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.

Council secretly shrinking Northumberland’s economy

 

It doesn’t matter how many times Council Leader Glen Sanderson appears dressed to death on Hexham TV to tell Northumberland County Council residents everything in the gardens rosy his secret cabinet have already backed his panic decisions to shrink the councils services.

Information is leeching out from his workforce and the Trade Unions that instead of backing projects to drive up trade and grow the economy across this geographically diverse English border county, raking in additional income to drive better service delivery, Glen and his other secret cabinet cohorts are about to launch another massive round of redundancies and buy out resignations that will seriously damage the Councils ability to deal with the essential functions unitary county councils are designed to deliver and were created for.

In recent weeks we the public have been force fed through the regional press short tongued excuses for this latest planned rundown of the counties economy. Another planned debacle list such as Councillor Oliver, blaming SEND kids costs, the amount the Council spends on support for older people and other Conservatives wheeled out to explain the cost of repairs to public buildings which stock surveys had pointed towards a decade ago, yet Glens team have quietly ignored them for the last eight years while the fabric of those buildings have been exposed to some of the most severe weather events in recorded meteorological history.

While sitting in his hand made suits on web TV not pressurised by political reporters to dull his thinking and draw him back to reality Glen has attempted (and in the codgers view failed) to grasp the importance of the Council to its residents and remind him that as a top politician for Castle Morpeth Borough Council prior to the inception of the Unitary Authority he followed a similar path and the residents under his wing suffered badly.

From that perch he was able to blame the old county council but now Glen sits on a unitary pedestal and is supposed to deliver all the services the old districts and boroughs excluding Castle Morpeth managed excellently along with the four main functions of the old county council.

His failures since his party’s former leader, Peter Jackson was ousted from power has been a series of underwhelming failures coupled with an innate ability to quickly misunderstand and forget the very expensive work undertaken at great cost by the myriad of consultants he has engaged to improve things whilst borrowing millions to deliver sparkly and glittery new items not wanted by the public he’s meant to serve.

Glen, you need to grasp the nettle and realise that people need their Council to improve lives year on year, not improve a few lives and leave everyone else ‘wishing they weren’t here’. Particular the homeless, elderly, jobless, poverty stricken not in work or education young people and needy that you have turned the other cheek against for years.

Why has court action not been taken against this resident to recover the council tax by NCC

 

A recent reply to an FOI asking if Councillor Barry Elliott, Reform UK has paid anything towards his outstanding council tax, states that his Council Tax debt exposed on social media in May 25 has still not been cleared or reduced.
Councillor Elliott has received and will continue to receive a very good allowance from NCC yet hasn’t cleared or reduced this debt to his new employer.
This local authority has just released new Council Tax debt information stating in the regional press that it is the highest it has ever been.

Councillor Elliott needs to set a good example and encourage others not to follow his current standing as non payment on a large scale can only lead to lower service provision to those who follow the rules of society and ‘ render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s’. 

My officers earn far too much to speak to democratically elected Councillors.

 

A core promise to get re-elected Councillor Glen Sanderson the autocratic leader of Northumberland County Council regularly promised to cut staff numbers and lessen the amount who earn £100,000 plus. He either failed to deliver his promise or Boris Johnsoned the Council Tax payers of the County as a huge increase in those numbers has taken place since his declaration was made.

So to clamp down on opposition members of the council seeking clarifications of the autocratic leaders' decision making from officers of the Council, new rules have been brought in. Councillors in Northumberland have branded those new rules around contacting council officers "crackers". 

Under the new policy, elected members are being forced to use the online members' enquiry system powered by an AI bot rather than getting in touch with officers directly to talk through on the ground problems. It is believed that in private, opposition members have told Leader Glenn Sanderson to ‘BOT OFF’ but as usual he has taken no notice of them at all.

That's not the only secret he’s been hiding (as you know the Cabinet at County Hall hide most of their decisions from the public), but two prime unanswered secrets are ‘what did the Tory fiasco over BRITVOLT cost you as a Council Tax payer’ and the denial by Gordon Castle a top Tory from Alnwick that the Tory Party stopped the dualling of the A1 through Northumberland in 2021 complete with a decision to suppress the information and hide it from public view.

Most readers of local politics in Northumberland will remember that when Ian Lavery MP asked Boris Johnson MP about the funding to kickstart the 8,000 promised jobs for Blyth, Johnson said “The cheques in the post”.

Google AI tells us all : The statement "The cheques in the post for BRITVOLT" refers to the failed attempt to secure funding for the Britishvolt gigafactory project in Northumberland. Britishvolt had planned to build a large-scale battery plant for electric cars but ultimately went into administration. The project faced numerous funding challenges, including delays and non-payments from investors. The factory site was eventually sold to a data center developer. Local press reporters exclusively told us that in 2022.

But the no cash for the A1 secrets were suppressed by Northumberland Tories who sneakily asked the public why Labour hadn’t coughed up the cash prior to the May elections according to information released from Parliament and published in our regional press.

Those sneaky Tories knew the project had been spiked by their Government and that no plan to fund had been put in place yet they still bought properties through compulsory purchase powers without a chosen Government route in place and work stopped on the project, with the floundering Councillor Gordon Castle pushing out a denial on social media as his Tory group ploughed on and paid out £68m of council tax payers money after the DfT reported that government analysis of the scheme in 2021 found the costs of the project would outweigh its benefits. An investigation is now needed to find out why cash was spent after that date.

The utter hypocrisy of surprise from Northumberland Conservatives was shown to be active again this week when they issued a sharp intake of breath fairy tale supposedly finding out that a new roof for concordia leisure centre was going to cost them half a million pound?

The same secret cabinet team in 2020 took a decision to plough ahead with a previous £3.5m scheme ground to a halt by the Peter Jackson led Cabinet made up only of Tories in 2017 to modernise and revamp the Council’s setup at Concordia based on a 2015 stock condition survey that illustrated the state of the roof at that time. 10 years on from that survey and surprise surprise as Cilla would say the secret has ‘leaked out’ as the rain soaks the interior of Concordia.

Isn’t it time the secret cabinet at County Hall was abandoned and a democratically split mixed cabinet installed so that all areas have access to the ‘state of the council’ thats deteriorating every day under the current mess and chaos at the half modernised County Hall in Morpeth another cost secret kept under autonomous leader Glenn Sanderson's teddy bear pillow.

 

Notes:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/number-highly-paid-officer-positions-26779072

chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-councillors-warned-no-right-31988252#:~:text=Councillors%20in%20Northumberland%20have%20branded,in%20touch%20with%20officers%20directly.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9xp98pkr0o

 

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/leaked-report-shows-a1-dualling-in-northumberland-cancelled-in-2021-with-decision-kept-from-public-5224298

 

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2020/Feb/Council-to-relocate-Cramlington-services.aspx

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gk4jp7k0go

Microsoft Word - TR010020_APP_1.1 - Introduction to the Application

Northumberland CC ignore 2010 Equality Act by fleeing their responsibilities

 

White Feather Council fails to act.

Local Social Media has once again uncovered that Pontius Pilate has an office in County Hall in Morpeth complete with a handbasin and by the look of things the officers responsible for sorting serious complaints can no longer be contacted except by a ‘bot’ according to a long serving Councillor from Rothbury.

Its a specifically designed ‘bot’ that may or may not relay messages to guys and gals grafting hard to support their bosses so that the stacks of officers paid more than £100,000 per year can sit back in their armchairs situated in London’s leafy suburbs and never be inconvenienced to turn up at work as it might be too much bother. The Council has a new all encompassing powerful Leader to sort things in Morpeth.

A complaint under the 2010 Equality Act has been submitted to the Council explaining the homophobic actions of a Councillor.

The Council’s response is in paraphrase “when is a councillor a councillor?”

Its the sort of unbelievable spin from sailors whose boats carry too much ballast and have become impossible to rock. Or have they put their telescope up to Nelson's blind eye.

The Council has shown that a huge yellow streak exists and public protection, something every taxpayer should expect has been tipped out with the baby and its bathwater. Children’s Services should begin a search immediately.

Our regulars should read on and see what a jolly mess their council has fallen into:

From Chris Curran Complainant.

The reply I received after reporting the councillor to the monitoring officer

We write in response to the standards complaint you have submitted relating to Councillor Natalie Rolls.

The first stage the Council has to undertake is to determine whether we have powers granted by statute to process the complaint. The issue in this respect is whether Councillor Rolls was acting in her capacity as a Councillor when she posted the messages in question online. If we determine that we do have power under the legislation (ie jurisdiction), we would then determine whether the evidence provided within the complaint reaches the required threshold for formal investigation.

We have now concluded our initial assessment and have determined that no further action should be taken because the Council does not have jurisdiction to consider the complaint.

The reasons for this decision are as follows:

Acting in the Capacity of a Councillor

The governing legislation, setting out the powers of local authorities to process complaints into Member behaviour are set out in the Localism Act 2011. Particularly s.27(2) of that Act states:

…a relevant authority must, in particular, adopt a code dealing with the conduct that is expected of Members and co-opted Members of the authority when they are acting in that capacity.

We have highlighted the pertinent wording in the above extract. This sets out the legislative provision that for a local authority to be able to process a complaint then the Councillor must have been acting in their capacity as a Councillor. The code of conduct will apply when a Councillor is carrying out their official duties, for example when they are considering or discussing council business, either as a Councillor or representing the council on an outside body. For something to fall within the code there must be a clear link to a local authority function or the role as a Councillor. For example, an argument with a neighbour which does not relate to local authority business would not engage the code, even if the neighbour happens to know that the person is a Councillor and therefore complains to the local authority about being treated disrespectfully.

It is also possible for someone to be given the impression that a person is engaged in local authority business. For example, if someone attempt to misuse their position as a Councillor to seek to gain an advantage for themselves someone close to them. A number of factors will need to be taken into account to determine whether or not you had used or attempted to use your position as a Councillor. Examples of this could be:

writing to someone on local authority headed paper or using a local authority email address may lead someone to assume you were writing in your capacity as a Councillor

handing out a business card where you describe yourself as a Councillor may also lead to that assumptionwearing official local authority regalia

There has been an amount of judicial consideration of this issue, and it is clear from decisions that the actions complained of must relate in some way to Council business, and that this is to be construed narrowly.

With regards to messages on social media, if a Councillor describes themselves as such in a social media post or in their username or profile, it does not mean that every posting made would be covered by the Code. There must be a link within the individual posting or thread to the role as a Councillor or to local authority business. The converse is also true, just because a person may not describe themselves as a Councillor does not mean that a post cannot fall within the scope of the Code if local authority business is being discussed.

We are assisted here by guidance issued by the Local Government Association (LGA). The LGA produced a model code of conduct for elected Members which the Council’s code of conduct follows. Guidance was also issued to assist with interpretation of the mode code of conduct. The LGA guidance states the following:

Simply describing yourself as a Councillor in a social media posting or at the top of your page or in your username or profile, for example, does not of itself mean that every posting you make is covered by the Code. There must be a link within the individual posting or thread to your role as a Councillor or to local authority business. However, even if you do not describe yourself as a Councillor you may fall within the scope of the code if you are discussing local authority business.

For example, a posting which is simply discussing a recent football match is not covered by the code even if you have described yourself as a Councillor. However, if you make a posting threatening a fellow Councillor or officer that would fall within the code even if you have not described yourself as a Councillor as it relates to local authority business or your role as a Councillor.

In the circumstances, Councillor Rolls has described herself as a Councillor in her username for the account. However, the guidance stated above confirms that this is not enough. It does not mean that everything posted on this account relates to Council business. The subject of the posts is the RNLI and a flag that they are displaying. This is not on Council owned land, it is on private property and does not relate to council business or any business Councillor Rolls is undertaking on behalf of the Council. Accordingly on the evidence submitted, we must conclude that the Council does not have powers under the relevant legislation to process this matter through our arrangements and will take no further action in respect of it.

 

Please note that there is no right of appeal against this decision. If you consider that your complaint has not been properly considered properly, you may be able to complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or make an application to judicially review the decision.

Is it time bring Max Caller back in?

 

Northumberland, has had millions of pounds spent in seeking advice on how to work more publically, accept that opposition members of council should be heard without fear of oppression or ridicule and begin to listen to and deliver some of what its residents want and need.

Possibly the most expensive single spend was on the Tory Government’s red hot fixer, Max Caller who did a deep dive into Northumberland Conservatives and decided the Council was utterly multi dysfunctional.

Big promises from the Sandermouth leadership team have led the Council down the ‘road to nowhere’ as residents lose services at an alarming rate as the Conservatives ‘Never Ending Story’ of charging more each year while delivering less and less outside of Tory voting areas is never spoken about or questions answered about their NES even when pressured extremely hard.

At the last full council the often read parable from the Councils farming fraternity of treating opposition Councillors like dogs was once again revived at a televised meeting and the Council’s chairman sat on his backside and didn’t stop this disgraceful outburst. Watch the video and make your own mind up (link below).

The prime opposition ‘the dogs’ had been defeated at the same meeting in their totalitarian wish to become even more elitist than the Tories by wanting to break all community ties and rule godlike without regional mayors, police and crime commissioners, parish councils or town teams having any part in on the ground decision making. In fact their motion actually agreed with the Tories secret cabinet decision to have an all powerful leader in Northumberland to take the strain of delivering nothing people want.

The proof that closer ties across communities are essential sits within another costly report commissioned and not implemented using public cash by the Tories, that of the so laughably called the ‘Best Report’. It points towards those good things the Council should be doing but what isn’t included are the long promised powers that should be given to area committees.

The Tories haven’t even nodded agreement to that element of local government legislation and following Reforms motion on totalitarianism they are simply ignoring it. 

Instead the Sandermouth regime have slashed all spend on local area committees and in their usual secret way have decided to stop them even though they they have never empowered them at all over the last eight years,  they are instead going to have soft centred Community Committees and let the third parties Reform hate set the agenda for the County Council.

What a palaver, but the Never Ending Story rolls on and on.

https://youtube.com/live/xi5sxPcTWWI?si=mLxLw8O1lU8cV0-A