Blyth to receive half of promised funding to rebuild a decade of Tory destruction on their high street!

Austerity, is a Tory Government enforced program of huge cutbacks to Council budgets. This has led to the lack of local investment into high street improvements, a problem which has been massively exacerbated over the last four years as Euro funding to deprived areas disappeared following the Brexit vote. That disappearance led the current Government to promise reasonable investment levels into East coast high streets taking the data found in the Marmot Report into deprivation levels nationally.

Austerity which drove down prosperity in already deprived areas allowed absentee investors to scoop up commercial property on deprived high streets particularly in seaside towns for a song. Damaging new businesses from chancing startups as Commercial property rents rose to a new unaffordable level and were left empty to blight high streets further.

Following the 2019 General Election where the Tories gained numerous seats from Labour in areas known as the ‘red wall’, Blyth Valley was one of those seats and the funding mechanism spun towards protecting the new Tory MP’s in red wall constituencies. 

The slow handling of this funding through the pandemic lockdowns allowed the Sun newspaper to get off the stocks and survey its readers in the red wall seats one year on. They found that 36 of the 45 red wall conservative seats would immediately return to Labour hands.

 

The cash stream, the Future High Streets fund brought out both Government and Tory Councillors spin doctor teams over the last year, stating the huge amounts they were expecting to receive for their townships with Northumberland boasting about a £25M grant and labeling it as a marvelous kickstart to the £45M the Town Forum needs to bring about outstanding change to the Town of Blyth. The Tory led County Council hired a team of planning consultants to help spend the expected wealth.

 

On Xmas Day 2020, the Homes and Communities agency announced the winners of its Future High Street Fund and in their gift box giveaway Blyth will receive less than half the spun out amount. The Tories scrooges have cut the promises down to £11,121,059 an amount too small for the County Council to bridge the gap. Cash wise, Northumberland County Council have slipped into dire straits through the serious politicised handling of finance under their charge. In the last almost four years they have not had their accounts pass the test of delivering best value to the public by their external auditors and are currently embroiled in a series of investigations into among other matters corruption. Lets see what spin the current crop of Tories put on this derisory amount which certainly reflects their lack of belief that Blyth Valley or Northumberland will remain in Tory hands after the forthcoming local and the next general elections.

Oh! lifes so simple, all Jags and Wardrobes until the officers began fighting back?

Ten days ago rumours began to abound in our office that even after the great shakeup at the expensive to keep Morpeth County Hall things were still not moving forward and that great battles were going on in the civil war within Northumberland Conservatives with the bullying of staff at an all time high as the blue Knights charged forward only to be hacked down by the dogs of war now in charge at Morpeth.

Unfortunately for the dogs they have very little etiquette and most have a history of not being nice even to members of their own team. So toning down the similies a little ‘the scrum is a nasty place to be’.

Several months ago the nastiness of the current crop of right -wingers at County Hall was brought out into the open in leaked emails which exposed the working conditions of staff and the misdemeanours and horror stories surrounding the Councils company ADVANCE Northumberland.

Some of the rumours a list of which looked like the cover of a Fleetwood Mac album sleeve were clarified and personified through a statement recorded by the local democracy reporter for the area who quoted the Chief Executive of Northumberland County Council and single shareholder representative for the Council of ADVANCE Northumberland, at the Councils Audit Committee, Mrs Dajit Lally said “As shareholder representative. I have expressed some fairly serious concerns about the issues surrounding ADVANCE Northumberland currently. I have put into the work programme a report, likely to come in February, about a number of those issues, so it was just to give the committee assurance that we are looking at these issues and reporting on them.”

So the fightback on behalf of seriously bullied officers has begun against the alleged corrupt Tory regime and its arms length company and our rumour miller on the ground thought that on hearing this statement Councillor Nick Oliver looked as if he was going to be sick!

But back to the tale: Councillor Richard Wearmouth is the Chairman of ADVANCE Northumberland and he thinks he is above all when it comes to politics. He is under immense pressure following this revolt by officers and looking at the Fleetwood Mac list we would like to know if its the ‘Chain’ of that office or the ‘Dreams’ of how to avoid the legal proceedings expected to come following release of Mrs Lally’s report but we have heard he is going to ‘Go my own way’ and have a run at becoming the Mayor of North Tyneside on behalf of the Tories at the May election and complete with Jag and Wardrobe will then live happily ever after near the banks of the Tyne.

Even with the poor reputations held by both Tynemouth and North Tyneside Tories they wouldn’t want to consider him as their candidate unless it's already cut and dried or is it just him saying ‘I’m never going back again’ once the lawyers get on his tail?

 

British Volt used as spin following Suns first research on Red Wall Constituencies

 

 

It's interesting that Boris Johnson turned up in Blyth to help the local MP Ian Levy announce a factory for the production of batteries proposed to be built in the constituency next door, Wansbeck, where Ian Lavery is the sitting MP.

We nutters believe that this had to be in response to the Sun Newspapers fist annual poll in the ‘Red Wall’ seats lost by Labour to the Tories in 2019. This first poll among their readers came up with the unsurprising conclusion that at this very early stage of the Boris Johnson parliamentary administration 36 of the 45 seats which changed hands would return into Labours hands today and that includes the constituency of Blyth Valley which slipped over to the Tories on the retirement of Ronnie Campbell the long serving Labour Party stalwart.

The reason we believe that spin is all this is from the Tories driven by its policy makers at Northumberland County Council who have been accused of all sorts of corrupt and vile acts in leaked emails is that the BBC in Wales exposed this company and the charlatans who make up the board of the company during July 2020 when they were courting the Welsh Assembly for the cash to develop their plant in the principality.     https://the-eye.wales/flat-battery/

Locally we hear that this organisation, one of whom is a Swedish national registered as living in Saudi Arabia, needs millions gifted to them in order to float a share package to raise the remainder of the £1.2Bn needed to service this project. Unlike Wales Northumberland does not have a regional development agency to fork out this kind of Government cash and its Local Enterprise Partnership is not the vehicle which can support that kind of spend. So we need to ask, is it utter spin to keep some kind of Tory vote in Blyth Valley or has the new Cabinet Member for all things green has made her first grave error in guiding her boss BJ into the hands of this organisation?

Investigations, netting in the small fish first?

Investigations into the activities of ADVANCE Northumberland and the Tory led County Council have taken a number of twists and turns.

The investigators appear to have left no stone unturned with rumours that community spend is now a strand that's being looked at forensically by at least one of the teams involved in the inquiries.

It seems that looking after your pals has become a little common place and have those pals followed the rules regarding spend? If the tab packet list we have seen is anything to go by then the pals seem to have ‘lost their way a little’ in the use of the cash and the County Council Tories are now desperate to get it back before the iron doors clash behind them and their relatives forget who they are

One of the smaller amounts to be handed over, but possibly one of the most interesting, this one through the County Councils Community Chest gifting program was a £5000 award to Loobiggin by the Sea Town Council.

Allegedly it hasn’t been spent on the work it was supplied for and under the rules of the ‘Chest’ must be paid back. We hear that the request for payback has been lodged but has not yet appeared on anyone’s desk at County Hall.

The fear from residents who are aware of this matter is that it has been put into the ‘buy a bog’ fund set up by the Tories at Loobiggin Town Council to purchase and modernise a redundant and costly to refurbish blot on the landscape near to the Cresswell Arms in this wonderful seaside village.

The Town Council have proposed to buy the loos at great expense to their precept from their fellow Tory led County Council in a capital asset venture. Local people are incensed at the planned purchase of what was labelled as a health hazard. It has now developed into a neighbourhood territorial dispute between the Town Council and residents who don’t want a rise in their precept to support a second class facility.

Locals and regular visitors to the Town are so upset about the antics of the Town Council they have launched a petition to try to halt the purchase the link sits below.

https://online.northumberland.gov.uk/citizenportal/form.aspx?form=epetition_signature&txt_petitiontitle=To+stop+the+asset+transfer+of+derelict+toilets+to+Newbiggin+Town+Council

No Cash Only Tory Spin on AB&T Line

Councillor Dungworth was right:

This week as we predicted Cllr, Wearmouth ran out another spin story on the reopening of the AB&T (Northumberland Line) announcing that the Government haven’t offered any cash to support one of his top boring spin items, a piece of spin he has run regularly since May 2017.

The public of Northumberland are beginning to notice that Councillor Wearmouth hasn’t delivered on any promise made by his Party prior to the 2017 local government elections and that he being the Chairman of Advance Northumberland is central to the investigations by a number of agencies including the Police into allegations of bullying, corruption, racism, his organisation Advance Northumberland being unable to follow an instruction from a top council officer that cost the Council £millions and dodgy land dealings.

Councillor Susan Dungworth the Leader of Northumberland Labour Group was right to point out that it was her Groups efforts that has brought the line closer to reality, the item below is from this weeks Northumberland weekly newspapers:

Labour group on Northumberland County Council, which was in power from 2013 to 2017, has claimed its efforts ‘got the rail project to where it is now’.

Group leader, Cllr Susan Dungworth, said: “Infrastructure projects like this take a long time to complete and most of the leg work on this project was done when Labour was in power in Northumberland.

“The Labour-run council invested money, time and expertise getting the project to the point of becoming a reality.”

Cllr Dungworth is completely correct as the Council under Labours control with the work being coordinated by Councillors Elizabeth Simpson and Scott Dickinson as Labours business chairpersons instigated the GRIP studies which are essential to the reopening of any rail line. That essential process once kickstarted could not be stopped by the Tories and the Wearmouth team has simply sat back,  and accepted any plaudits from their spin.

The reopening of this line is in the regional transport plans and is fully supported by the Labour Mayor of the Combined Authority North of Tyne, Jamie Driscoll.  Its on its final stretch and Mayor Driscoll will deliver on it even when Tory Councillors at County Hall in Morpeth are sitting behind bars following the outcome of the current high level investigations.

What is a Blyth Valley Conservative?

 The dictionary tells us that a ‘Conservative is a person who is averse to change and holds traditional values’.

First of all lets look at averse to change.: Ian Levy MP for Blyth Valley took the conservative whip and voted to let striving families in Blyth Valley who’s children are eligible for free school meals struggle to feed themselves and their children during school holiday periods.

The Cramlington Conservatives who did all the work for him to get elected in Blyth Valley, told him he was wrong and spent Parish funds feeding children in their Town. His averse to change attitude didn’t alter and after his mates at the County Council were accused of corruption he deserted the Cramlington Conservatives and landed on the losing side of Northumberland Conservatives that of the accused Cllr Jackson and his Castle Morpeth Mob.

The other two Conservative MP’s in the County were wise enough to stay away from Jackson and bite their lips, Ian Levy wasn’t and he upset his constituents into the bargain.

And he has also been silly enough not to apologise to all when his National Leader capitulated on the matter. Tut Tut silly billy!

Secondly he holds traditional values: They must include if you upset me ‘I’ll get my Mam to tell your Mam’ in infants school that’s usually a pre-cursor for being a bully boy in their teens and when reading a response from Ian Levy’s brother on the web recently he must have been a strange teenager indeed.

But its his continual ‘nasty party’ little man tricks that infuriate most people.

He had a little political spat with a constituent over his views on free school meals saga and in frustration the constituent called him names. 

Nothing at all to do with his spat, the constituents mother contacted her MP, Ian Levy on a matter and he told the mother about the sons comment: Its expected that the Data Commissioner has been contacted about this breach of confidentiality from a sitting MP.

 

We nutters have displayed some of the free to air information from facebook to illustrate the type of issues covered, names have been missed off to protect the innocent.

Morpeth County Hall Civil War

 

‘Loobiggin’ by the Sea Tories vote YES! to ‘spend another penny’

This weeks meeting of Newbiggin by the Sea Town Council was as we expected, very damaging to the pockets of its residents as Alan Thompsons Tory Group voted to purchase the Cresswell Arms redundant public convenience to refurbish and reopen it in the near future.

Like Tories everywhere they haven’t noticed the damage that’s been done to family incomes by his Governments handling of the pandemic and the anomalies of the furlough scheme denying access to reasonable levels of safety net funding for both sole traders and the self employed and Newbiggin is home to many. That’s on top of the Town having the highest rate of child poverty in the vast county of Northumberland due to long term unemployment through the failure to regenerate the area by the Tories who have sat in power at Westminster for the last decade.

Yet here we have a decision taken by the few that will definitely damage the pockets of the many in Newbiggin for years to come. Next May’s Town Council elections can’t come soon enough for those affected by this decision.

Boris addresses Northern Tory MP s

 

Catching the Tide or is it the Conservatives?

 Were ever so grateful to local anglers from the pans who took this wonderful shot of a ship lying off our coast.

It appears to be carrying the new Conservative Ian Levy Marketplace on its overflowing decks but looking at the photo, just like County Hall in Morpeth the ‘Units’ as posh Tories are calling them may require a ‘lick of paint’.

The Conservatives plans for the coastal town of Blyth appear to be based on a questionable (by the Parliamentary cross party Public Accounts Committee) doling out of £25M grants to towns linked to new incumbent MP’s into Parliament during the 2019 General Election, Ian Levy being one of those!

The spend we suspect will be steered through the dodgy Advance Northumberland seems to be in two parts designed to lower the expectations of residents into what is forecast to arrive from Conservatism.

1) a scheme to allow short term car parking in Bowes Street in the Town which the local town council offered to pay for two years ago but were knocked back by the Tories.

2) the scheme that their supporters have been running out for over a year on social media, the dumping of old shipping containers on the Market Place to create the Conservative Car Boot Sale complete with speakers playing the barking of scrapyard dogs while you enjoy your perusal of the junk on offer.

This project is specially designed to bring Blyth in line with the two ‘Whole’ Towns adjoining them geographically, Bedlington and Ashington. As the Conservatives would hate those areas to think Blyth people have gained some sort of advantage over them for bothering to vote in a Tory MP.

The Tories have now been in charge of your Council for the last three and a half years and have achieved for Blyth Valley exactly what they have achieved for the County as a whole, an increase in poverty, along with a magnanimous offer of a £47m cut to ensure we suffer more job losses, decline and misery to the level of them being accused of corruption by top Council Officers.

Spending £100m of rural roads and £80m on a ‘Lick of Paint’ on Morpeth County Hall with three nowts for Ashington, Bedlington and Blyth as the funding they are crowing about isn't in the pockets of Advance Northumberland yet; Parliament whether they run it or not may stop it in its tracks.

 

Nutter exclusive update Alan Thompson joins the Tory Party

 

County Council to call time on ‘Stinking Hellhole’ in Newbiggin by the Sea

Its been well reported on social media that Northumberland County Council has written to Newbiggin by the Sea Town Council to inform them that their stall on the demolition of the well commented on ‘stinking hellhole’ bus terminus WC’s must stop now, demanding unless they wish to have the building gifted to them (probably along with the public health complaints and fines that will follow), demolition will be undertaken on this redundant and failing building within the next few weeks.

The Town Council has placed the matter on its agenda for next weeks meeting and their history shows that their ambition is to have more public conveniences in the Town than anywhere else in the UK. Their political leader LibDem Alan Thompson has tried on umpteen occasions to become the person who will defy the NHS and halt advice on bladder tone and the need for both sexes to work on their pelvic floor exercises by trying to place public loos all over this very small Town.

His ambition seems to be magnified by the Newbiggin by the Sea Development Trust who seem to have agreed with him, as under the control of failed politician Hilton Dawson are pressing for an agreement with the nasty party Tories at County Hall to have permission for new superloos with showers near the towns bowling green for campers and tourists they hope to attract to the Town before they bother to tell the neighbours of their devious plans. Its said that the Development Trust have the odd bod Councillor Richard Wearmouth the Chairman of dodgy Advance Northumberland hand in velvet glove with them on this project.

But we have to agree with a now aging facebook comment when the Town Council were refused permission to develop a loo right next door to a carry out restaurant in the Town, its time Thomson campaigned to change the Towns name yet again to Loobiggin by the Sea!