is situated right in the centre of town

But in Northumberland, there's a significant gap between the demand for social housing and the available supply, with over 14,000 residents on the waiting list for social housing. While the council reports meeting targets for affordable housing, opposition councillors argue that this doesn't address the broader need for social housing and points to a housing crisis. The situation is further complicated by factors like rising private rents, limited housing stock in rural areas, and the impact of short-term lets. 

Portland Burn was to be a large site of mixed housing, some private developments and some social housing. The Conservatives in 2017 tasked Advance Northumberland to do preparatory work placing the site in their newly formed planning document the ‘local plan’.

This new move by those same Conservative Councillors announced by Councillor Nick Oliver from Corbridge, whose main vision for the area he represents is a Cycle Path from Corbridge to shops in Hexham to let the more athletic of his flock tear the heart out of businesses in his own village is to ‘Sell the environmental credits developers must buy or invest in and create what's already being described as both ‘Bunny Town’ and the ‘new Ashington Hole’ at Potland Burn.

It's an abysmal move from a regularly shocking Local Authority, this Authority already has masses of environmental projects that need to be invested in, A large-scale nature recovery project is underway near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. The project, called Hadrian's Wall Wetlands Landscape Recovery project, will transform 4,400 hectares of farmland and forestry into a more biodiverse and climate-resilient landscape. This initiative is part of the broader Hadrian's Wall: Recovering Nature project, launched in 2023, and aims to enhance the area's natural and cultural heritage while tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. 

As an all-purpose Unitary Council Northumberland is actively engaged in restorative farming practices and countryside management, with a focus on integrating farming with nature recovery, climate change mitigation, and public enjoyment of the landscape. The region leverages initiatives like the Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) programme and agri-environment schemes to support farmers in adopting nature-friendly farming methods and enhancing biodiversity. Also several initiatives are underway to restore and protect Northumberland's coastline, including dune restoration, river habitat improvements, and coastal clean-up projects. These efforts aim to enhance biodiversity, improve water quality, and manage coastal erosion. 

These are the projects that deserve to be bolstered by Environmental Credits from developers but using land where a huge drainage project was commenced in in 2019 for building to be used to fill the coffers of the County Council who may cut a few walking swathes in this land and get volunteers to plant a few trees needs to be investigated both by the Council’s external auditor and the Government when 15% of the Councils families sit on the waiting list for council owned social housing with progress on any development working out at three per year and hundreds of homes which could be brought back into use being described negatively in Council minutes.

Notes: 

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/24472231.14-000-residents-northumberland-council-housing-waiting-list/

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/potland-burn-site-in-ashington-set-to-be-turned-into-nature-habitat-after-ps75m-housing-plans-fall-through-5266712

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqle55kg6xwo

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/country-and-farming/defra-extends-scheme-supporting-sustainable-farming-in-northumberland-national-park-5161037

https://lifewader.co.uk/life-wader-project-to-bring-bamburgh-dunes-back-to-life

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/northumberland-nature-planned-stranded-asset-151702756.html

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/people/planning-application-for-99-homes-at-potland-burn-ashington-revived-after-five-years-by-developer-ascent-homes-3986551

https://ascent-homes.co.uk/news/enabling-works-start-on-potland-burn

https://www.ashingtontowncouncil.gov.uk/widescope/resources/agreed-fgs130224.pdf

Scrutiny, by both members and the general public halted through expansion of secrecy.

 

Having a Council leader who has total charge of the former democratic body, Northumberland County Council is causing great angst among both elected members and outside bodies linked with the Council.

This week illustrated that the Leader has expanded his autocracy as the Council published its statement of accounts for 2024-25, being 20 pages thinner than all of those issued since 2009, Council watchers from across the region were appalled by the actions of this council leader and its ‘secret cabinet’ members.

The council under the autocratic control of Councillor Glen Sanderson has removed all references to the Council’s Key Performance and Local Performance indicators. All reference to national performance league tables and has shown property developers that the Council isn’t willing to praise their successes in building and filling new homes across the County.

We will start this not very well organised huge change away from all criticism of Northumberland Conservatives over Key & Local performance indicator data by Council committees, the press and public and how the Leader has closed down the scrutiny of himself and his council.

Key and local performance indicator (KPI) data must be sent to the relevant government department responsible for the specific policy area or service being measured. For example, data related to education would go to the Department for Education (DfE), while data about housing would go to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Central government departments and their arm's length bodies are also required to comply with the Cabinet Office's Commercial Playbooks and related guidance. 

Here's a breakdown of where different types of KPI data might be sent:

Education:
Department for Education (DfE). 

Youth Justice:
Youth Justice Board (YJB), with data also informing the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). 

Local Government:
Data is often collected and managed by the Local Government Association (LGA) through tools like LG Inform, but may also be reported to relevant government departments (e.g., DLUHC). 

Digital Services:
Data is published on data.gov.uk in the 'Digital service performance' topic. 

General Government Performance:
The Cabinet Office oversees reporting requirements for KPIs across government. 

Other Departments:
Depending on the specific KPI, data may be sent to the Department for Transport (DfT), the Ministry of Defence, or other.

From this data input following ‘scrutiny’ by Council members and in many cases local press and public the local, regional and national league tables are formed and published. We are not accusing the council of not submitting data to Government but its rawness and unscrutinised reporting locally is seen by residents, businesses and opposition councillors as a serious flaw in procedure that’s been fully exposed in the recent release of the Councils statement of accounts for 24-25.

The reporting procedure by not being scrutinised by everyone is being seriously twisted by conservatives, how do we know that? We’ll just last week Councillor Riddle boasted that Northumberland’s recycling rates were the second best in the north-east, forgetting to say that the north east figures are the worst nationally placing the county in the last tranche at the bottom of the national league table.

Best value: as regular readers know the County can’t have the A1 dualled as it can’t prove it can deliver best value in any of the services it’s responsible for and reading these final accounts that destroy local scrutiny opportunities for opposition members we are not surprised the Conservatives have failed best value tests since 2017.

Keeping on the scrutiny issue the Council have not had the ability to fully scrutinise the effects on the Counties health and wellbeing on outsourcing  its leisure department yet in the final accounts a major drop in swims at council owned centres was reported. Members and the public need to take a very close look at this fitness failure and possibly reconsider the service as most people would agree that confidence in outsourced services sits very low in people conscious locally.

Developers, cursed by many conservatives have been thoroughly let down in these accounts as the Council doubled down on the number of dwellings it attempts to harvest council tax from publishing the 23-24 figures as 24-25 numbers as 146,922 households showing further that these figures had not been issued to either housing or planning scrutiny committees or this would have been spotted. It has been picked up by developers who do like to be recognised for their work in revised numbers of homes on an annual basis. But with a failure like this sitting in the final accounts it shows that the well established secrecy of what happens to your very expensive council tax payments is being Pooh poohed by the ‘secret leader and not bothered cabinet’ model that appears to be in place in Northumberland.