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/25415361.cost-living-crisis-tipping-hexham-people-over-edge/
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