Progression Road? Will it be an 'interim' decision?

 

We here at Murky are quite surprised to learn that neither Woody Guthrie nor the smoggies own Chris Rea haven't recorded a song with the above title.

Well it may be the next recording from Blyth's MP along with his first hit, I'm a brick in the once red wall. As the MP member of 'the broken watch society' his lines to the Boundary Committee recently incensed hundreds of Blyth Town families and residents when he uttered the words "Blyth families progress to Cramlington".

He will of course lean towards the new town of Cramlington as his brothers in arms at Northumberland County Council the Cramlington Conservative splinter group worked hard to get him to where he is today.

The splinter group haven't recorded Progression Road either as none of them sit in the despot Glen Sandersons one party cabinet at County Hall in Morpeth who are going to vote on the Blyth Relief Road scheme in the coming weeks without proper professional officer advice nor a health and family safety survey on the shifting problems of car fumes and traffic which will create new black spots in Blyth.

That advice and local experience doesn't exist as the mob have bullied most decennt officers out of their positions as they may have had a street sign fixed in a Labour or independent held ward or dealt with a serious case of disability for a family suffering from the legacy of former industrial problems etc., but when problems arise and those officers aren't available the Tories turn for advice to the very costly interim mercenary officers they must employ to plug the gaps.

As more and more top staff leave, retire or suffer ill health through the bullying atmosphere at County Hall in Morpeth, the more local people will be let down by the interim model that Sanderson and Co. are now reliant on and the Blyth Relief Road scheme which includes the MP's Progression Road is caught in that process, mercenary officers who are in it for the cash-cow Glen Sanderson (I'LL CUT WAGES BY £1M BUT PAY MERCENARIES MORE) has created for them have set the agenda against the price and the people of Blyth will suffer for it.

What are the mercenaries offering you may ask?

Progression Road aka Laverock Hall Road is to become a dual carriageway and the South side of Blyth where the MP lives will be admirably aided.

The North side is to get a short piece of Road between Ogle Drive, Tynedale Drive and Chase Farm Drive without any cross Town links between Cowpen and Newsham!

It's a disaster in the making as traffic tries to cross Blyth to gain access to the dual carriageway and heavy goods vehicles are put onto West Court, Southend Avenue, Ogle Drive and Ford Drive whilst Cowpen Road will still be blocked.

Undeniably a Tory masterstroke, Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel couldn't ruin things in a better fashion.

 

Saving £1million to save face, shows how Tory Council Leader doesn't understand 'responsibility led national pay deals'

 

Reading the panic replies from Councillor Glen Sanderson, Tory Leader of the expensively broken and thoroughly divided Northumberland County Council following the local press revealing that he employs a dearth of officers who earn massively high wages, has us here at murky holding our hands over our mouths to stop the laughter, as we know he was unaware before the press pointed it out to him as its hard to read detailed papers when your driving your tractor.

He was of course one of those involved in wrecking the former Castle Morpeth Borough Council and his antics of farming first, £Billion County Council second  has led him into believing he will be able to cut his wages bill by £1million.

His use of his bragging rights to the press about slashing wages show how little he understands in regards to how local government and NHS single status and agenda for change pay and conditions work, as both sets of workers sit under the Council's banner. As a gentleman farmer why should he? as if he wants to cut his own wages bill he simply sacks enough people to lower his agri-bills and thinks nothing else of it!

In Local Government things are a bit different as his pay spine at the Council is defined by the responsibilities workers, staff and officers hold in their everyday jobs. Given the number of times his Council has lost tribunal cases through not understanding the needs of the core business of the Council, how it  runs and how responsibility levels work, or had to pay massive in cash terms gagging clauses to keep the Council out of court is probably one of the reasons his shambolic chaotic Council has not delivered best value to its residents in the last five years.

Luckily for the public a Government Commissioner is already writing a report about the antics of Councillor Sandersons Council and the way it wastes taxpayers money, as well as what's gone on over the last five years when the Council was being run from the 'dark side'. It's been said that the commissioner asked the Tory (groups) to rally under Councillor Sanderson and he was shocked that the voices sounded like braying donkeys, but that's how it is in a Council which masks everything from public view.

Just to sum up this little pointer towards how bad things have got, at the Council's March meeting it was revealed by a former top Tory Councillor who has been dropped off the extra payment list that they have spent £80million on beautifying County Hall in Morpeth, but when asked during the televised question time in April the deputy leader Councillor Wearmouth stated it was £11.4million. The job of modernisation is just entering its sixth year with multiple contractors bashing away day after day. So we here at murky know who we believe, the one who's been ditched by the piper payer's, that's who!

 

Ian Levy MP Blyth Valley, Thinking like a LibDem won't help your hometown.

 In the run up to the 2013 local government elections the then LibDem Leader of the County Council stunned his hometown of Blyth firstly with his refusal to kick-start a regeneration scheme much needed for Blyth's Town Centre, instead he chose to build a fish-pass at Hedgley burn in the North of the County with the cash and then by stating "Blyth is a Dump!" Following up his statement with "I always shop in Cramlington" as an excuse to leave Blyth in the condition it had fallen into through the damage of Thatcherism running down traditional industries then offshoring manufacturing leaving both women workers and men living on benefits or leaving home to find work elsewhere.

This week a similar smite on the Town of Blyth has been issued to those politicians and decision makers who can also release cash to help Blyth. The MP for Blyth Ian Levy MP who was embroiled in a was he or wasn't he argument over his past employment and who told Parliament he was 'Born in Blyth but made in the Royal Navy' told a committee that residents of the Town "progress to Cramlington!"

Here at the Murky we will not decry Cramlington, as to us this looks like a pitch to move his residency and his obvious shopping preference to compete with the weakening MP for Hexham, Guy Opperman or possibly against the darling of the breakaway Cramlington Group of County Councillors, Wayne Daley as the Boundary committee in its challenge to gift the Tories more seats in Parliament see Cramlington as an asset painted blue. 

In the Tories future plans It will be severed from its Blyth Valley home and be transported either to the new Tynedale Constituency (centred in Ponteland) or the new Seaton Delaval with Whitley Bay constituency in either scenario it become a minor player politically, but his leaning towards
joining Jeff Reid's thinking group will not endear him to people who aspire to improve his hometown whether he emigrates West to Cramlington or not.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/local-news/northumberland-council-boss-jeff-reid-1724562?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Local Government Commissioner’s Ideas Snubbed by Broken Tories at First Opportunity.

 Wednesday 30th March 2022 will go down in the diary of Max Caller the Local Government Commissioner brought in to look at the dysfunctionality of Northumberland County Council as a Black-Mark day.

Following the meeting of full council on that day it has been released on ‘broken Tory’ social media that he has asked all political groups including the Cramlington Conservative Splinter Group and the gone into hiding Morpeth Mafia along with the Independent Party and the Labour Opposition, to rally behind the socialite Farmer and Council Leader, all top show, once glamorous, Glen Sanderson and begin to move the Council forward. Were led to believe their answers sit in the unpublishable category.

The Council meeting was unusual for Northumberland in that at last after 14 years of Tory twistiness in planning and bullying galore of everyone linked or even close to the need for a planning document to be produced, the Tories unveiled their new ‘Local Plan’ to the public. 

The Tories have always been the predominant group on the production of a planning document including the production of a proper ’Core Strategy document which links all Council policies into one tomb to ensure the Council's strategy, Parish Council plans and the Government of the days planning policy is considered in any and all applications for change, but the disgraced Conservative Council Leader Peter Jackson had that document removed and a number of attempts to reinstate it blocked by dodgy legal advice in order to stop a Government Garden Village project from going ahead.

The new ‘Local Plan’ has some way to go yet and needs Cross Party support before being finally presented as being valid and consistent with local need.

It's been noted by observers that the Labour Party Leader, Councillor Scott Dickinson offered the services of his group to work on a cross party basis with the Tories and Independents to consider all of the elements of the new Local Plan document primarily for equality and equity in planning purposes. An offer that would have moved the Council a little away from its lack of functionality tag and brought the Local Plan into the light possibly helping shape the views of Mr Caller that the Council may sit apart politically but can work in harmony on subjects other than potholes and dog dirt.

Councillor Dickinson’s offer was snubbed completely leading other commentators on the subject to suspect that the dumping of house numbers into the South-East and Rural Coalfield areas of the County sit in the new plan whilst areas where homes are needed for local people to take up due to the second homes crisis and social housing is hidden out of site and will lack consideration in future.

Of course it may also be found that in order to support their plan the Council has built its annual stealth tax for social care into its base budget to raise even more income for their pre-election war chest next year that may be aided by developers through the hand in velvet glove politics played out on the planning stage.

Councillor Sanderson, a man who has made a good income from Local Government for over three decades much of which as a £350 a day ‘Peer’ for the Tory led Local Government Association’ as well as being a man who has been unable to convince others to rally under his banner, as being a Farmer he wouldn’t understand the plight of ordinary people and the burden of Council Tax, as Farmers are exempt from that tax and with the Tory Party in Northumberland being awash with Farmers including the last two leaders of Council, it proves that Conservative thinking in the County isn’t on the side of those suffering from national Tory policy.

 

 

Gung Ho Tories in Tyne and Wear Let Down by their Own Governments Actions

 

Tory confidence in Tyne and Wear heading up towards the Local Government elections has waned considerably yesterday as the announcements from their Chancellors Spring Budget sinks in.

 

Right across Tyne and Wear metropolitan council areas the Tory spin machines driven by top Tory strategist, Northumberland’s Councillor Richard Wearmouth have been working flat out to decry any failings caused by almost 12 years of Conservative austerity packages being rained down on North-East Councils as the fault of the Labour Party. Bullying, lying and rubbishing Labour Councillors as they try to trample their way towards victory in the forthcoming elections.

 

Their spin machines ground to an abrupt halt yesterday as the National Press even those most loyal to the Conservative Party shattered their dreams by coming out against the damaging effects of Rishi Sunaks budget which will be unbelievably damaging to people, communities and businesses across the whole of Tyne and Wear as the Government failed in the words of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to “Throw the poorest People a Lifeline”.

 

Yesterday, UK Media gave out clear information that the problems facing both poorer and middle class families in the North have not been caused by the war in Ukraine but by over a decade of mismanagement with living standards for over 75% of people in the North-East slipping back to 2008 levels by October 2022 and that with only £2Bn to spend on levelling up in comparison to the £45Bn promised to pay for research and development projects to ensure shareholder profits are retained by those investors its clear that it will take 20 years plus to get the problems of the North-East resolved. 

Mixed Messaging has left Blyth Valley ‘red wall’ voters adrift from their MP!

In his most recent press statement the Conservative MP for Blyth seems to have hammered the final nail into his coffin with the public of Blyth Valley many of whom have complained about his lack of effort inassisting them and his inability to respond to letters and messages sent into his office. 

 

With constituents left waiting for at least a response or recognition that their question or request has been seen by their MP, many have taken to social media to criticize his lack of action.

 

In this week's press statement he is advertising his party’s local by-election candidate, a former UKIP supporter in an article entitled ‘MP Column County’s response to war should come as no surprise’.

 

The link below shows where his interests lie and it's hard to really find his personal response to war in Europe or any link with the Camlington Group of Conservatives who used to support him to the bitter end. Now his name doesn’t seem to enter their communication vocabulary.

 

What's gone wrong? He may tell us in the future, but don’t hold your breath.

 

 

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/mp-column-countys-response-to-war-should-not-come-as-a-surprise-3615545

 

NCC Cycling and Walking Consultation ‘Are they starting in the wrong place?’

We have noticed in recent weeks whilst the Government is ramping up on blaming the war in Ukraine for the slashing of benefits, the forcing up of Council Tax and petrol prices, the three pronged new payments to ‘save the NHS’ the deliberate stripping of workers rights through the laziness or is that corrupt glance away from anything Trade Union linked, that Northumberland County Council has begun a consultation on ‘Cycling and Walking’.

 

Some may see this as good timing as oil based fuel is at an all time high through the Government's lack of a proper energy policy in case it affected shareholders profits, but others are highly critical on social media and more recently Councillors in the press, regarding the disproportionate amount of time roads are closed whilst considerations for cyclists and walkers are installed or created, damaging businesses and stifling trade possibly leading to a further rundown of our Town Centres, and we here at Murky believe they are right to criticise and point out that road closures to remove a few planters and create short time parking spaces in any other Town than Blyth around the Council would be fitted in during the evenings and Sundays and not take 48 weeks where shoppers can’t reach their destinations.

 

But enough of that and back to cycling and walking: The aim of the County Council through this consultation is to ‘Fundamentally change the way you travel’! Sounds great doesn’t it, or does it?

 

Don’t think by any means that we here at Murky are set against Cycling and Walking in any way at all but fundamental change sounds like a new set of restrictions of our freedoms and living under a Government where the majority of its residents and citizens are getting poorer through the Conservative Government's fundamental change of everything we hold dear, desire or dream of then this statement from a Conservative Council has to be a considerable worry to many.

 

This is what's being said:

 

Northumberland County Council wants to hear your views about the provision for cyclists and walkers.

 

They have just launched their Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans Consultation saying: 'This consultation seeks views on the councils plans to enhance the walking and cycling infrastructure in the county and the proposed walking and cycling networks for our 1 2 main towns (Alnwick, Amble, Ashington, Bedlington, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Blyth, Cramlington, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Morpeth, Ponteland, Prudhoe).

 

These plans represent the long-term blueprint of the proposed walking and cycling network for each town, which we'll use to target our investment to support a fundamental behaviour change to how we travel." "This consultation is the start of our conversation, we are seeking views on the principles we are following when designing these walking and cycling networks and the walking and cycling corridors that have been identified in the main towns.'

 

 The views collected through the consultation will help shape active

 travel in Northumberland over the next 10 years.

 This consultation will run from 7th March 2022 to 15th April 2022.

 The consultation can be accessed at:

 

 https://haveyoursay.northumberland.gov.uk/trans port/local-cycling

 -walking-infrastructure-plans/

 

The question that really matters is how will this affect other road users and bus services, also how will the Council support the safety of pedestrians in shared space, remembering the cyclist is now protected through the highway code when they share space with cars, and rightly so!

 

It's our belief that the Council should begin with a consultation on the safety of pedestrians and although many of them supported the failed Brexit should join in with our near neighbours on the continent and promote to Government the legalisation of section 66 of the highway code as its currently only a recommendation.

 

Rule 66 of the Highway Code states “Let them know you are there when necessary, for example, by ringing your bell if you have one.

 

A motion via the Council to Government to legislate for pedestrian safety through at least cycles having bell's and lights fitted would be a start to safeguard pedestrians as they will be well and truly endangered through the 'let's find something to spend our massive borrowing requirement on from this totally dysfunctional Conservative Council and that's before businesses suffer potential closure whist this process closes road after road for as many weeks as those currently closed in the Town of Blyth.

 

On a footnote, we at Murky expect that the Leader of Council ditches his luxury Range Rover and cycles down from his Country Estate into Morpeth for all future meetings of Council to encourage his potential Fundamental Change!