Councillor Robinson - Updates!

Malcolm Robinson · April 5, 2018

Once again it seems I am to blame for all the woes in the world, well according to the Bedlington Labour page that is! I must be doing something right and they can’t have that or people might actually see they don’t need to vote for a political party, just someone who tries to get the job done for them!

Anyway on with my retort.

I have been accused of selling out my Town and its residents by the Labour Leader at a full council meeting, because I was conned by the Tories, as seen on the video! That incensed me to shout out asking where the evidence to his claims could be found. The answer…..”They are there.”

Well Councillor Davey I have looked and looked for them but I’m afraid I haven’t found them, but I did find a smoking gun. In other words what I did find was extremely revealing.

Claims of a £12M redevelopment budget for Bedlington Town Centre don’t seem to stack up when I have finally looked through his medium term budget, even the now revised figure of £10M doesn’t! And just to check, if everyone who reads this can look and maybe point out to me the Bedlington Town Centre project costings in the attached pictures of that budget I would be indebted and fully retract my statements and offer unreserved apologies. If it can’t be found then it may follow I deserve an apology! (It is clearly visible in the current newly agreed budget.)

GD1

GD2

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GD4

I can see two Bedlington references, one to Dr Pit Park the other to the 3G pitch at the high school, certainly none for £12M.

So before we get carried away and no doubt claim that the £12M proposal is somehow off the books………do we really want to go down that road because ‘that way madness lies’……

Looking a bit further into this vast tome of business acumen I find further evidence to back my electoral claims up. I said the Chief executive of Arch is on record as saying he wanted Arch to be a £1B company over the next couple of years. NCC were already heading towards a debt level of another £1B and were seeking to double that. I further stated I wasn’t willing to be the guarantor for almost £3B worth of debt! Eye watering figures and some disputed them. Well here is the CRF and clearly it’s up to £1.587B in 2019/20. My warnings over a year ago were almost spot on!

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Part of my election leaflet of almost a year ago…….did I get it right?

meel

For anyone who watched the recent council videos all the way through I have asked several questions. One especially for residents during the budget debate and my question was quite simply……..if what we pay in goes up and up every year and the services we receive diminish every year just where is the money going? The answer came back quick as a flash…….debt repayments.

So the last administration increased debt from about £400M to nearly £800M and we all feel the effects of that in our pockets each time we pay our council tax. Can anyone imagine what the effects of doubling that debt level to nearly £1.6B would have been on our council tax payments? I shudder to think and I couldn’t begin to comprehend what service provision would be like carrying all that debt and its repayments, even at historic low rates of interest! A small, but much forecasted by pundits, percentage rise in interest rates would be catastrophic in that scenario.

I would also like to mention something else. If the basic build costs for the Bedlington Town centre redevelopment have been agreed, I think by all now, at about £6.5M with an overall cost upwards of £10M, or almost double, then we just need to look across the water at what was the proposed county hall move to Ashington with its build costs at £32M. And they were before an extra floor was going to be added and didn’t include the cost of the new roads. Also because it was going to be ‘our’ building all associated costs had to be considered seeing as they too would be coming out of the same public purse. All the work stations and associated hardware and software, even mundane stuff like furniture and given the impressive nature of the building I have no doubt designer would be included in the preamble to the name on the furniture! So what would the finished costs have been…… answers on several postcards please so all the zeros can be added!

Now for this………

BL alex

Oh dear not top of the class for comprehension were we? It’s not Arch, per say, I’m having a go at rather the now publicly identified “Culture of Entitlement”! Again going back to my election leaflets what did I say about Arch…………..

“I’m not saying scrap it, I am saying it needs effective and transparent regulation and I don’t see that as a possibility with the councillors we have at present!”

Was I right……..absobloodylootly! And we didn’t know the half of it then!
I see Alex is entertaining himself with a play on the words ‘new dawn’ on recent posts on social media. In reply I would just say this………

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for honesty and integrity,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for people seeing through the political smoke and mirrors of the past,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for transparency,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for the Town being taken seriously,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for self-expression,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for community cohesion,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for turning away from soothsayers and charlatans,

There is a new dawn in Bedlington for the scales to fall away from people’s eyes.

It’s a bit rich all this attempted subversion and discontent from people who have had over 50 years to deliver and the only consistent thing they have delivered for Bedlington is their failures!

John Fox (foxy) · April 6, 2018

Not to worry, they're quiet now since news of the "Cannesgate" scandal came to light.

thttp://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/Public-paid-for-Arch-trips-to-French-Riveria-877b8da8-b74e-4e10-b90b-85ace45cd88c-dso

moe19 · April 6, 2018

5 hours ago, John Fox (foxy) said:

Not to worry, they're quiet now since news of the "Cannesgate" scandal came to light.

http://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/Public-paid-for-Arch-trips-to-French-Riveria-877b8da8-b74e-4e10-b90b-85ace45cd88c-dso

And this.

https://www.newspostleader.co.uk/news/concerns-over-arch-s-relationship-with-football-club-1-9098245

Orloff · April 6, 2018

Malcom, I don't know much about Council business, but the loans to third parties is large ie £150,000,000 and what is Arch?

John Fox (foxy) · April 6, 2018

4 hours ago, moe19 said:

And this.

https://www.newspostleader.co.uk/news/concerns-over-arch-s-relationship-with-football-club-1-9098245

Certainly are in a league of their own.!

Malcolm Robinson · April 6, 2018

2 hours ago, Orloff said:

Malcom, I don't know much about Council business, but the loans to third parties is large ie £150,000,000 and what is Arch?

Orloff,

Its a long story...........................Arch is an arms length 100% NCC owned company which was supposed to do regeneration for the county.

150M....more like 300M!