Labour Leader asks where Northumberland Conservatives wasted Cowpen Road Bypass Cash?

 A  silly Tory style spin attack from the Deputy Leader of Northumberland County Council, regional top Tory Councillor Richard Wearmouth has led Labour Group Leader Councillor Scott Dickinson to ask ‘where have the Tories  spent or hidden the cash set aside for this project’

Following Councillor Wearmouths outburst, Labour leader Coun Scott Dickinson hit back at Coun Wearmouth's comments:

He said: "The Labour Party had a feasibility study and a route identified in 2017 and the money allocated in the budget. The Conservatives halted it and dithered and delayed to what is now a crisis point for the people of Blyth”.

“It is impossible to get in and out of Blyth. It is all about the last six years. They have dithered and delayed and done nothing and they let builders develop homes over the route of the relief road due to their incompetence.”

“It just keeps getting pushed back. If they had followed the Labour plan it would have been built”

The ‘New’ Northumberland Council  was reborn as a unitary Council from seven former district councils and a traditional county council in 2009 yet Councillor Wearmouth stated that the Labour Party were to blame for the lack of progression on this project. Councillor Dickinson reminded him that the Conservatives under his stewardship had been in power for longer than Labour in the 'new' Unitary County Council set up.

Councillor Dickinson also said: “Northumberland Conservatives announced they would be borrowing £304Million to take their borrowing well over £1Billion in their recent budget statement. Some of this borrowing should be used to replace the missing money for this project in Labour’s 2017 budget and Blyth relief road and its cross town roads built immediately. But this mustn't be a pet project for the Conservatives and their spend, spend, spend on pet projects attitude has Northumberland’s debt spiraling out of control and we can’t really see what it's being spent on.”