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.

Britcard and Children’s online safety is changing the way people think about Labour

Since May 2024 the nation have derided most policies issued by the Labour Government. Why? Because their communication spin is pathetically benign, old fashioned and no time is given for absorption through dissipation among all sectors of society before the cutlasses of the online hussars are allowed to hack the items to death.

Two recent possible changes and a closed session meeting with online experts seem to be making the change Labour needs as its comms team have been left behind as these issues have been brought forward early through other media methods.

The first swerve away from Lab-comms, Britcard, has crept in from the government online e-business sector and has grown in popularity with most sectors of the public as reports that small boat crossings have crept up to an all time high. The French Government has pointed out that the huge increase in crossings is because migrants know that it’s easier to work in the UK illegally than in any other Euro country as no mandatory Identification system has existed since 1952.

The old arguments against mandatory ID cards have been nullified as the heavy use of polling to harvest the feelings of various age groups has eased the policy in with the knowledge that pensioners who almost have an id scheme in place through the national bus pass scheme the security that a new mandatory ID system would bring them for example in assisting the elderly to identify tradespeople who are engaged to work in their home would appear to be exceptionally comforting is the polls on this matter are correct.

Greece are using their ID card system to stop the huge number of migrants from Libya and the UK can follow their lead.

Younger people have engaged as they can see the advantages an ID system can bring them with safe e-access to everything they may need including e-signatures, with firms getting immediate access to whether recruits have the right to work in the UK or not e.g. students outstaying their visa entitlements being a prime example of how a mandatory system can be used to benefit younger service users.

The second issue lies in the description of government led initiatives and how workers and the elderly recognise them as being safe and sound to use. A prime example is the roll out of Family Start it doesn’t gel.

But as we all know it’s historical predecessor Sure Start was a winner with families before being killed off by the Tories.

Labour should get back to the future and revive the success story and family acceptance of Sure Start and bring in an advertising firm to sell one of the UK’s best services to the nation and kickstart round 2.

Instead they ran out a great initiative to safeguard children online and had an immediate visit from the jackbooted hussars including their Leader who is set against the matter in principle and the poor comms initiative allowed it to be dashed against the rocks before ordinary folk understood what was going on.

The third move forward is to organise a meeting between party leaders and the nations e- elite who can sell the changes required by the Nation via their well formed algorithms to us all at a rate and pace so we can understand the why’s and wherefore’s of policy and not be distracted by Lab-comms stickers and the hussars cutlasses clanking right across the governments turf.

South-East Northumberland Cinema Overload, Who will blink first?

Obsessive social media users may have noticed that this year's prize for the ugliest new build in the UK is leaning fairly and squarely towards Glen Sanderson’ the Tory Leader of Northumberland County Council’s ‘cinema and conservative culture centre smack bang in the middle of the Counties largest town, Blyth.

It featured in a recent article in the SUN newspaper blaming Labour for the state of the Town, missing out the fact that the decision making at County Hall has been orchestrated by the Tories since 2017 with the SUN backing a shift to REFORM whose recent articles on social media seem to lean towards a liking for the ‘brick cree’ as its becoming referred to yet Blyth residents appear to abhor its existence.

But today we need to shift the argument away from politics towards the poorly managed business model being chosen to be delivered to South East Northumberlands residents by Tories at County Hall.

Cinemas are in decline worldwide. This decline is attributed to several factors, including the rise of streaming services, economic challenges, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet even after this decline was well and truly documented Northumberland Tories chose the option to build two new cinemas in addition to the well established Vue cinema in Cramlington, one in Blyth and one in Ashington.

It's the economic challenge which interests us at SEN as the cinema running costs will fall fairly and squarely onto the very tightly squeezed (through the Tories massive borrowing costs) finances, as your Council Tax will be exposed to the cost of these new cinemas if they can’t wipe their nose, these are costs which should not sit on your shoulders.

The competition is immense in the cinema world and pressure from entertainment facilities across the Tyne and Wear conurbation have just opened up to easy access to SEN residents with the reopening of the Northumberland Line to passenger transport.

Residents need to keep up the pressure on South East Northumberland’s new County Councillors to ensure the costs of these facilities don’t sit as a burden on your household bill for years to come as at least one of these sites will be in financial trouble once the novelty of a new cinema in your Town has worn off.