Historical Factoids 6:

[Mal]

While we are on about the Lib Dems and their 4 years of tenure we have to look at something which happened in Bedlington, the disappearing Golf Club money!

The sale of the remaining half of the Bedlingtonshire Golf Club started under the Labour controlled NCC but as mentioned they lost out at the very next election to the Lib Dems. Well actually it was a minority administration because they needed the Conservatives backing to actually take charge. So the sale actually went through under the Lib Dem time of control.

From what I saw as a final act of contrition in the final days of Wansbeck District Council they called for any money raised by selling off the final bit of the Golf Club to be retained and spent in Bedlington. That might have been a touch of schadenfreude and scorched earth policy but at least they looked as if they finally made the effort in this case!

What happened was that the money seemed to disappear? Shades of Tesco here! In those days we had Area Meetings where the administration and all the local councillors would attend and we, insignificant members of the public, could go along and ask a few questions. I kept asking the same question, month after month, where had the Golf Club money gone?

I finally worked out the answer myself after receiving so many vague answers, so my next question was…….”Is it true that………?”

It was finally admitted that the money from the sale of the Golf Club had been put into the General Reserves pot at NCC. This meant it would be spent in towns other than Bedlington.

The political landscape and scenery might have changed but it was still the same road we were on, it’s called asset stripping as far as I was concerned!

Not only that we saw services normally delivered by the District Councils and then latterly by NCC being transferred to the parish councils who charged residents extra to pay for them. Or as it was explained to me NCC simply cut the service deliveries but would transfer them to the parish councils if they were asked. I accused them of double taxation because there was no corresponding decrease in the NCC council tax so effectively we were being charged twice for the same service. Not so, I was told but I remember having a go about this for a couple of years at every Area Budget meeting.

At the next election the Lib Dems were voted out and Labour retook control of NCC.