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.