Town Markets and Food Halls on the up Where is Blyth Town Council on growth for Blyth?

 

Northumberland’s largest Town with a REFORM UK led Council appears to local social media commentators to have ignored the needs of residents.

Blyth is not only the largest town in the County of Northumberland its also the poorest, a fact that was never ignored by this Council’s predecessor Blyth Valley Council who ensured the essential needs for the community market were always met with its market full of traders at least three days each and every week.

The BBC recently reported on the recent growth in this sector as Unitary Councils press businesses to pay ever increasing rates on their bricks and mortar high street shops. Market stalls and multi-vendor food halls are proliferating across the UK as rising business rates and high costs pressures bite. Pushing traders to move to markets and away from traditional high-street retail ahead of 2026 revaluations. This shift represents a move toward lower-cost, flexible, and high-footfall alternatives for businesses struggling with increased overheads

The FT as well as the BBC has reported growth in the sector at 26% in February 2026 rising rapidly to 31% in March 26. Councils are also seeing shops returning to high streets where footfall has increased through better markets with all current retail staying put in many of those same towns as they enjoy similar footfall growth and stronger passing trade.

Where is Blyth Town Council on this?

It appears Northumberland County Council, the current market managers where most of Blyth Town Councillors are also members have outsourced its market management to a once a fortnight Craft Market run by a company ‘wavelength’NE. 

It's being said by locals that to get a stall in Blyth your business must engage with wavelength NE. Wavelength appears to have set up an exciting market for early June in Cramlington Northumberland but in Blyth they may need to seek help from the Town Council to attract the stalls Blyth folk want and need.

Many Blyth commentators believe that REFORM UK Blyth branch are up to help the market and partner with the current organiser as they have been photographed as a group of politicians at Amble Market, one of the county's most successful ventures. They have also commented on social media that they have asked stallholders about coming to Blyth.

It appears that the new market place, now built on by Northumberland Conservatives does not pass the weight test for market traders to park their vehicles near the stalls and many fear they will have to hire porters to bring stock to the stalls which would be a huge drain on their profits. Blyth Town and County Councillors from REFORM UK and the Conservatives could iron out those problems and improve the retail off for the whole of the largest Town in Northumberland.

Blyth Reform’s hack back on shared streetcare services Solingen Estate suffers the pain

County Councillor Natalie Rolls represents Wensleydale Ward

 Blyth Town Council, a Reform run local authority, has decided to cut back on its partnership with Northumberland County Council for streetcare services.

It may be a money saving exercise by Farage’s right wing gang in the Town but those who voted them into office are livid with the state of grass-cutting, a streetcare service that is one of the first to be cut back.

Prior to the May 2025 Town Council election, Blyth Reform Candidates made public complaints almost every day about the enhanced grass cutting services especially on Solingen Estate in the south of Blyth town.

Blyth is Northumberland’s largest Town and this complete destruction of a partnership locked in place since 2009 and bringing vast improvements to the service delivery right across the town has now spiralled into a chaotic mess and the Reform Councillors who have been taking photos of themselves replacing street cleansing operatives picking up litter don’t appear to be able to get improvements to services they have stopped paying for.

If this is meant to be a REFORMED way to deliver services they haven’t taken Blyth’s residents along with them.

Town, Parish and Community Councils Offer Great Value for Money.

 

Across Northumberland where the all purpose unitary County Council has been labeled by Local Government Experts as ‘dysfunctional’, is dogged with a Council housing crisis, admits its recent budget process was flawed three weeks after pushing it through, expecting another huge overspend on social services and children's services including education as its short of 12,000 pupils in its schools has decided to run a review into how Town, Parish and Community Councils are run.

The scope of the review is laid out on its website as: We are inviting you to take part in a county-wide Community Governance Review. The purpose of the Review is to enable ‘the Council’ to consider what changes are needed to our parish electoral arrangements. All residents have been sent a leaflet along with their Council Tax papers inviting them to take part in this review.

In support of Town, Parish and Community Councils we need to ask the question of why should a County Council that hasn’t delivered ‘Best Value’ in a local government sense since 2017 offer to be judge and jury over a series of democratically elected local councils who deliver services they can’t and won’t as their prime function at creation in 2009 of ‘all purpose’ unitary council are not a set of functions they can deliver on.

Looking at Northumberland’s largest Town Council as a base measure, for on or around £2;25 per week (depending on your council tax band) they deliver an enormous amount of value for money services that the County Council can no longer deliver due to cost pressures from failing services plus regular public events such as the Town Fair, very popular Music Festival, xmas lights, Blyth in bloom, floral breaks on public open space across the town and other events for children and families during out of term time, as well as supporting community groups survive cuts imposed by County Council budgets including Blyth’s very necessary food bank.

Some Town, Community and Parish Councils keep the area's history alive, Berwick's world famous ‘Riding the Bounds’ celebration has become a huge tourist draw for it and surrounding parishes. Along with other services, they also assist with the ‘Berwick Hoppa’ bus service to help ease parking problems across the Town at peak periods, dealing with matters locally and not relying on a distant County Council very much at all.

Some parishes may need to rethink and enlarge to soak up more public services ensuring equity across the geographically large and predominantly rural county that is Northumberland, numerous small ancient parishes do not have any volunteer councillor members nor parish clerks and a number feels pressurised by the successful parish along the road leaving community activists in limbo on how to alter to attain similar levels of services for their locale or communities.

So, to ensure your area gets the ‘best deal’ out of this review ensure you complete the survey, encourage your neighbours to do the same and in areas where parishes aren't working offer change that your community can line up with and don't let the supposedly Unitary all purpose council deliver its wants and needs to prop up other communities and not yours.

Councils | Northumberland Association of Local Councils https://share.google/Ua7r7nwXNIJA5v8F6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=terUy6tbPHY

https://www.blythtowncouncil.gov.uk/services

https://www.berwick-tc.gov.uk/local-services

After eight years of false promises its time Northumberland County Council planners began to develop their ‘night time economy improvements in Blyth’.

 The turmoil caused by so many false starts in improving the lot of businesses in Blyth Town Centre is being attacked on social media by residents of Cowpen and commented on with fear from residents of Blyth’s beach area.

 This latest debacle has been caused through McDonalds restaurant making an application to the County Planning department to extend its opening hours at its Cowpen Road franchise. This fast food depot has plagued folk living in this residential area with late evening trade blighting homes with noise from revving service users' vehicles, headlights shining directly into some local people's homes and revelry seemingly unending.

     

Since Covid the enormous growth of home delivery has also been a cause for concern by residents as delivery drivers race away from site to ensure food is delivered hot to their customers.

    

 In the knowledge that any objection to this planning application may be a catalyst for McDonalds to take a view on re-siting, homeowners in the Blyth Beach area of the Town have taken to social media to ensure that County Hall planners don’t deliver  those changes anywhere near their homes as the business growth in that area would look quite inviting to McDonalds investors.

   

People from both residential areas believe its time the Blyth Town Team led by Alan Ferguson OBE and Cllr. Richard Wearmouth began to deliver on their long promised improvements to Blyth Town Centres local and in particular night time economy.

    

 Developing a new fast food range of restaurants including a drive through McDonald's restaurant in the Town Centre would ensure evening trade growth in an area almost completely made up of commerce with great car parking access enhancing other surviving businesses who may also wish to open later at weekends to bring new life into a town that's suffered more than most.

    

 Think again Northumberland before blighting areas that aren’t able to take any more commercial abuse.

Between 2010 and 2023, the Conservative Government cut funding to Northumberland by £130.18m in real terms. Sanderson’s Tory’s in Denial.

 

Blyth and Ashington MP Ian Lavery told the press: “For months now Tories in the council have been scaremongering suggesting that the government were taking finances away from our county.

“Today’s Local Government settlement proves that this was always nonsense. A nonsense peddled by those who have slashed services and diverted resources from communities who needed them.

“Whilst we have a long way to go to reverse the damage done to our communities from nearly a decade and a half of Tory misrule, this is a welcome start. Northumberland has unique challenges with a blend of rurality and hardship, making delivering services expensive and complex.

“I am very happy to see deprivation put back at the heart of the funding formula and to see the council getting a significant uplift in finances from the Government. We now need a commitment that the funding we receive is properly allocated.
“The funding injection is aimed at restoring pride and opportunity in places that have been left behind, to get back what has been lost. Councils will have more resources available to bring back libraries, youth services, clean streets, and community hubs.
“With the uplift in financing driven by deprivation in South East Northumberland, and our communities having suffered most from a decade and a half of austerity we need to see a huge chunk of the additional funds spent here.”

Will Northumberland County Council be ready to respond to Housing Call in February 2026?

 

Cramlington ripe for hundreds of new urgently needed new Council Homes :

With Labour ready to urgently turn back time to develop new Council homes the public, including the 4000 families County-wide who want to move into social housing within the County they grew up in want to know if Northumberland has its plans ready for the UK call up in February 2026.

Northumberland’s public knows that the Mayor for the North-east, Kim McGuinness whose offices the funding will flow through, is ready to ensure the North-east begins to reap the benefits of the biggest opportunity to house those in greatest need Britain has seen since the late 1940’s and early 50’s. But the general public with family or relatives in need living in the second largest population area in the North-east, Northumberland are really concerned that Northumberland’s Unitary all purpose County Council isn’t up to the job, as they are stuck fast to a policy of AFFORDABLE HOMES only and the Conservatives in charge at County Hall have stuck like superglue to that policy since May 2017.

Our group research across the North-east reveals that the average cost for an affordable home currently sits at £215,000 even if prospective buyers are able to raise the deposit, payments on a twenty five year mortgage would currently exceed £1,100 roughly the cost of renting a three bedroom home in the private sector yet without the aid of housing benefits to help those in need; proving Council Housing is really where the investment should be made.

If pressure from Government is brought to Northumberland’s doorstep to bring forward their plans to utilise this cash bonus correctly will they agree to ditch some of their outdated ideas to ensure that Homes for Northumberland means what it say's on the tin?

Were extremely doubtful that the rigid Tory spines at County Hall will bend at all even though without those homes many of which should be sited in Cramlington the Tories may be stripped of their iron grip on the Town.

The Mayor for the North-east Kim McGuinness is attempting to encourage members of the combined authority under her care to be ready to submit their plans for growth and has gone public to ensure this essential mater receives the most open public debate.

The Government have lined up a spectacular offer for Councils as follows:

Government Approach to Social Housing Growth

The government, under the Labour administration since July 2024, has committed to the "biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation". Key aspects of their strategy for growth includes:

• Long-term Investment Programme: A landmark £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) 2026-2036 aims to deliver around 300,000 new social and affordable homes over the next decade. At least 60% of these will be for social rent. The government is opening for bids for the program in February 2026.

• National Housing Bank and Funding: The government is making £2.5 billion of low-interest loans available to support new building, alongside the establishment of a new National Housing Bank as a public financial institution to provide long-term finance.

• Right to Buy Reforms: Reforms to the Right to Buy scheme are intended to protect existing social housing stock by reducing discounts and ensuring targets are met for replacement homes, thereby safeguarding the long-term future of social housing.

• Planning and New Towns: The Housing Minister oversees a new Towns Unit in a delivery partnership with Homes England to spearhead discussions on building new communities and accelerating development through pro-growth planning changes.

• Regulatory Reform: The government is focused on improving the quality and safety of existing social housing, including modernising the Decent Homes Standard and introducing Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards. New competence and conduct standards for housing professionals are also being implemented. 

Minister Pennycook has stated that these reforms and investment plans place social housing "at the centre of solving the housing crisis" and provide the sector with "clarity and certainty that will be the foundation for the next decade of delivery"

Lets hope the need to engage in this initiative gets debated in pubs and clubs across the County of Northumberland and pressure can be brought to bear over the next four months on the secret cabinet and its leader ASAP.

NOTES:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/labour-social-housing-north-east-32827106

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-a-decade-of-renewal-for-social-and-affordable-housing/delivering-a-decade-of-renewal-for-social-and-affordable-housing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3z24k05djo

North-east women show sexist Reformers where to get off?

 

Last week's racist march and the anti racist march in Newcastle upon Tyne brought out the long history of the North-east’s maternal society.

History shows that women right across the region had to manage their families while their partners struggled to bring home the bacon. Those women ruled so strongly and managed so well as to be admired by others.

Today, many North-east women realise how anti-women and sexist REFORM leaders have become and last week's anti-racist march was filled with those women who recall or are still part of the local maternal society showing us all why REFORM is not of any benefit to our families our history and our culture right across the North-east.