Northumberland County Council, well known as Britain's most dysfunctional council is now sitting at the crossroads sung about in in Robert Johnson’s song.
They have to make a decision in the next few days whether to embrace the devil or sell their soul to learn how to play politics nicely.
That soul searching and the need for change to attempt to deliver what residents of the County would like has been largely ignored with less than ever cross party working taking place, glamour projects are still being financed beyond the norm and ‘mateism’ is growing out of control with huge swathes of public unrest being ignored to satisfy Councillors from the party which makes every spend decision in secret.
The Council has become a one party state over the last eight years which would make Putin proud. It used officers based in London and possibly abroad to run their business. This has led to borrowing levels so high through strategic decisions being taken before prudent scrutiny takes place that scrutiny of that decision making, a legal requirement of a council is skirted over in case questions slip into the public domain that may make the geisha face of the Council leader gain lines and wrinkles that require further treatment if real answers are sought.
The sad outcome for residents and ratepayers is that support for the few has overtaken the needs of the many.
Let's take a tiny little look at what's going on: In Amble a great furore has begun with a known Conservative sponsor’s company getting planning permission and backing from its town council on the back of a plan to develop 40 single person supported units on a greenfield site of local interest. Now the developers have come back to break the promise to the people and have the single person units expunged from their plans.
Another glamour project is being run to suit the finance Councillor whose former life was filled with financial failures of companies he was involved with and feels he needs a cycle route between his home and the town he regularly shops in. A cycle route you may ask? Not a bad idea? Possibly! But this cycle route, part of a £14m spend, will include a set of traffic lights on Dilston Bridge, one of Hexham’s busiest roads, to facilitate cyclists crossing.
Neither project has the love of local people or their needs sated by the Council’s decision making process.
What appears to have happened is that over the last eight years of secret this and secret that the Council has drifted away from managing to assist its residents into a completely strategic authority spending on matters they have no Government clearance to do. The A1 extension into dual carriageway is a prime example, £millions have been spent on land acquisitions and the Council’s own Tory Government hadn’t got the project on its horizon let alone giving permission for such a huge overspend of public cash with no end result.
We also find without much digging that decisions on the future of its largest Town which is being run down to favour a town which votes Tory, decisions are being made by a Councillor from Morpeth and a party sponsor from the North of the Council. It could only happen in Northumberland.
To try to resolve some of this strategic overspending nonsense, Labour in Government have made a unique offer to the County, that if they can remember the great work done by the former district councils which were closed to open this huge monolith of a single all purpose unitary council and alter the Council’s thought processes then they can enjoy a massive increase in their spending power to get on the ground service improvements and leave strategic decision making to the Mayor for the region and her combined authority colleagues (which includes Northumberland) as the public are not fond of the bottom up service cuts being run out in favour of strategic planning costing millions which rarely makes any real progress at all.
Other combined authority members have changed and are now planning to reap the rewards of those changes. Northumberland may have discussed them in secret but haven’t altered their medium term financial plan to suit the offer on the table.
That offer is manna from heaven for struggling unitary councils. Most of them in the North-east region have grasped the nettle and are changing rapidly, with on the ground improvements in Parks, Grounds Maintenance, Street Cleansing, Refuse and Recycling, Potholes and Highways repairs along with Social/ Council Housing repairs and renewals. It's the real future for local government, it's what the people want and need from their Council Tax payments and those Glamour Projects which has led to a borrowing requirement paying back fortunes in revenue cash to cover interest payments rolling over and over during the Tories in Government's austerity years having to cease.
Don’t stand out from the crowd Northumberland Conservatives, follow it, get the work pushed by Max Caller begun as a Council and improve the lot for all who live, dwell and work in what was and still could be a great County sitting within a great North-east
https://northumberland.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s11106/02.2%20NCC%20Governance%20Review%20finalwatermarkcopy.pdf
https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/calls-for-end-to-toxicity-after-northumberland-councillor-reduced-to-tears-during-meeting-3790169
https://www.theambler.co.uk/2026/01/27/shock-as-duke-axes-supported-housing-in-amble/
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1857053698282208
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/speed-limit-reduced-northumberland-main-175124778.html
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