It's time to develop modern rapid build social housing in Northumberland, Six years after Peter Jackson promised it.

 

The great culture shift by Northumberland Conservatives during 2020 following the ditching of their super strategist Councillor Peter Jackson for alleged ‘rakish behaviour’ allowed the rise of the Nasties under the watchful eye of the gorgon, dodgy Dick Wearmouth led to the loss of how to make Morpeth the new capital of the North and the beginning of force-feeding Tory culture to the masses.

The ‘New Nasties’ under the guidance of dodgy Dick and soggy Sanderson have even decided not only to spend £millions more than Councillor Jackson’s “lick of paint” on Morpeths County Hall, but to also forget the Council Housing strategy he was promoting following the success of Labour in housing those in need from 2013-2017 by building 400 new social houses under the watchful eye of Cramlington Councillor Allan Hepple a top housing manager during his working career.

Councillor Jackson”s strategy of stopping 2000 homes his own Tory Government were promoting at Dissington Garden Village then agreeing to roll on with growing Amble by accepting four sites for full permission that were held up at their consultation stage by Labour to cover his back with national planning officers. With 500 homes at Acklington Road, 275 on Percy Drive, 190 at Hauxley View and 14 at St Cuthberts old school site all forced through against public opinion following the Tories winning the 2017 local government election.

His strategic announcement in 2019 was followed a few months later by re-release of Labours plan to build a prefabricated homes factory in Ashington to help develop affordable homes and social housing County-wide to stop villages dying and increase the ability to house people who needed Council homes to secure a decent home for an affordable rent. Dodgy Dick and Soggy himself quickly forgot that strategy following Councillor Jackson's demise from his top position.

Now that the housing register is full to bursting point through people getting poorer daily due to Tory policies and their race for cash at all costs, it's time to reignite Councillor Jacksons Housing Strategy and rapidly build homes, place them on Council owned infill sites and get decent roofs over the heads of decent people as fast as possible and kick Nasty culture and the centres to pump it out from into the long grass for decades to come.

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/strategy-promised-for-new-generation-of-council-housing-in-northumberland-161004

scotbuild.com

Affordable Homes in Sheepwash - Frame Homes UK

Northumberland Continuing with *'Scrotiny' Panels?

With Labour's Leader noting Bad Behaviour from the 
Administration continuing!

With things going from bad to worse at Northumberland County Council with it still sitting under a cloud, not achieving 'Best Value' for the last six years, dogged by the loss of Britishvolt, still under investigation from a Local Government peer group, their company Advance Northumberland making buyers wait more than a year to gain access to newly built homes and with the administration keeping the public at bay through using Kremlin secrecy methodology in its day to day workings.

We are pleased the Leader of the Labour Group Councillor Scott Dickinson has noted on public social media this week that toxic bullying and bad behaviour is still ongoing from the Councils administration ensuring that scrutiny panels are screwed down just as tightly as the Tories Cabinet keeping the Councils secrets kept away from the public at large.

Scrutinyin local government terms is a process whereby councillors who are not the Council's Cabinet can play an influential role in the shaping of policy and decisions that will have a real benefit on behalf of the community they represent.

Scrutiny was established in English and Welsh local authorities by the Local Government Act 2000. They were intended as a counterweight to the new executive structures created by that Act, Northumberland's executive structure is currently one of Leader and Cabinet all belonging to one party.

This is a huge change from Labour's executive structure and open Policy Board system 2013-2017 where all political parties enjoyed membership of the policy board and all non-personal or protected data information was shared openly with every political group, every member of a scrutiny panel and the public at large.

To ensure that scrutiny has some value in Local Government the panels members are fully furnished with both the results of ongoing local performance information regarding their authority along with both regional and national comparison information in order that scrutiny members of Council, (not its executive) set targets that can be both measured reliably and met by their teams to push the executive into ensuring they are properly responsible for the departments they are highly paid to manage as Councillors, making scrutiny a true bottom up process to galvanise the public into the recognition that their local Council can add value for receipt of their vote.

This gives the public and the Council's external auditors who are appointed by Government, assurance that 'Best Value' when spending of in Northumberland's case over £1Bn per year of public money is achieved.

Since 2017 the Tory led County Council has neither issued information that can drive best value that is readily useful to scrutiny members or ever achieved it on behalf of Northumberland's residents. Using press spin to plaster over the gaps, repressing the need to know and dressing everything in 'Dodo Feathers'.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/scrote *

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/20231065.damning-report-tip-iceberg-warns-ex-leader-northumberland-county-council/

The inks are not dry on Max Caller's report and we hear Criticism, read about nastiness, crawling apologies, no debate until it's too late and the In-House Royal Family left sitting outside the whispers?

 

It might seem like handbags at five paces to some who sit outside the arena but for workers, staff, trade unions and opposition politicians this Tory mob from Morpeth ‘tek the biscuit’.

The Max Caller report looked at the nasty delinquent bullying ways that an administration in office treated everyone around them for the last six years.

Following receipt of the report and allowing the dust to settle closer to the ground, we estimate approximately head height as their conservative vision has proven to be completely enveloped in a blue mist, the Tories on the Council led by Councillors Sanderson and Wearmouth spun out a tale about how ‘It wasn’t us mister it was all those others’.

 

Then they publicly crumple up both the tale and the outcomes of the report and at their first attempt at having any vision for honesty and interest in either the people or the rules set by Caller, like the Royal Navy of old, they blew it out of the water.

The Council has a Cabinet made up of one single party who, like their dreams when they roll out of the lodge, consider themselves Royalty.

This time, like many other times, they agree to a budget and medium term financial plan without any consultation with opposition Councillors, the Public, the trade unions or their partners in Lower Tier Councils who have bankrolled their activities for the last six years and put up with what's being poured out.

The leader and deputy leader slated the Labour Party political group leader when he had the temerity to tell them like it is.

Pensioners groups and shelter openly criticised rises in Council Tax and Social Housing Rents that will simply cause hardship and strip savings from those around them.

The Council deputy leader Councillor Wearmouth exposed the £17m cut in budget and it has been reported by the TU’s that they still don’t know where the axe will fall on their members.

The Tories also announced they want to spend £9M on consultants to modernise their services, at this point we need to remind Councillors that Councillor Sanderson holds a very high post within the Local Government Association to personally give advice on modernising services and the Council already pays an annual membership to the North-East employers organisation https://www.nereo.gov.uk/about-us/ who also advise on modernising Council services so why spend £9m or is it to emulate Boris Johnson and his pandemic cash giveaways?

They then set about the Liberal Leader Councillor Reid in public and at that same meeting the ‘Royal Wearmouth’ in his regular fashion, attempted to bully Councillor Caz Bell for asking civil questions about his budgets effect on ordinary folk and Councillor Murphy had to openly seek an apology on the Labour Party’s behalf, the report is in a link below.

They have gone on to hide a public event on the largest regional change for decades in the North East that of an elected mayor for the region from prying eyes in case they get asked questions. They may have missed that lesson as the chalk for their slate had got damp

But to all of our regular readers the most revealing outcome isn’t that this budget will cause hardship above and beyond the norm its the amount of secrecy that Max Caller attempted to halt is still ongoing and a Tory Councillor From Blyth whose partner is the daughter of a TOP Tory, Councillor Jones a cabinet fixture for the Tories if that isn’t a pun, isn’t being informed about a bus stop very close to Ian Levy MP’s home?

It must be a secret!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-62926064 Tory mismanagement and reason they need to slash £17m.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-tax-2023-26154407?utm_source=sharebar&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sharebar

https://anorthernviewofpolictics.blogspot.com/2023/02/northumberland-labour-group-leader.html

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/ex-council-leader-slams-successor-over-northumberland-budget-consultation-4025544

Secrecy prevails in Northumberland as the Council hides public consultation on a poor devolution deal in Alnwick.

 

Following a well publicised signing of the ‘devolution deal for the North-East’ which will force an elected mayor on 1.5m people and change the way ‘Borderlands debate’ will be centred in future, Councillor Geln Sanderson the secret leader of a secret Council has decided to hold the public consultation for this major social change in the historic but lonely market town of Alnwick well away from the prying eyes.

A letter dated 3rd February was issued out to stakeholders across Northumberland last weekend for an event to be held tomorrow stating (The Northumberland event will be held on 15th February 2023, 4pm at St James’ Church, Alnwick.)

This supposed public consultation event is a disgrace from Northumberland Tories, being held in the North of the County which is vast yet only 12% of the County’s population live there, shows exactly how Councillor Sanderson wants this consultation event's outcomes to be read.

More than 50% of the County population live in 4% of its landmass in South East Northumberland but it looks to us here at Murky that Councillor Sanderson is afraid to speak to the majority of people who through Tory mismanagement are suffering at more levels than the wealthy, well dressed gentleman farmer Councillor Sanderson understands or would even think of.

The other Councils who are to be part of this deal are holding similar events in central places where their population dwells or can get to easily.

To attend you need a ticket so that the speaker in this case Councillor Sanderson knows or can avoid at the meeting.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/devolution-consultation-event-tickets-530639124907

Some online consultation will be held and can be accessed from this link: https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/About/North-East-Devolution-Consultation.aspx

The concern for most people is that this isn’t a devolution deal at all it's just an attempt by the Tories in Government to hoist a City Centric Mayor onto a vast area of rurality and as Micheal Gove has already announced two, yes two RDA’s for the North East to ensure development is centrally controlled from Government and not devolved through what will be a puppet mayor.

A year on and the Northumberland Tory Leader is repeating the same old story?

Taking borrowing soaring over £1.2Bn and cutting £17.5m from Council revenue doesn’t bode well for either children or the elderly now or in the future.

One year on from Councillor Glen Sandersons "call to action" at the authority's inequalities summit, his promises are almost identical yet the needs of both children in poverty and the wait for social care to keep the elderly in their own homes has grown considerably as his Government lets people across the County languish in poverty without hope.

It's time his ‘call for action’ was centered on welding his own group of disparate factionalised nasties into one unit so that the Council can move forward at a pace instead of languishing in a period of respin of hollow promises he is now much less likely to be able to deliver that than when he first spun his tale. 

Known Conservative social media shows that instead of appeasement between the factions which make up the broad right of his party that threats are now being hurled between mobs with a similar passion to that his party’s national government when levelling up disparity and brexit problems exacerbating a recession gets mentioned, even without the negativity of the return to power of Liz Truss who’s free market let’s fertilise the money trees dying flowers administration killed off opportunities to help children and the elderly for decades to come.

Councillor Sanderson’s messages to the public should be about hurling letters at his Government to help in the care and education field and not get lost in the hype around austerity spewed out by a dying administration in Westminster. 

An example of the maelstrom he has been caught up in is the building of a Special Free School in the town of Blyth which ‘costs the Council nothing to deliver this brilliant service’ report he put out after January’s 2023 children's services scrutiny panel met. He obviously hadn’t noticed that the Education and Skills department of his Government deduct funding for places at established special free schools from local authority high needs allocations and pay it directly to schools. It may not cost the Council anything to develop a free school but the loss of an asset in the land transfer and the reduction in high level funding which will reduce the spend on other schools in the County seems to be a damaging move for children other than those attending the special free school or is that a spinning conundrum that the Tory’s think people may not notice?

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-improve-chances-deprived-children-25887333

Will Northumberland’s new officers be brave enough to protect the local plan and say NO?

New brush normally sweeps clean, but can it?

As most people who read the press across Northumberland you may have noticed that the Council has recruited a ‘brand new’ chief executive and social media from the Tories state that a new officer team is being recruited and formed to serve the new CO’s needs.

Included in the list being fielded is that a new head of planning has been recruited.

As readers of this blog know, the Caller report on poor leadership from the administration, secrecy, bullying, lack of teamwork, dreadful lack of communication with the public highlighting spin over truthfulness, disparate training of Councillors, and the fear of officers to say NO to the Cabinet members which should be prime in directing the Council forward, is now being spun as nothing special by the Tories. 

Those same Tories obviously hadn’t noticed (or want to keep it secret) that Mr Caller also heavily criticised the administration of the Council in its performances on planning. Other bodies including professional developers and businessmen can’t believe that Northumberland has produced a local plan following the Northumberland Tories destruction in 2017 of the Council's emerging core strategy, the New Local Plan allows villages and market towns to be slowly strangled and die, whilst the 4% of land which makes up the South-East of the County and houses well over half of the Counties population at this moment in time is to be allowed to grow to the Hong Kong new territories housing density levels. 

So six months after the release to Cabinet members of Mr Caller’s report things hadn’t improved one jot and long-serving cabinet member, a planning application had been submitted to the Local Planning Committee for the North of the County to develop a new home in Bamburgh, totally outside of the Council’s Local Plan. Cllr Guy Renner Thompson explained that he felt the development was one the village needed, and even called on other councillors to show Christmas spirit. He went on to say “I would implore you to allow it. Bamburgh needs more people. They have lost the school many years ago, there’s no post office and the village shop is still there – but it needs people to keep it going.

The Cabinet of the Council had agreed the new local plan in March 2022 12 weeks before the Caller report yet here we have a Cabinet Member pushing through a development outside the plan without a valid planning reason for doing so.

Councillor Renner Thompson was quite right in his statement to the area planning committee that villages need people to survive, therefore we have to ask why did he not say that when the new local plan was brought to his cabinet to ensure that all new homes are to be dumped in the South East of the County as it doesn’t affect rural towns and villages, when he knows that empty villages and market towns where only elderly people and second home tourists live is not healthy and he should get his cabinet to take the plan back in conjunction with the new head of planning and get a proper plan for growth from Berwick to Old Hartley that will benefit business, young people, those who need social housing in the countryside to work in rural areas and begin to open up the County turning the remaining 96% of the area into a vibrant place to live, work and bring up families who want to stay near their home bases.

We just have to hope that new officers and the new chief executive can say NO and not allow themselves to be bullied into improper decision making by infighting Tory Councillors who use dodgy decision making as weapons against their internal enemies within their own political group.

Notes

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/family-granted-permission-for-new-home-in-bamburgh-despite-planners-concerns-3965660

Revengeful Tories across the North-East show why ‘Iron Grip’ Wearmouth should get out of politics.

 

Independent parties and groups across the North-East of England received another boost in the last few days as three top Tories from North Tyneside decided to resign from the now toxic Tory party, blaming their local federation for its behaviour which included sustained bullying and intimidating them personally when they preferred their former leader who was deselected and an ultra right wing candidate forced upon them in the safe Tory ward of St Mary’s in Whitley Bay.

Councillors Pam McIntyre, George Westwater, and Judith Wallace have announced their resignations from the Tory party and said they will serve as independent councillors. Their resignations come after the deselection of the former leader of the North Tyneside Conservatives, George Westwater.

The loss of Judith Wallace from the Tories to the independents will be the catalyst for a huge downturn for the Tories across the region. Following the Tories losing the Mayoral position in North Tyneside to Labour, Judith Wallace stepped up to the plate and has been the voice of the Conservatives in the North of Tyne area appearing on TV and in the press on a regular and ongoing basis. That voice will now be steered towards the ever growing independents across the North East.

This huge loss for the Conservatives comes on the back of top regional Tory Councillor Richard Wearmouth having his pal Sean Brockbank The chairman of North Tyneside’s Conservatives installed in the seat at St Marys and Councillor Westwater the Conservative Leader, deselected.

Following a well rumoured falling out with Councillor Wearmouth’s team in North Tyneside Sean Brockbank left the Tory party and its chairmanship in November 2022.

The great worry for Councillor Wearmouth is that the Cramlington Conservatives absorb the Tory element of North Tyneside due to national boundary changes taking place in a few months time with the formation of the Cramlington with Killingworth Seat and the vast majority of Cramlington’s Conservatives are vocally and politically distant from the Wearmouth set up, with the breakup of both former Conservative federation groups imminent, a weak Conservative federation in Cramlington with Killingworth will have to face the might of Labour in its new ascendency covering both the left and middle ground of politics, with good independents splitting the Conservative votes probably both nationally and locally, leaving ‘Iron Grip’ Wearmouth the loser whatever the outcome.