David Cameron's 2013 follow up to Portas Stymies Tory Council 12 years on?

During 2010 David Cameron the then darling of the Tory Party felt pressured by high street retailers who were feeling the early hits from online shopping.

He brought in the retailers champion Mary Portas to take the heat away from the hue and cry of having to tax online retailers to equalise retail costs.

Following acceptance of her plan, local government in the shape of the Local Government Association saw a chink of light in slowing the effects of Cameron and Osbornes shocking austerity schemes that were strangling Council’s ability to maintain services because if the Tories would accept the changes from Mary Portas would he bring in a Local Government guru?, instead Cameron brought in Eric Pickles MP Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2010 to 2015.

Will Hutton in the Observer appraised his role with regard to local government as follows: "Local government minister Eric Pickles has colluded cheerfully with George Osborne to knock local government back to being no more than rat catchers and managers of street lighting. Indeed, they scarcely give them the funds to carry out these activities"

Hutton was right, there was very little acceptance of Pickles from either the under pressure Councils or high street retailers so in order to cover matters off Cameron set up the 'distressed retail property task force during 2012 and guided Councils to the use of the Public Works Loans Board to finance the saving of our high streets 

In its findings Mark Williams, director at retail asset manager Rivington Hark, who headed a government-backed distressed retail property task force between 2012 and 2015, says: “Local authorities buying assets in their own town centres makes absolute sense. They are trying to rejuvenate failing towns, and by doing it they’re looking at assets on a long-term basis” This was promoted by the Cameron Government and the growing DTI as a method of securing a better revenue stream so that Councils would better survive the austerity programs being poured out annually. Effectively the Tories in office blamed Councils for the state of the UK economy.

Northumberland County Council looked at Manor Walks at Cramlington where they had a number of assets already, such as their giant leisure centre and offices dealing with social services, admin etc either on site or stationed very close by.

The Council cleared the purchase of Manor Walks with the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Sajid Javid who had just been promoted into post.

ARCH who bought the shopping centre for a meagre in trade terms £78 m in its press statement at the time gave its asset base as sitting at £216m.

“Under Arch ownership there is the potential to expand the shopping centre and to improve the surrounding infrastructure, including roads, access and parking at the centre and enabling further benefits to the local economy.”

“Manor Walks is currently managed by Workman LLP, one of the UK’s leading property management companies specialising in shopping centre management, with six staff based in Cramlington”. Arch plans to retain the current management arrangements and carry out best practice reviews. The latest acquisition diversifies Arch’s portfolio and brings the value to over £216m.

During 2017 The Conservative led Northumberland County Council changed ARCH into seven separate companies and renamed them ADVANCE Northumberland.

Beset with problems since 2017 with the Council accused of bullying its single shareholder of ADVANCE, Daljit Lally, losing its Leader Councillor Peter Jackson in a vote of no confidence, breaking a promise of delivering 8000 jobs in South East Northumberland through a well publicised debacle of losing a giant battery plant with ADVANCE spending four years on a dedicated clearance programme on the battery plant site, then giving up all democratic control of ADVANCE Northumberland by sacking councillors from its board has left ADVANCE in a parlous state.

With Northumberland Conservatives taking their eye off the ball ADVANCE is now in financial peril with its Leader trying to cover his tracks by stating in the public media that “ever since I became Leader (in 2020) I have been putting money into reserves to sort this out”..

But he has given other Councillors but a few days to absorb something he has known and kept secret for five years, how inept and disgraceful is that?

Due to the drastic nature of the arms length company ADVANCE standing it seems Councillors from all persuasions will have to help Councillor Sanderson and his hapless conservative group and really sort out this mess and ask how the £261m asset holdings in 2015 can not be used to furnish this debt and why the Council is to be palmed off with dud shares to correct the Tories limited vision which their leader admits he’s known about since 2020?

We then hope the public remember the secret dealings Northumberland Conservatives have kept from both friend and foe since 2017 and vote in a better council than this on May 1st 2025.

NOTES

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/25032830.northumberland-county-councils-advance-restructured/

https://news.sky.com/story/high-st-shops-pm-buys-mary-portas-ideas-1047999

https://bdaily.co.uk/articles/2016/07/19/arch-to-acquire-78m-cramlington-shopping-portfolio#:~:text=Arch%2C%20the%20Northumberland%20Development%20Company,a%20multitude%20of%20retail%20developments.

https://www.commercialnewsmedia.com/archives/12819

https://www.drapersonline.com/news/the-great-council-retail-property-takeover

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-councils-development-company-31270662

Northumberland Tory Bullying & Harassment Culture EXPOSED again, they are opening a centre for their culture in Blyth to breed on after they are gone!

 

With the Tories falling off the floating logs they are clinging onto hoping and praying their top bods accept REFORMS Farage as their new leader and they become the high hype no policies CONFORM Party or is it the RESERVATIVE Party? Their members in Northumberland have been hung again by their own petard as an independent report (don’t make us laugh), discovered their biggest problem has re-emerged within the fire service environment.

The lead councillor for the service is the Cabinet Member for ‘Looking After Our Communities’ who is delegated to act as the Fire Authority Chair. That member is the ex-cop, regular paper picker in Prudhoe, Councillor Gordon Stewart.

He must have been too busy posing for photographs of him doing the jobs of direct labour employees to read reports from past firefighters or listen to the concerns of over 200 current in post staff when he decided to select the current fire chief and his deputy into these top positions during 2023.

200? That the number of staff who complained about the Council allowing the continuation of a bullying and harassment culture to ruin working relationships following the release of the Max Caller report into the string of scandals which rocked the council during 2022 with the bullying of staff including its female chief executive front and centre among the complaints Mr Caller looked into.

The Council including the politically squeezed Cramlington Conservatives pushed through a no confidence vote against the then leader of Council, the anti-Prince of Wales Trust promoted Garden Village project Councillor Peter Jackson, who took the Party’s blame culture fairly and squarely on the chin while his fellow protagonists sat back and laughed.

Councillor Jackson who has just announced he’s not running at this election as REFORM eye his Ponteland seat as a quick win in the May 1st elections allegedly raising his disgrace on residents doorsteps being bolstered through the farmers in that ward jumping away from their Conservative roots trying to grab the Farage hype their being fed.

But the new Conservative Leader and his Deputy haven’t bit the bullet triggered by Max Caller and have left the fire service among others out on a limb through the secret nature of decision making within their closed ranks to keep not only the Labour Party away from having any knowledge of what's going on but also the Cramlington Conservatives, The LibDems and the Independent Group away from having any armour to expose further bullying episodes as the anti-bullying plan must be locked in a safe place somewhere.

Being only a few weeks away from Purdah, the Tories have the excuse that the election takes precedence and it will be up to Labour who are expected to form the next administration in the County as the alternative vote is split across most wards between Reform stripping out long serving conservatives from their roots.

Labour will also have to try to ensure that the culture of the Council in its openness, equity and equality is restored and the peripherals like the fire service, leisure and housing are brought and bought into a better working environment conducive to ensuring the wrongs of the Conservative past is erased and the roots of their Culture Centre being built in Blyth are smoothed out to ensure compliance with SOLACE, the Local Government Association and the North-east regional employers recommendations and wipe out the memories of eight years of Tory secrecy and back turning. 

Let the public see some across the board corporate cuddling instead of the conflict that has damaged staff and trade union relationships since 2017 and take the services out from County Hall, delivering them face to face with the public as locally as is feasible.


Notes:
https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/chief-and-deputy-at-northumberland-fire-and-rescue-reportedly-suspended-5033366

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2023/Aug/Northumberland-Fire-and-Rescue-Service-has-a-new-C.aspx#:~:text=The%20new%20Chief%20Fire%20Officer%20of%20Northumberland,has%20officially%20taken%20up%20his%20new%20role.&text=Northumberland%20County%20Councillor%20Gordon%20Stewart%2C%20Cabinet%20member,calibre%20to%20lead%20this%20vital%20emergency%20service.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-max-caller-23117557

‘EXPOSED’ Questions about legality of decision making as Northumberland Tories write of eligible applicants?

A recent freedom of information request on unnecessary losses by Northumberland Council Housing as it fails the public in supporting those in need of housing shows the Tories who run the Council undying support for ‘fatcat’ private landlords.

Northumberland Tories: leak half a million pounds a year of tenants cash from their housing revenue account.

The latest freedom of information request was not fully answered by the Council as information given only related to council housing in South-east Northumberland and did not include the figures for Alnwick, Rothbury or the Rural coalfield and Amble so the losses of council tenants cash may be even higher than that published.

The repair and relet times for Council Housing in South-east Northumberland has tumbled from an impressive 12 days under the last Labour administration 2013-2017 down to a miserable, for those on the homefinder list to a minimum of 12 weeks and many for more than six months. 

Currently awaiting repair and relet,  the Council has admitted to 220 unused homes in Blyth, 54 in Cramlington and 36 in Seaton Valley. At these rates they are certainly not managing the ring fenced Housing Revenue Account on behalf of tenants correctly as the law prescribes and we believe questions have been asked by tenants groups directed towards the housing ombudsman as social media accounts have been rife with accusations.

Northumberland County Council has also decided to tighten criteria to slash its social housing waiting list by 40%.

 Northumberland County Council is proposing to remove thousands of applicants from its social housing waiting list by tightening eligibility criteria. This includes people in category three who they say are ‘adequately housed’ a sweeping statement without a full background check and a visit to applicants to check conditions and under the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act, applicants financial position and need as affordability is a measure within the act.

Local MP Ian Lavery for Blyth and Ashington labelled the move as a disgrace in the house of commons recently as an estimated 9000 applicants were written off in Northumberland Conservatives dash to fully support the steadily rising incomes of Northumberland’s private landlords, many of whom are absentees living in areas of much higher average incomes than Northumberland who buy homes cheaply and let them to desperate families for big city rents forcing ever more families and children to live in poverty relying on food banks and community pantries to manage to eat.

But much of this massive problem was avoidable:

During 2014 the Council profiled its workforce and needs for the future. That needs survey included a huge number of craft apprentices who were required to replace the aging workforces of both the Council to repair its public buildings and housing stock and its regeneration company ARCH who also ran a housing revenue account on behalf of tenants living in the Hirst area of Ashington.

Since 2017 that needs survey has been overlooked as the Council drifted from being a Best Value local authority into one which has devalued its links with the people it's meant to serve.

For example, under the Local Government and Housing Act to qualify for social/council housing, you generally need to demonstrate a low income, a housing need like overcrowding, unsuitable accommodation due to medical reasons, or homelessness, a local connection to the area, and be eligible under immigration laws; Therefore if following the legal procedure have Conservatives Northumberland in their decision making broken the law or are they hiding behind the 2011 localism act ?.

If they are, then the Council need a survey of absentee private landlords along with a discouragement program and those who have taken ex-social housing out of use for long term rent and are letting them for short term breaks need to be encouraged to change their ways. 

Their excuses for change within their cabinet report state:
To free up council staff to work on cases where people have a more urgent need.
To address tenancy fraud that deprives families and vulnerable people of a home.
To ensure that applicants have a stronger local connection to Northumberland. 

It has to be asked, if those are the excuses for writing off thousands of needy applicants and leaving homes out of commission for months then the lack of supervision within the Council is dire and has not been steered by Deloittes BEST results to this Council at all?

Its housing criteria has become a postcode lottery and it has become obvious that the Council has undertaken a Pontius Pilate hand washing exercise to try to cleanse out the poor and needy from its thoughts and future plans. Instead of investing in recruitment and retention of good additional staff who can deliver the needs of the Counties residents they have given up altogether.

https://www.facebook.com/IanLaveryMP/videos/it-is-a-disgrace-that-tory-led-northumberland-county-council-are-striking-thousa/1329360674911702/

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/ian-lavery-mp-column-building-lots-of-council-housing-would-benefit-everyone-5022641

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/northumberland-county-council-proposes-tightening-criteria-to-slash-social-housing-waiting-list-by-40/5134152.article#:~:text=Building%20Awards%202022-,Northumberland%20County%20Council%20proposes%20tightening%20criteria%20to,housing%20waiting%20list%20by%2040%25&text=Northumberland%20County%20Council%20is%20proposing,list%20by%20tigtening%20eligibility%20criteria.