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.