Contributor Leaderboard

Well as I said February has started off with a bang. Straight up to County Hall for several meetings. First up was my assessment for Members Personal Development and I completed the sheets for democratic services. At last some sort of overview of the training we have started taking and our skills development. I wonder if we get to see everyone’s? Next up came a meeting I arranged on the phone this morning. This was about exploring various funding options for what I hope to see achieved for my ward. That turned out pretty encouraging. Next meeting was all about helping a couple of community groups in my ward and after talking through the options and concerns with one of our lead officers there now seems a perfectly reasonable way forward for them. Finally the main even, Medium Term Financial Plan or Budget scrutiny. There was supposed to be over 70 attendees, in the event only about 40 turned up. I sat next to Russ and the chair opened the meeting. This is basically what the administration wants to do over the next 3 years. I had heard a lot of this off the Leader at our LAC and we had all been given a 350 page booklet setting out the proposed budget, financials and targets etc. Course some awkward sod had actually read the book and had his own questions he wanted answering, sorry! Asking for any questions I waited to see how many members shot their hands up. Remember this is the most fundamentally important bit of business any administration can put through. No members raised their hands so I did, to set the ball rolling. I asked a few questions which ruffled a few feathers, some were even answered, and then I said I would defer my other questions so other members could ask theirs. Only one member indicated his intention of asking questions and he asked a couple then said he would defer so everyone got a fair crack. Again no other members raised their hands so I did again and asked another few questions…….all about the budget figures and what was contained within the booklet. I again said I would defer and again only the same member raised his had to ask further questions. When he was satisfied the chair asked members for any other questions and again no one spoke up so I did! I asked if this was just a double act! This time I had a couple of more serious questions about governance and after being told my concerns were unfounded and not to be considered by this scrutiny committee I pointed them to the exact passage in the booklet which outlined what I had asked about. That flummoxed everyone and I only got half a reply. I eventually got a reply after the meeting off the Leader and cabinet member about this matter and they agreed it was something which they should give serious consideration to. What struck me was the complete lack of holding anyone to account in committee exercised by the opposition. Not one question off them, not one concern raised. In fact the only questions came off the leader of the Lib Dems, Jeff Reid and myself. This is the queerest budget scrutiny I could have imagined because basically there wasn’t any, apart from the questions Jeff and I asked. Now I’m going to take a punt here and forecast lots of opposition member’s questions at full council when the budget comes up, especially if the meeting is televised again! I just hope they can read out what has obviously been written down for them to ask this time! Cynical….mois……jamais! Just been back onto the police again about another incident at the same place in my ward. I know the officer is trying to get something done and feels as frustrated as me about the vandalism and senseless criminal damage being caused there. The advice off the police officer I deal with is to tell residents to report everything, something I have passed on in the hope of seeing some action taken in the near future. I can only imagine how nerve racking it must be to have things thrown at your house windows and patio doors on a regular occurrence! Back up to County Hall today, firstly for a meeting with the countryside officer which has turned into a bit of a high powered meeting so no doubt I will have said too much or been too cheeky in my requests! I’ll wait and see. Second meeting is to resolve any unanswered budget questions I might have. I made it to the office I had been redirected to in good time followed by the countryside office, director of service and cabinet member. Firstly I tackled them about the state of the roadway into the cemetery at Westlea and pointed at and used their own medium term budget as part of my argument. The cabinet member said, “My you have read that document, haven’t you!” Yes I have and seeing what is intended for cemetery’s across the county meant we should have much improved facilities in them but especially in the one in my patch! That was agreed and the road which is dotted with pot holes near the present-day burial sites is now getting resurfaced. One down one to go! Yes Plessy Woods Country Park is being included in the very small number of country parks in the county which will see substantial investment, some more than others of course! Champion but there is never a free dinner so my payback will be to work in a very small team to increase footfall there significantly. I gave them some ideas off the top of my head how we might do that and they were astounded! So as long as we have the investment and a free hand I now have to make sure it’s warranted. Looking forward to that challenge. I came home via Leading Link and had a chat with Lyn and Julie to see how they were getting on these days. I also told them about the young person’s personal development funding the Local Area Councils have now. When I got home I had the estimate off the drainage company I have been waiting in. It’s quite a bit more than I was expecting but it has given me a ball park figure to seek funding for. This is the drainage to make sure our children’s graves at Westlea don’t flood again so can there be a cost too expensive. I don’t think so! I started the day off at North Shields at 10am then I had two meetings up at county hall, one at 2.00pm the other 6.00pm. The first one was a presentation about Universal Credit, what it is, how it will roll out and what it might mean. I have to say the presenters didn’t get an easy ride as we questioned them quite closely about this stuff! The daft thing is that it’s not really their initiative; it’s been foisted onto them like the rest of us and they have to make it work. I think one member even apologised for the questioning we gave them and suggested someone from DWP should have been here to answer a lot of these questions too. I now have a better understanding of what all this means and one of the most astounding things for me was the financial payments currently quoted. I had to come back then straight back up to County for the 6.00pm meeting. This one was our Strategic Planning meeting and we all thought it would be over within 15 minutes because the controversial one had been pulled. How wrong everyone was! The application was for extra hours and a second weigh bridge for a business on the Barrington Industrial Estate. I was really willing to listen to the evidence on this one because I could see both sides of the argument. Quite a few people and the Parish Council had complained about noise and dust and the extremely poor state of the road into the unit and the fact it is very narrow so wagons have a real problem passing each other. I listened to the residents and the council arguments and then the business owner’s arguments about extra work, investment, jobs etc. In the end I summed up my feeling about this to the committee and public audience. We can only consider the planning application which is in front of us and on that basis we have to disregard references to dust, noise and wagons using the road because that isn’t changing! The only things we are considering are the weight bridge and the extra hours. That was confirmed. And here is my dilemma……while I think the weigh bridge is entirely up to the company and I have no problem there, it’s the extra hours which cause me some concern. Not because of the extra time the depot is being used, to me that’s extra pay and jobs, and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise the validity of the business there by standing in the way of its expansion but knowing all the approach roads to that site and having 40 odd tonners barrelling up and down them up to 10pm at night, well that’s excessive I believe and probably not safe for pedestrians and other road users; who might expect heavy wagons on the same roads up to normal daytime working hours but not up to the 10pm being asked for. So I could only come down on not allowing the application based on that concern. The application was turned down but we did ask the applicant to work with the planners on a new proposal which we might all find we can work with because we are not that far away. That took 1hr45m to get through and is a good example of how we can’t take anything for granted in planning! Quite a bit going on over the phone lines this week. I arranged a meeting with a developer about a project I have been working on and invited another interested party to the meeting. It was the Town Council meeting tonight and as usual here is my update: WBTC update Feb 2018. Not the usual monologue this month but there are things I would like to update you on. Firstly I have had the drains along the Westlea Cemetery CCTV’d and they are silted up and have root damage. No surprising seeing as BUDC put them in and they have never had any maintenance as far as I know! These are the drains we need to clear to stop the children’s graves flooding! That would also help drain the footpaths and pitches along there. Anyway further inspection work was needed and I have now had to have a dye test conducted to see exactly where the problems are. Hoping to see that report sometime soon. I have also had a quote on renewing that line of field drains and it’s quite an expensive job but I am working on attracting the funding needed. Second item is the upgrades we will soon see to Plessey Woods Country Park. Two parks were getting substantial investment off NCC, Druridge Bay and Bolam Lakes; we now have Plessey Woods in that group! I have said, during my meetings, I would hope to see WBTC as a supporter for that investment and that really translates to asking for space in one or more of your future newsletters. I said I would think you will be more than happy to promote it because my job is to use the upgrades to drive up visitor numbers. You should have received an email off county about this. Last item but in some ways the most fundamental. I have been to our in depth budget presentations about the Medium Term Budget for NCC and one item which I questioned stands out as something you need to be aware of now. Its something I used to bang on about when I sat where the Mayor is sitting. For this next year we will see the local services budget carried forward as is, after that there are reductions planned for at least the following two years. When I asked about that and questioned whether we would see services passed down to Town and Parish Councils because I couldn’t see the grass stopping growing or people suddenly becoming litter conscious I was told that there will be detailed contact this next year with yourselves about this subject. There were no further elaborations. I would suggest you will be asked which services your resident’s value enough to pay for them if they were to be stopped. I think that will be something you will need to get your heads around for your next year’s budget. Just to remind everyone the next LAC at Netherton Club is 20th Feb, which is a Tuesday night because we have full council budget the next day and that will go on into the night! We have the Town Centre redevelopment as an item and the LTP as well as other presentations etc. Also work starts next week on the new Puffin crossing going in next to the COOP on the B1331. Hopefully most of the disruptive stuff will get done during the half term or traffic congestion will be huge! I am getting a heck of a lot of reports about the building sites at the west end of Town. There would seem to be a lot of conditions not being adhered to and I am continually getting in touch with planners and enforcement about these sites. It would seem to me that the dog has no teeth! With no formal meetings this week I have asked for some myself! One to chase up funding for the drainage problems and another to get a better idea of what we have available to work with down at Plessey woods. Well from nothing to non-stop in two days! I have the meetings organised with the people I wanted to speak to and others have come along too. The drainage mess at Westlea continues to grow in price to get sorted but this is something I want to sort out properly. I have now picked up costings to get the drains which run under the houses to the culvert sorted but without doing them I will be wasting my time getting the other stuff done. More funding to find! I also met with the guy who runs our Country Park at Plessey; he actually does Plessey and Bolam Lakes. In fact I was early and spoke the staff that operate the centre too so I now have a pretty good idea what is needed to make this Park into a much better visitor attraction. I spoke to the officer who manages this facility at length and I think we are on exactly the same page overall maybe not on certain specifics however but that’s all well and good for the mix. I asked him to help produce a business plan and he agreed. Now I need to talk my way into proper funding for it because I am not impressed with the offer we have at present! There are over 100 acres there with about 5 kilometres of paths and of course the river. I have just asked for a further four meetings with potential funders for tomorrow! Two cancelled for later dates but two didn’t! I called into the first one and agreed a contribution from them. Once this has all been done I will thank them properly! It was then a quick pit stop before going up to County Hall for my second lot of negotiations! This proved far more difficult but an understanding was reached and I now have further meetings to try and wring this extra funding out of them. I sent quite a few messages to officers who I have been dealing with over several projects and just about all of them are on holiday today? I had been promised the puffin crossing next to the COOP would be started this week whilst the schools were on holiday, unfortunately it hasn’t been! I have asked why not and a pretty weak excuse of the weather and lack of availability has been blamed. And we wonder why people call the councils! On a similar note I have just been informed the builders at the Netherton Lane site seem to be building outside their agreed site so I have asked for someone to come out and check it up. I know residents have too so pressure from all sides might get something done! On a similar note just been asked to see why a resident has not received a copy of a report he requested off NCC, and they agreed to, some time ago. I have asked the appropriate head of department. The last 3 paragraphs are things which shouldn’t be needed, checking up and trying to get things done which should have been. I know NCC is a large organisation but potentially their internal controls need to be reviewed? Busy day today with 3 meetings all this afternoon. First up is a meeting I have requested where I will be doing my usual “Oliver and asking for more! It’s about the Plessey Woods project and I need more infrastructure in place so I can work with the lads and lasses there to increase visitor numbers. I hope to show we can make this Park the blueprint for other parks’ developments. Second meeting is the State of the Area Debate in the council chamber and I don’t know what to expect. Lastly we have our Local Area Council tonight and two important issues on the agenda, one the LTP (Local Transport Plan) the other the Bedlington Town Centre redevelopment. Well I made it to the first meeting in good time and was soon giving chapter and verse about what I needed to turn the fortunes of Plessey Woods around. I said I would be working with the guys in place and we had some exciting ideas for developing the attraction of this park. I wasn’t about to take no for an answer but I think as the eyes widened and the mouths dropped any chance they had of stopping my tsunami disappeared. They have asked me to crystallise the plans with the lead officers of both local services and parks. We are off and running! Next meeting was the State of the Area Debate and I was a bit shocked to see only about half the members turn up! I sat and listened to the Leader, deputy Leader and cabinet members talk about where they are and where they want to be and how they could get there. The chair was only allowing questions but I reminded him it was a debate when I stood up to speak. I questioned why we are seeing elderly people as a drain on resources when in point of fact it’s their payments which have got us here in the first place. Also the new social housing, or council houses, NCC are going to build. I applaud it because it’s much needed but we really need to redefine the term “affordable” because at the moment it’s anything but! Lastly I spoke about economic redevelopment of the county and the fact that we should be expanding our workforce and their work not contracting it. That meeting over it was a mad rush to get home and get changed because I had just been told I had to do some presentations tonight at the LAC. I had asked why there was no public question time at the start of the meeting and the chair was going to check it out. When I got to the venue, Netherton Club, I asked again but was told because this was a planning meeting and only had special permission to hear the presentations there was no public questions. I said my lot won’t like that, so 15 minutes were given for public questions after the Bedlington regeneration presentation. We started with the planning and it boiled down to a new fence. A stone wall and convex fence panels atop. For some reason members were giving the planners such a hard time about the height and security of this wall? I asked if anyone had built a fence or stone wall such as we were discussing because all the ones I have built require concrete foundations and would take an articulated lorry to knock over! Also because of the wavy nature of the wooden panels most of the fence line would be well under 2 metres so the very small bits which would be over that by 20mm were really immaterial! The application was passed unanimously in the end. Next I had these presentations to do and it turned out they were some of the community groups my committee had given funding to. I chair the community chest panel and we were given £60K to give out to local organisations that passed the criteria. After 10 or more pictures we were done and I told everyone what we had to spend and the fact that our panel had given every penny away to worthy local causes. The LTP was next and I think the lead officer and cabinet member got away pretty unscathed. In fact I think I was the only member to cross examine them? Next up the Bedlington Regeneration update and a pretty competent and comprehensive update given by the lead investment officer and the project manager. Of course there were several questions following this update and thankfully the chair allowed members of the public to ask theirs. Several echoed my only concerns about parking but most were supportive. The timeframe is now set to an August start and that’s about 4 months behind the original schedule. That’s not bad considering the whole project was put into limbo by the last administration depending on the results of last year’s election and the fact that immediately following our election we had to win hearts and minds to get it restarted! I think the presentation was quite open with most of the facts and figures mentioned and only the definitive list of retailers who will move in not released but certainly we were allowed a glimpse at the types of retailer lined up to go in. Unbelievably it now seems a local political group are claiming the investment has been halved and by association isn’t worth the effort! It clearly hasn’t been and anyone listening to the presentation should know that! Another day and another mad rush, this time to get to County Hall in time for full council after a day at work. Again like yesterday the meeting will be televised. This full council meeting was pretty much all to do with the budget and it was the main item to be voted on. The preamble started and then we got to the nitty gritty. I was quite shocked as first the CeO of the council stated her concerns about the way things had been allowed to be run especially at Active Northumberland. She immediately called in an independent review of the charity. These are the main findings: “The conclusion and associated recommendations of the strategic review of the arrangements between Active Northumberland and Northumberland County Council has identified significant failings of governance and numerous gaps in the expected level of strategic and operational capability and capacity in Active Northumberland. These poor oversight arrangements have severely impacted on the organisation’s performance and day to day operational capability. There is evidence of: – Very poor leadership – A lack of evidence or rational based decision making – Very weak governance – Very weak financial management processes – Very poor strategic direction or forward planning – Ineffective due diligence and leadership processes – Lack of appropriate organisational information – Lack of an appropriate level of professional advice or support. And……- a lack of appropriate arrangements to monitor safeguarding of children.” I have never read a report like it. It is the most damming report I hope to see into a company delivering to our residents! If it was private sector there would be calls for a proper investigation! After reading through all of that it seems I am to blame for the position Active has found itself in? Well according to the latest Labour blog. Absolutely ridiculous. We then had the spectacle of the present cabinet member having to list all the short failings and quite bizarre nature of the way Active had been run. Because I have been the subject to such aggravated accusations by the local labour group I have to now mention that the cabinet member for this company during the last administration and this complete ineptitude was none other than one of our recently deposed labour councillors! Listening further it was clear she was not the only member not making the grade, because the chair of scrutiny who is charged to examine all these decisions was none other than another of our recently deposed Bedlington labour members too! My God and her husband is currently carrying out a smear campaign against me and the other two recently elected members! There has to be a complete lack of mirrors in their house! We then spoke about the budget or medium term financial plan. First up the Leader and he gave an overview report highlighting the total inadequacies of the last administration, the inherited position and what this budget was going to do to redress them. Next up came the cabinet member for finance who gave us a glimpse of just what sort of odious campaign the Labour group are currently waging countywide with regard to social media. 17 completely inaccurate claims since January on the Northumberland Labour Facebook site and blog. He then went on to itemise several and even had the leader of the Labour group saying it had nothing to do with him. It was pointed out that the site is the official Northumberland Labour councillor site and he is their leader. For instance they had reported it costs £3M a year to heat County Hall. The actual figure for gas and electricity is £225K. The current administration has decided to forgo with Arch dividend…….which I was told several times would be £25M! There has NEVER been an Arch dividend! CeO was next and again it was wildly misreported. Either £1M or £1.5M has been talked about which is actually nothing like the real figure and which was supposed to be confidential anyway! 200 jobs were being moved out of Northumberland……err no they are actually coming to Northumberland. ..and on and on it went! What became clear was the insidious nature of the Labour spin machine and how a once great organisation has been reduced to meaningless drivel by its current leaders. I think they have all gone to Egypt for their holidays because they are all in De Nile! Coming next was the labour budget and they somehow proposed last year’s budget? That was voted down and then the leader of the opposition went on to talk about what he would have done and why some of the current ideas were no good. Well some were good he said but others worthless. One thing he mentioned which drew a big jeer was the post 16 school transport which has been made free again after he had stopped paying for it by NCC. He said that might work for rich people in the north and west who could get their kids carted to schools…….. Is it just me or is that the exact opposite of a socialist position where education should be free and liberating? Like Bill and Russ I felt having not read through the document I couldn’t very well vote for or against so I abstained. Strangely in the middle of this diatribe he mentioned that if they were in power they would be building a leisure centre in Bedlington. Eh? They have been in power for 50 years here what’s changed now……..oh yes they lost seats they considered unlosable! If nothing else is achieved in the course of my 4 years as County Councillor that statement justifies standing and everyone’s vote! We have beaten the very man who said he had no appetite for a larger sports build in Bedlington when I took costed plans to the heads of Active Northumberland and said for the same investment that’s going into Gallagher Park I could get a large indoor facility built which would finally start and address the lack of such a sporting facility here! What I found inexcusable and the reason I have gone into so much detail about the shortcomings which were mentioned is that the opposition Leader then said I (we) had sold out our residents too cheaply because the investment in the Town centre redevelopment had been halved. That incensed me and I shouted out asking for the written proof. Laughing he said it’s there but couldn’t say exactly where! I have since looked but still can’t find it! When I got back home the local Labour Party had a social media posting saying the Bedlington regeneration funding had been halved……..fancy that! After checking it out with Arch that is actually not true and the real position is that there is slightly more going in! It would seem the truth is a stranger to Councillor Davey and his entire group and competence in office something they could only dream of! Unbelievable but when bullies are stopped in their tracks by a bigger person, or in this case the truth, they usually turn on a smaller body and try to continue their bullying ways. Well I might be smaller, being a single independent, but I’ve never liked bullies and I’ll do what I have always done and fight back! Another hectic day with the phone ringing non-stop and the internet alight with claims and counter claims. Once the true figures and situation about the Bedlington Town development had been put out people started seeing the Labour posting for what it was a cynical attempt to dupe them! I don’t know why they feel the need to be doing this stuff……if it was the run up to the election then understandable but shouldn’t we all be working together to make the Town better and address the disparities we can all see? Well up to County Hall first thing for a Local Government Pension Panel meeting which lasted from 9am until 1.15pm. In fact I had to excuse myself right at the end of the meeting and rush over to East Bedlington Parish Council for a meeting about the Gallagher Park music event this year. I went in and for the first 20 minutes we were regaled by the EBPC parish clerk why one of the two submissions we had come to judge shouldn’t be considered. I thought that was a bit unfair because he wasn’t now going to give the submissions equal chance in the scoring process. We kicked it around for a good hour and it became clear there was no way one of the submissions would get a fair chance. We went through a scoring process and right at the end when it looked like one of the applicants would win the EBPC clerk said he would make it easy, either his choice won or the event wouldn’t go ahead. I thanked them for wasting my afternoon and got up and left! I was disgusted and wanted distance from what I thought to be a charade, but said I would still be prepared to allow my smalls scheme funding to be used if the event went ahead but because of the way this had been handled and the lateness of the day, they would have to find a way out of this mess! I liked one submission because it offered a much more diverse day out for families with street theatre, workshops and such like. The other submission was the same event as last year music on the stage only. I can only wait and see what they came up with now. Over the weekend I heard about several more spates of anti-social behaviour and a very disturbing report about criminal activity so I asked the local police for a meeting. They agreed and that is taking place tomorrow. Seems we are slowly winning the fight to get an adult conversation about the Bedlington Town Centre redevelopment. Sensible people have seen through the latest spin designed to dupe members of the public by a political group and are now discussing the finished look and how we might move forward. And yes getting behind this development and supporting it will move the Town forward in the future I have no doubt. Pulling it to bits for political reasons can only alienate the very people we hope to attract and it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Much better to use the experience to show we can and will support this and future development here, that way we might actually also get some of the leisure offer we so badly need! I had my meeting with the police and I found it very positive. I did say we could have very differing view here but as it turned out once I had listen to what they are doing I could only congratulate and thank them on taking all this anti-social behaviour seriously. I was a bit surprised at all the actions they are talking to tackle this sort of behaviour and I couldn’t ask for anything more to tell the truth! So to all my ward residents who have raised the issue with me please be assured it is being taken seriously and actions are forthcoming behind the scenes! They did ask me to make mention of a couple of points. Firstly, and exactly as I have been advising, please report any incidents. Even if you are just reporting something ask for a call back for reassurance its being taken seriously. Secondly and quite bizarrely, please try and do what you can to secure your bins? Seems there is a spate of bin disappearances and householders have to buy replacements and they don’t come cheap! Again a real nuisance but with hidden costs, both in terms of finance and man hours. Well there’s February out and the last days saw me stuck in Derby with snow and blizzards. Got to make it back for Monday when I have several meetings and my surgery. I have to finish this month with a note by way of explanation. It has taken many hours and in some cases days to once again get the true information out into the public realm in response to the spin and mistruths put out by the local labour group. I haven’t got that time to waste on repudiating such drivel! I have far more productive things to be getting on with which will benefit my constituents and residents so please understand if I don’t counter each fresh accusation which appears on social media. It would seem their intent is to mislead people and try and bully any opposition. Well that has worked for 50 years for them, but I believe people can see through all that hokum now and really treating people like fools can only ultimately lead to their own extinction! Also the fact is that there are many things which I need to challenge the current administration about but that time is being wasted on discounting these untrue accusations.

March 2018. Beginning of March and I’m snowed in. Hope this clears before I have to get back. Well it did and I made the meetings I had and held my surgery. I had quickly rearranged meetings because the NCC officers I needed to speak to were busy and having just been though a very bad snow-out I could sympathise. We ultimately met at Plessey Woods to talk through some of the ideas I had to improve visitor numbers. Lots of negativity here I’m afraid and I had to explain I didn’t want to spoil the natural environment only improve it and commercialise it so we didn’t have to be so dependent on NCC funding. One way opens up opportunities, the other is a continuation down a one way street I’m afraid. I did get support off the park manager and with his help we even managed to turn a flat no into a let’s look at the possibility. I really want to see a very much increased offer down there, well publicised and easy access for coaches. We spent well over a couple of hours walking around and they did listen to what I proposed but time and again it came back to, ‘that might not work’. I really have my work cut out to bring these guys into the 21st century! Not everything will work, some will inevitably fail but some will fly and they are the gold nuggets we want! After that it was time for the second site visit, this time the end of the Red Ash Path next to the cemetery. We drove there and parked up then I took them along the sodden path which had been churned up by cars at the start. I convinced them we had to put in new bollards to stop cars driving up the footpath there. I also pointed out the drainage problems the cemetery has and what I have been doing to tackle the flooding problems. Hopefully WBTC will commit to funding to help repair all the drains which actually join up under the houses and exit into the Green Letch. If that gets done then I need new field drains along the cemetery fenceline to stop flooding there. I think I won this one and they agreed to investigate and get the estimate I have, checked out. I also want to add in pitch drainage because that will not only make the pitch much better it will also help drain the footpath. The full costs of what I am talking about is well over £100K and all of a sudden why this has been left for so long becomes clear! Because the strategic planning meeting had been cancelled I was able to make it down to the EBPC meeting. Russ, Bill and Christine, the Mayor of West Bedlington Town Council, made it down too as did councillor Gobin. The chair made a point of gushingly welcoming only councillor Gobin and by association snubbing the rest of us. How childish! Anyway we needn’t have bothered going because most of the agenda was going to be discussed behind closed doors after we and the public all got kicked out! And that’s exactly what happened, very Stalinesque! I have to ask is that really in the public interest and all those agenda items needing to be discussed, subject to commercial confidentiality? Some looked quite innocuous. Today I have been on the phone for most of the day. I have agreed to help out more community groups and getting stuff in place for them took ages. Tonight is the WBTC meeting here is my update for them: Before I started I thanked them for their “open and transparent agenda” with everything out in public not hidden! WBTC update March 2018. Again not having a great deal of time to get things down chronologically so here is my update. Been getting a few concerns about anti-social behaviour in the ward so I asked for a meeting with the police. They duly responded and I have to say I initially went in to the meeting convinced it would be quite heated. I raised all the points residents have told me about and I have to say I was more than impressed with the police response. I was reassured and my constituents can be too that the police are taking all these reports seriously and even with the limited resources they have available, they are taking pretty firm actions. They did ask me to highlight a couple of things. First please report any incidents because a lot of these social media reported incidents are not being logged because they are not reported to the police. Ask for a ring back to make sure they are being taken seriously! Secondly please try to secure your wheelie bins! That’s the craze at the moment, setting fire to wheelie bins, and replacements don’t come cheap! Next up the problem with flooding at the cemetery. This is actually number 8 sub section A on your agenda tonight. I’m asking to help fund the repairs necessary to the existing drainage which untimely drains surface water out of the cemetery and also Redhouse Farm and Westlea. I have paid to get the whole warren of pipes CCTV’d and then dye tested so the blockages and problem areas could be identified. The quote you have on your agendas tonight is for that remedial action. I am also paying for extra work on the Green Letch outlet area. That’s the sprat to catch the mackerel! I have also been working on full replacement to the field drain which runs the length of the cemetery and have estimates for that. This is what will drain the cemetery and keep it dry! I have most of that cost covered and I would like to thank my two NCC colleagues here (Bill and Russ) for agreeing to help fund some of that too. I was down there with NCC yesterday and have their agreement to start looking at the project seriously and possibly making up the shortfall. Not to stop there because we have a problem with the path which runs along there, the Red Ash Path, and the football pitch I have also been quoted for full pitch drainage. I have already identified funding for that additional costing. To sum up, the overall cost of the basic infrastructure project is in excess of £100K, we get the children’s graves, and others, protected from flooding, path drainage, pitch drainage, surface water from Red House Farm estate and the Westlea estate drained properly, first time in decades and your contribution if you agree is about 6% of the cost and it will last for many years to come. The road inside the cemetery is getting redone too I have that already agreed. Now onto Plessy Woods. I have had meetings there with NCC officers because I have asked for more funding, well more help really. I want to see a bigger car park and better access because I want to see many more coaches down there. I think driving up real usage at school times means we take schools trips there. That’s one line I am exploring. I was also promoting many more ways to help the park pay towards its upkeep and especially giving the workers there some security! I didn’t expect the negativity I got back off some of the officers. In fact I had to tell them I would drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century if I had to. The one officer who had liked my ideas was in stiches and had to turn away! We have a huge asset there, 100 acres plus, but because it’s been allowed to whither due to successive funding cuts it’s in danger of not being able to look after itself properly. There is already one path almost impassable! I am also working with two very enthusiastic young ladies who are opening a Woodland Nursery there. The work on the new Puffin crossing was delayed but is now well underway. I did ask Highways to get most done during school holidays because of the traffic congestion it would cause, but again local knowledge was set aside because it didn’t fit into a nice pie chart! It has been stated that the funding for the Town Centre redevelopment has been halved……it hasn’t, actually it’s slightly more because of the planning conditions we applied to the application. Lastly I have to mention the Gallagher Park event and the steering group meeting to select the preferred event organiser. After almost 2 hours I walked out in disgust. Let me say why. There were 6 representatives there to score two applications and an NCC officer taking the role of chair and another officer from procurement handling the tender. When one of those representatives firstly hands out 3 pages detailing why one of the applicants shouldn’t get the gig, I think that was enough bias shown to exclude him from any voting on the matter, but then after 2 hours when the scoring has all been done and is being tallied up and its very close, he says quite categorically that if his choice doesn’t get it, the event won’t go ahead, then that is not a full and fair process for either applicant and one I didn’t want to be part of! I therefore felt I had no other option but to leave, registering my dismay. I did say my funding was still available but this process has to be resolved properly. It now seems NCC have agreed with my assessment and they have withdrawn too! Thankfully WBTC did agree to my request for our joint funding project and we will now see all the main drainage for surface water leading into the Green Letch repaired and redone. Thanks very much WBTC, now to get on and get the funding necessary to put in new drainage for the cemetery! They also took the decision to withdraw their funding for the Bedlington Music event given the chair’s experience at the steering group meeting and NCC’s reaction. If they decide to put on their own event that has to be where my funding will go, having linked my “small’s scheme” funding to WBTC last year. Another day and another e-mail to planners this time for advice! I also had to get in touch with the same manager I did last month asking for some information to be passed to one of my constituents. I cannot believe that hasn’t happened but it hasn’t, even though I was copied into the email off the manager asking for this to be made available. Well it seems the Music event has taken on a life of itself according to all the emails and messages I am getting. Not really sure why this has blown up in the way it has other than an inflexible predetermined position by a couple of the members of the steering group. Hmmm…. local politics don’t you just love it, gets in the way of everything! If only decisions were based on the merits of the arguments…… A live music event for Bedlington was never under threat, but proper rules and procedures have to be followed, this is public funding. I think this sentence from NCC says it all……..”it has been decided that in order to protect the probity of the process, the procurement will be terminated..” I think that more than justifies my reaction to what occurred. I can only go off my training and experience. I have done commissioning and tendering training when I ran the Development Trust and I have delivered quite a large, for us anyway, commission. The two play parks, Westlea and Meadowdale, which were done by WBTC and overseen when I was the chair, were done through a commission put out to tender. We publicised the work as far as we could and 4 national and international bidders came forward with their tenders. A small subcommittee opened them together on the time and day we had included in all packs which the suppliers all got, and they were then scored off an agreed list which was also supplied to the tenderers. That reduced the count to two and the two which made the cut were then put up for public display and a public vote. The design the public liked most won the contract! That I would suggest is an open and transparent system and because the submissions were only opened and viewed at a predetermined time and all together, then there could not have been any “predetermination” and the only thing which counted was obtaining best value for council tax payers! Busy weekend at work but an even busier Monday. I was contacted by one of our schools who needed help with some fundraising they needed for one of their major projects. I checked things out and then gave them a list of funders who they could ask and should reasonably expect donations off. Next up several of my constituents were in touch about different problems they are experiencing and they took the rest of the day to get a handle on. Some I am meeting so they can show me their concerns directly. I have also been in touch with the Plessey Woods officers I met because I want to write a report for the next WBTC newsletter including a call to see if anyone is interested in forming a proper “Friends of Plessey Woods” group. Hopefully people will come forward and we can start seeking out extra funding to add to the Park’s appeal. Off up to County Hall later today for a strategic planning meeting. Only thing on the agenda is the application for 118 houses at Pegswood. I genuinely haven’t decided which way to go on this one but I have read the papers and I do have several questions! Well not to disappoint there was only one item on the agenda but it took 2 hours to get through and then it was essentially deferred for a site visit. We heard the application then the objectors and then the applicant. Several valid points were raised in these exchanges but they weren’t allowed to ask questions directly to the planners, the only people allowed to do that are the members of the committee, so I listen intently to what the likes of the local parish council says and what local community groups say and in most cases ask the questions they have intimated by their submissions. This was no different and after I guess about an hour of questioning and then debate the motion to award planning was amended to defer for a site visit. Hmm, looks like the strategic planning committee are not the usual push overs they have been! I also had a few words with the cabinet member for country parks who asked me to work on driving up visitor numbers at Plessey Woods. He understood my concerns and is to set a meeting up between officers, him and myself. This has to be an all-in play! Loads going on today and several constituents have been in touch to ask me to sort some things out for them. Pleased to do that, it’s just part of the job. Other problems and concerns raised are not quite that straightforward and I will get back onto them on Monday when I have more time. Another hectic weekend at work but straight back into it on Monday morning. In fact I even fielded a call off a lady in Surry asking for some local help with her relative. I have also been invited to meet with a charity which is starting here in Bedlington. Just organised a meeting for this afternoon with them. Police have been on too voicing concerns about the social media stuff which is saying there isn’t a police presence in Bedlington after 8pm. There is, what ends at 8pm is just the civilian front desk access. So a meeting with them is on order again. Unbelievably I still haven’t been able to get the information one of my residents requested about the traffic survey at Netherton. Calls for a bit stronger worded email! This is not top secret, it’s a traffic survey for God’s sake and why this hasn’t been expedited straightaway I can’t for the life of me work out! Well it seems like my latest epistle worked and both I and the resident have now got the detailed results of the traffic survey which have been requested for some months! I have had the meeting with the principle of a charity which has just opened in Bedlington and what a load of stuff they do, in fact it took nearly 2 hours to listen to what they are about! Looks like they will concentrate on family issues to start and I was pleased to help and offer local advice. Especially pleased a local lass is leading this! I also had reason to drive around the Chesters estate because of complaints I have had and will forward onto the appropriate people. I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what and where the complaints were about. It was soon time to go up to County Hall and again, this was a specially called full council meeting to hear a single issue, the Devolution enigma. We first have to pull out of the 7 authority one after 4 authorities said they were not going to proceed, and give delegated powers to the leads to negotiate and proceed on our behalf on the new 3 Authority one. In the end there was cross party support with only two dissenters. Unfortunately one of them decided to extend the meeting unnecessarily by insisting he reply in long speeches every time he was named by another member. That’s the protocol for these full council meetings. I rushed back to Bedlington to try and make the last Bedlington Forum meeting and say adieu to Brian and Margaret and thank them for their diligence and support. I got back just as people were leaving the Sally Army building so I could only do that by phone later. I spent most of the night replying to mails I have received on various topics. I have also canvassed for support off various organisations with my ideas for Plessey Woods development. Everyone without exception has welcomed my ideas and this now gives me a much better hand to play when I have the next meeting with the lead officers and cabinet member. Well a day off today but I did have a few calls to make and e-mails to answer! They took on a mind of their own and I now have several site visits and further enquiries to make on residents’ behalf. Today I had to get to work early then a meeting in Bedlington, then a meeting in Cramlington. For some strange reason the Labour group are saying the Cramlington meeting has been cancelled? No it hasn’t and I had to point that out on social media. And someone actually ‘liked’ it………Strange people? Anyway I made my afternoon meeting in Bedlington and it was extremely helpful. Excellent response off a local business when I asked for help! More on that later. I came home via the cemetery and took some pictures of the resurfacing work which has just been done. This is something I have been asking for over many months and at every available opportunity and at the last meeting where I had brought it up I was told to shut up because I had won them over! I sent a couple of messages to the people who untimely had to agree, thanking them for the job and passing on my congratulations to the team for a job well done. Next came the evening meeting at Cramlington. I turned up and had to sit right in front of the projector so all I saw for 25mins was a bright light! Anyway we heard the planning application, listened to objectors and supporters and then voiced our own questions. In the end we passed the application unanimously and then it was onto the LAC normal business. Pretty thin agenda but I do know they are going to be beefed up very soon. This is something I asked them to do last year, that and give the public a reason to come along! This meeting finished pretty early and as usual contained a game of political ping pong between the main parties. Today I had to be up at County Hall for a corporate scrutiny meeting. I turned up only to see more than half the committee hadn’t? Pretty bad show especially when we are the first line of scrutiny on corporate matters. I said that at my first opportunity when the meeting had started. This meeting was mainly about Active Northumberland, looking into the way it had been managed and then trying to get to the bottom of why it had gone so badly wrong. When the chair explained that the people who we needed to grill weren’t available, I again didn’t take that lying down! The officer who secretarys’ the meeting said the cabinet could still ask questions but it then goes to full council who will act as the main scrutiny. I disagreed. My argument was that we in this committee are supposed to drill down into the nitty gritty and spend as long as we needed doing that. I said the same level of questioning isn’t available at full council where we are lucky to catch the chair’s eye to ask any question in reality! Not the same and not really comparable or why have these meetings? We have now been allowed to send in written questions which will be passed around the members and replies hopefully received prior to the Cabinet meeting. If that’s the best we can do on such a confidential and essentially quite intrinsic subject matter then so be it, but any of my questions may well have led to new avenues of questioning to follow, you just don’t that that interaction with written stuff! I did submit a dozen questions and some observations. Don’t think anyone is in any danger of not knowing what I mean when they read my offerings. One thing which did puzzle was that one of the members of the committee said they had held a small meeting to discuss the issue and had some questions to submit. Now this has come out on Pink paper which means it’s entirely confidential and cannot be discussed outside the meeting, that’s why I can only mention the subject broadly and not go into any specifics. Just how that equates to having a small meeting about it with “our lot”, I don’t know……. but I have asked. I have several meetings lined up for next week now and I have been out to check the state of the roads in one of the residential estates in my ward. It has been inspected earlier in the week and several problems identified for remedial action. Well the week started off very well and I hope I have made a good enough argument to see a countywide employment initiative implemented in my ward. That on top of other developments should see this ward start to flourish in the coming years. The new light controlled crossing work on the B1331 continues and while it is causing quite a few obstructions and waiting traffic lines it just goes to show how busy this road is and the amount of children crossing it with no right of way was really just a fatality in waiting! At least they will have somewhere to cross in relative safety soon. Seems another week and another road to review. This time a road residents had been promised would be done several years ago but which hasn’t been. Again I have asked the question and also requested a site visit. The officer who responded to my request for a site visit didn’t hang around, it has happened the very next day! We discussed various options to get most of the road resurfaced and eventually agreed. I also asked him to take a look at a small bit of footpath I have been asked to try and get waterproofed. I have sent him the requested pictures and an offer of funding so we might get both jobs done! He has since agreed so both jobs will be getting done in the next couple of months. Well another month and yet another scandal breaks about the way the last administration behaved. I can only image the headlines they would be coming up with if this had been me in the frame! As it is it now looks like most people have realised just what has been going on and there is plenty more to come if they haven’t! I know work is going on behind the scenes to beef up the board of Arch as it transforms into something more along the lines of its original remit which was to provide real growth and opportunity for our county. It may be a bank holiday today but I still wanted to check up on some work which was supposed to have been done this week. It hasn’t so yet again another phone call to ask why not! I have done a reply to the accusation the Leader of the Opposition at NCC made during the last full council meeting, which was televised, where he effectively said I had sold out the Town too cheaply. Reflecting on the last administration and how they governed this county, including Arch and Active Northumberland debacles, brings this to my mind more and more………….here!

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

Greetings from Adelaide . Wishing everyone in Bedlington a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year.

8mm film footage of the family when we lived in Netherton Colliery Village from around 1970 to 1973. Hope it brings back some good old memories.

I have a feeling that that's more a commentary on the people you heard it from than on the "few self-obsessed locals"!

Great photo Foxy, showing Bedlington in a very beautiful and positive light. There is so much whinging and negativity on this and the various Facebook sites, but at the end off the day, there are very few towns with a Front Street like Bedlington. Well done for the photo and all the positivity that you attempt to cascade onto these digital message boards.

Malcolm.perhaps the best way to get our panes replaced in Bedlington is to get rid of the pain in charge the cooncil!

It will soon be possible to get your very own yourname@bedlington.co.uk email address with online access to send and receive from anywhere in the world. There will be three ways to obtain one. Earn an online reputation on bedlington.co.uk of 50 points or more.Pay £5 for five years access.Demonstrate a personal community effort to help the town. For those of you not familiar with the reputation system here on bedlington.co.uk, each post has a icon in the bottom right hand corner. If you're a registered member and you like the post, clicking this icon will give the user that wrote it one reputation point. To maintain the standing of the town, members with active moderator warnings do not qualify for address allocation. Though, once granted only a total ban from the site by a vote of all moderators will result in cancellation of an address. @bedlington.co.uk mail is entirely independent of your Internet Service Provider, you can change ISP to take advantage of better deals available from time to time without worrying about having to change your e-mail address. Addresses are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The administrator reserves the right to reject abusive or improper registration requests without further explanation. The service is offered on an as-is basis, though every effort will be made to ensure reliability and stability of service.

The following are things people actually said ...in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place. ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning? WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?' ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you? WITNESS: My name is Susan! _______________________________ ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact? WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active? WITNESS: No, I just lie there. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth? WITNESS: July 18th. ATTORNEY: What year? WITNESS: Every year. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you? WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which. ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you? WITNESS: Forty-five years. _________________________________ ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? WITNESS: I forget. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning? WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam? ____________________________________ ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he? WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ. ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken? WITNESS: Are you shitting me? _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time? WITNESS: Getting laid ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: She had three children, right? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: How many were boys? WITNESS: None. ATTORNEY: Were there any girls? WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney? ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated? WITNESS: By death. ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated? WITNESS: Take a guess. _____________________________ ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual? WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female? WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work. ______________________________________ ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people? WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight. _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to? WITNESS: Oral... _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body? WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time? WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question? _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor? WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Phase one..........the road has been resurfaced.

Merry Xmas to everyone

October 2017: After a hectic weekend at work I made sure I had either talked to or sent e-mails off to the people I needed to speak to about what is now getting to be backlog of constituency work. I have picked up yet another three meetings in the next couple of weeks, two for committee meetings and the other for additional training. When I said October was going to be hectic I really meant it! First off the block was a strategic planning meeting. One of the applications was the redevelopment of the Alcan site and I had some questions to ask about that, not least about contamination issues. I was assured none of the relevant agencies had reported any concerns. Well that sounds hunky dory except that none of that documentation had been included in our packs? This is something I am getting a bit concerned about, lack of full disclosure in planning applications! Anyway that application, like all of them that night was passed unanimously. One which I do want to remark on was the application again up in Amble this time for 272 houses. The developer came in and explained everything he was prepared to do and give by way of community payback and we even had councillors asking us to agree this application because of the level of payback this particular developer was prepared to give to the community. In effect for 272 houses a potential sum of up to £5M had been agreed. I immediately compared this with the 500 houses earmarked for Bedlington and my ward and the figures we can probably expect pales into insignificance. Same planning officer leading this too! Wasn’t too long ago, a month or so, we heard an application for 500 houses for Amble and again the negotiated community payback funding was into many millions of pounds! Why the disparity? This whole planning system is an absolute joke and needs fixing from top to bottom and I can’t even blame our planners because they have to function under the system as is, which in many cases isn’t what they might like. I feel I really need to start and highlight the inadequacies and downright inconsistency the current system is producing for the likes of my ward! Very next day and back at County Hall for another training session. I had gone to work at 5.30am come home at 2.20pm had a quick shower and then back up at Morpeth for this training session. This one was a master class in ‘chairing skills’ and it was something I wanted to do anyway. As I anticipated I have been doing it all wrong, well not really but I did learn some tricks of the trade which was exactly why I wanted to do it in the first place! Thought I had a rare day off today but not so there was a Gallagher Park Steering Group meeting to attend. That went quite well with everyone pretty positive until I was told the Community Gain funding or S106 funding for leisure emanating from the 500 houses we could very well see just north of the Chesters has been ring-fenced for Gallagher Park only. It would seem to me that the area which has to put up with the loss of amenity etc should be the area which sees the vast majority of payback, that as a minimum! Again I came home and fired off a missive to the head of planning informing him about this and saying I thought this money should be retained within the ward for the residents. As I write this up still no reply! Another day another meeting to attend this time the Pension Panel. We had a few presentations off fund managers who had come up from London to deliver them and one off an adviser who had travelled up from Leeds. Interesting presentations and they threw up some pretty interesting questions! I sat next to Liz who I am doing the further pension panel training with next week down in London and said I will meet her at the train station in Morpeth at 5.00pm. She corrected me and told me its 3.00pm! Heck just as well we chatted about it! I came home and spent nearly 4 hours getting some answers to further concerns expressed by residents and in a couple of cases trying to get their cases dealt with sympathetically. I still have my original list of concerns which still haven’t been answered or dealt with so I think it’s going to be a pretty uncomfortable meeting with NCC officers at the next Local Area Council. Well after another hectic weekend at work I did make it to the train station for 3.00pm on Monday. On the way down neither of us could work out how to use the other tickets we had, one for the underground but only for tomorrow? Anyway needn’t have worried we asked one of the underground porters and he waved us through! Up at 6.30am and after a cuppa and a quick shower it was off to the next venue for the training. Again we more or less walked straight there just in time for enrolment. As Liz said this was quite a complex session especially if you didn’t know the terminology. I asked each one of the presenters several questions, some they answered, some they deferred but against a room of over 40 people from all over the UK everyone knew there was a contingent from Northumberland present! This may not help my ward directly but it is one of the job requirements to make NCC as well run and professional as possible. In fact I would say this sort of activity takes up to around 70% of my time. I did enjoy the afternoon session and had a continual banter with that presenter! So that was the Pension Panel training over and it was then a trek back to Kings Cross. We got there early and tried to change our tickets to a train which was still in the station but we were told the ticket would have to be bought again so we declined. The problem we had was that the train we were booked on had a change in Darlington and the departure time for the train we needed to catch there, was 5 minutes after the arrival time of the first one! In the end it wasn’t a problem because it was actually on the same platform so one had to leave before the other came in. Got back to Morpeth for 9.00pm so quite a long day. Not to have a rest I had to take today off work because of meetings. First one was the joint chairs of the LAC’s and I had plenty to say there. First up was the county wide community chest scheme and we had about a dozen countywide applications and the funding was well oversubscribed. As we progressed through the list we examined the applications and questioned the officer. Some were taken out for further information and reflection as to the new rules, others passed, and some passed after quite heated debate! Next onto the normal business of this group. I had to chair our last LAC meeting because the usual chair had to have a minor medical procedure and several members of the public wanted some of their concerns addressing further up the food chain! Two in particular, one that the meetings timings were daft and the other that the agendas were as thin as water! I firstly mentioned the times of these meetings where planning is usually at 4.00pm and the LAC proper starts at 6.00pm. It seems all the other LACs have no problems with those times but I repeated what the floor of our meetings had said the times were crazy. The chair of this group said he delegated all the organisational procedures to the various LAC chairs so Christine can set her own meetings when she wants. She said she will be asking people what they prefer. The second issue I raised was the content (or lack of it) on the agendas. This was actually agreed by other members. I did say conversely looking at the November agenda it was very much beefier and contained several big topics, such as the NCC Budget. I said I hoped on behalf of residents these sorts of agenda items continue and make these meetings well worth attending. Next up a training session for the Fire Fighters Pension Board which I have been delegated to serve on. This has come right out of the blue! Listening to the briefing myself and the other delegated member were given it would seem as board members we have almost no say in the running of this scheme but we are responsible for the safe and correct way it is administered. No wonder there are no administration members present!!!!! Anything goes wrong myself and Ian are in the firing line, the administration members have insulated themselves from any liability here! Never mind just have to make sure nothing goes wrong under our tenure but again quite a responsibility. We went through the constitution and workings of this group and made sure we realised the difference in responsibility we had compared to the LGPS. This is a defined benefit unfunded scheme so no investment decisions to make! It took well over an hour to go through this stuff and only then were we informed that the next board meeting is actually next week! Because this is quite a small group, to quorate the meeting we need just about everyone there so if one of us can’t make it the meeting cannot proceed and that wastes time for everyone! Talk about being thrown in at the deep end! Much nicer time today! I had been asked to take part in the Democracy Week NCC hold every year for the school children of the county and today was Bedlington schools turn. Not only Bedlington but other schools around us too. 4 councillors and the Business Chair turned up to welcome our young people and take them up for lunch. They had been up there for some time but our first job was to take them for lunch in one of the committee rooms. Gave me the chance to talk to them because I knew quite a few that had come from St Bennets. After lunch they had the chance to ask us questions across the council chamber. They were given an hour to throw as many questions at us as they wanted and boy did they do just that. So we had to field the full gambit of questions from Brexit to School transport, from additional educational learning to inclusive disabled education, from gang culture to teacher’s pay and everything in-between. Of course the Conservative Business chair on my left and the Labour Party Whip on my right went at each other like dogs at broth which gave me the perfect illustration as to why I was an independent and resulted in plenty of laughs in the audience! One of the questions was about proportional representation and the two party members gave their positions. I asked why not instead of having party references just vote for the person you think best represents your position, but both party members rounded on me and told me you had to be in a group to get anything done. Really well I’m sitting here the same as you gentlemen! Oh and one other thing, didn’t we just agree that gang culture was wrong and had no place in our schools or indeed society or is that just a case of do as I say not as I do? I hope the young people got something out of it all, even if it was just a sense of county hall not being so remote and the people who make the decisions are just human beings as well, with all the frailties that entails. I hope I have convinced one or two of the young people who always take such active roles in most of the times I have worked with these young people to lay a wreath at Remembrance Day, deputising for me. I can’t be there because of work commitments but I do want to show my respect so I have asked to buy a wreath myself and hope to get these young lads to lay it on my behalf. Well what a nightmare work was this weekend. I had to stay late on the Sunday night to make sure the production lines were running normally at switch on and that was after a 12hr shift so I was pleased to get home! Monday and a rare day this month, a day off! Time to catch up on my correspondence and get in touch with the people I needed to speak to. My environmental training was cancelled this morning but I was at the dental hospital anyway! Ended up rushing back to chair a meeting at 2.pm. This was the NCC Community Chest Scheme for our local area. Hopefully more groups and associations will apply in future but as it was the funding was about equal to the applications. We really would like to fund every application which comes in but there are strict rules and regulations we have to follow to make sure everyone gets the same chance, irrespective of how big and professional their group is. That done and seeing as I was in offices adjacent, I took the opportunity, or in reality barged into the office, to ask cabinet members several questions on behalf of constituents. I even managed to squeeze into a director of service office and ask him directly some questions! I also had the opportunity to speak to one of the planning officers! I have also been speaking to the temporary local area manager I have been trying to get answers out of. He agreed to meet with me and I will take him around the ward and show him the concerns residents have been in touch with me about. Hopefully we can come up with some resolution! So not only have we dished out about another £50K to worthy groups in this area I have also been able to put into place some determination of residents’ complaints! Now I just have to make the best case for each! Wednesday and rushed back from work to get to the LAC in good time because there was a planning brief beforehand. As this is in my ward again I really wanted to be there right at the start. Got there in time to help putting the chairs out! First up a brief planning update about the applications we had tonight and then straight into the applications. First one was certainly contentious. Members of the public were there to put their views so after we heard the planning officer present the case it was time for public address. I do wish anyone speaking would refer to and take on board the rules and regulations we have to follow. An address can be as emotive as possible but in reality it can’t be considered if there are no lawful reasons to object! Whilst the public objectors had the sympathy of the panel we couldn’t dismiss the application because it followed all the rules, in fact I seconded it for exactly that reason! Several of these members of the public felt obliged to shout at us on their way out blaming us for passing this application. If only they realised it was in fact their inability to make a case using the lawful planning terms and conditions which made the outcome so one sided. Next up an application for the nursery in the West End school here in Bedlington. I proposed acceptance and when the highways and parking issues were raised I said it was so bad now that nothing could possibly make it any worse! That again was passed unanimously. Next up was the Town and Parish Councils section. This is so Town and Parish councillors can get access to the various NCC department managers such as Neighbourhood Services, IT Infrastructure, Democratic Services, Highways and Planning who were all there tonight. There was the usual contingent from WBTC, all Independent councillors (!), so with them and the two Bedlington County Councillors once again Bedlington was well represented. In fact there seemed to me to be a feeling of really getting on with business tonight. The officers were more than open and took notes of everything raised and we should see some actions resulting. I know my items were all written down for further action and asking other members, theirs’s were too. Today I had two meetings on at the same time. Treasury Management training and the Fire Fighters Pension Board. The Board had to take precedence because as I said if one of us misses a meeting then there isn’t a quorum. Plus the fact that this was the main 6 month meeting. Again quite a complex issue but then pensions are. Updates done and questions asked the Chair then took us through the rest of the agenda. This took 2 hours and I was pleased about the level of training I have done for this subject or I just wouldn’t have a clue. Friday and I had a meeting with our Neighbourhood Services area manager, something I have been chasing for some time! I had about a dozen items which needed to be resolved so once we met up I took him around to each and showed him the problems. I have to say this guy is extremely approachable and accommodating, so much so that because he has been transferred as soon as we get a replacement both the Town Council and myself asked his boss if he could stay looking after our area and his replacement move elsewhere. That can’t happen we were told! So after driving around for an hour looking at all the concerns brought to me by residents we now have agreed ways forward. That’s all I have been after for about 2 months now! Once home I had several emails to sort out, some giving updates to residents but one other laying out the evidence to back up what I said at a recent meeting, something which had been disputed. I have also been invited to a meeting by the head of NCC Planning about the housing development to the North of the Chesters. Seems there are some anomalies to clear up! It would seem there are quite a few anomalies where planning is concerned. We currently have a variation to a planning application which was originally turned down but got through on appeal and one of the variations to the permission is to build the houses in completely different styles. I have asked planners about this and they have said it is a correct way of doing it. How can that be right?????? For instance you get permission to build a bungalow and instead you build a three story townhouse and the change isn’t even consulted upon. Absolutely nuts but that’s the National Planning Framework for you! I wanted to get some questions in the next full council meeting so I contacted the person who sorts that out and she said I still had time. I wrote one about Arch and another about the Northumberland business landscape. I will list them in next month’s diary complete with the answers which I get.

Another great turnout from the Bedlington folk showing their respect.

Not a great start to the month still unable to access the internet at home? I was going on holiday just after the first week so I wanted to get everything done and in place before I left. I contacted everyone I had to with the concerns and questions my constituents have asked me about and I hope to have all of them answered by the time I get back. I had a Local Government Pension Panel meeting to attend and it turned into an all-day event! Several people had come from London and elsewhere to do presentations and answer any questions. This is a very serious position so I ask a lot of questions and if I disagree I say so, maybe too vocally! Anyway this took from 9.00am until 3.30pm to get through and I felt washed out by the end because it’s pretty heavy going. Never mind holiday to look forward to starting tomorrow! I was only going for a week and I had let everyone who had contacted me and was waiting for a response, know. For the first 3 days my phone hardly stopped! When I got home I was determined to get these ongoing issues sorted. After wading through the treacle of bureaucracy I eventually spoke to the neighbourhood services director. He confirmed that the original officer had been redeployed and his replacement had only just taken up the role when he applied for and received part time retirement. In some strange quirk of fate the original manager has been regiven this area to see to until such time as a fulltime replacement is found. I therefore shot off this communique listing the problems I had been asking about for some time now and in reality to him! “The following is a list of unresolved concerns my constituents have raised with me at my monthly surgeries. Black path from Glebe Road up to Meadowdale. Glass and cans strew all over and overgrown vegetation. Loose drain cover on Dunstanburgh road in the Hazlemere estate. Been reported by resident but no response from NCC? Cars driving on path to miss speed bump in Bernard Close, Hazlemere estate. Empty plot of land Edinburgh Drive, is it designated play area as it was supposed to be? Ineffective weed killing and blocked rains reported in Westlea. “ This doesn’t seem like rocket science to me but then I don’t have to balance the budgets and man power. I had to take the LAC tonight due to the fact that Christine the chair was in hospital undergoing a procedure. At least this one is in Bedlington! There was a pre planning meeting at 3.00pm followed by the planning meeting proper at 4.00pm followed by the LAC meeting at 6.00pm. After having procedures and the legal details of the planning applications explained to myself and the chair of planning we had the planning meeting at 4.00pm. The room was filling up with people who had been told they could address the planning meeting by their ward councillor but unfortunately that wasn’t the case! Not only that they had all come from the far side of Cramlington and thought this meeting in Bedlington had been handpicked to be out of their way! So I felt it incumbent on me to explain there was no conspiracy and that these meetings are booked well in advance of any agendas so no one knew the application they had come to shout about was going to be one tonight. The meetings will be held around the areas and this was just Bedlington’s turn. Also the fact that one of the members had told them they could speak was in fact wrong, they had to pre book a spot within the 5 minutes public speaking time. I opened the LAC and shot through the first agenda items and then passed it over to the chair of Planning sitting next to me. He again explained how the system worked and then opened it up for the first applications. Just about everyone had come to complain about one of the applications and it took over an hour to hear the case. One of the opposition members’, who has never been to one of these meetings but is supposed to come to each of them, stood up and spoke against the application. That got him a round of applause. Are people really that gullible? A very young woman spoke for the application and I had to remark to the chair that the audience should be silent and give her the respect she deserves! He agreed and asked for silence. Anyway after the speakers and questions surprisingly the chair wanted to defer the application but one of the administration members proposed rejection. I spoke about the concerns I had and most agreed but I also said we were in danger of looking like every commercial application that comes in front of us is turned down and that was something I wouldn’t like to be associated with. The vote was a unanimous rejection. Next item was a change of use and refurb of a commercial property. Again unanimous vote this time in favour. We then had half an hour to wait until 6.00pm when I could restart the LAC proper. When I did restart one of the first items on the agenda was public questions and as there were several members of the Bedlington public there unsurprisingly the questions were about Bedlington. This did not suit one of the members and he made an exasperated outburst! His complaint was that there wasn’t more members of his constituency here to ask questions and vary them from being Bedlington centric as he put it. I thought that is about as ridiculous as it gets and other members said as much! One of the items brought up could have been classed as repetition but given this member’s outburst not only did I allow it I made sure it was minuted for action! We then had a police update and I was surprised to hear quite a different report from the one I heard off the Police at the last Bedlington Forum meetings? When I questioned the officer about it he assured me his report was correct. Seems Bedlington is fully staffed and there can be no suggestion of a lack of presence here. Hmmm…… Had a corporate scrutiny meeting yesterday and this time I was pretty vocal. (I really wanted to get to the last one but it had been called at very short notice when I was away on holiday. That one was about the aborted County Hall move. I did read through the associated papers and most are covered by a confidentiality clause. So I can’t say anything other than I would expect all this information to come out into the public realm at some stage so people can then make their own minds up about who was promoting the truth or not about this move!) One of the items was the budget performance for this financial year. I had gone through the papers before attending the meeting and seen the general direction we are talking so several questions needed to be asked as there seemed to be a projected slight overspend. As this ‘potential overspend’ was mainly made up of one entry I asked about these figures. I would seem to me that an overspend of about 60% was either accounted for by incompetence, which I doubt, or the base line budget figure was so out of true it skewered the resulting report. The latter seems to be the case but I was assured it is something which has been identified and is being worked on. Good. I have just been contacted by another two constituents, one who seems to have had a less than salubrious service off NCC and another who asks about a project the last councillor was supposed to be doing. I have had nothing back from our temp area manager about the list I sent so now I need to step it up and include more items! I wanted to debate some of the topics identified in that Active Citizen report I posted some time ago with the young people I did the Civic Roles with. I had contacted Lyn at Leading Link and asked if she would ask them if any of them were interested in discussing the subject and I sent the synopsis so they could look and see. Lyn said it had a good response and there were quite a few young people interested in further exploration so I booked some time to meet up with them. In the event about two dozen young people came along and we discussed all sorts ranging from Active Citizens to Brexit, from democracy to paths for young people to better access our democracy. Couple of things stood out, one was they felt they needed better educating about the subject so that they would then be able to make much better and more valued decisions and the second major item was improved transparency! Couldn’t agree more but I had to play Devil’s advocate. The discussion went on for well over an hour and I hope we both learnt some things. I will certainly be pushing their points across at next month’s Democracy Week at County Hall where I have agreed to play host to some of our young visitors. Well my contact at Management level about constituent concerns has produced an unexpected result. Saturday night and I came back from work and was just having a cuppa before getting ready for work the next day and I had two emails from the people I have been trying to get hold of for weeks. I thanked them very much for the contact and assured them I wasn’t after any special treatment but I did need the feedback, good or bad, to the concerns and queries I had raised. Hope I get a similar response Monday! That’s this month done then and it might have been a little curtailed by technical problems but I have again tried to include what’s been going on as it happens, in real time so to speak. It may be a little abridged but some will appreciate the brevity I have no doubt! LOL. October is going to be a very hectic month! I notice the Bedlington Independent Councillors have been asked which way they are going to vote on the costs of over 16 school transport issue by the Labour group. Talk about insincerity! Well not to give anything away prior to a vote but I wouldn’t have voted to abolish free school transport for over 16’s in the first place, unlike the last Labour administration! In fact I believe education like health should be free for all citizens as long as we all agree with the basic policy and agree to chip in. I look at my monthly taxations on my salary and it seems like many others I have already agreed and I’m fine with that. Just to answer one snide attack with another…..maybe we could use just 2% of this Special £25M Dividend Arch are paying back to the County Council, according to the last administration, to fund free school transport for our over 16yr olds! Ahh… but then we would have to actually find that money; it would no longer just be a soundbite in a pre-election gambit.

Start of August and already loads to get through. I thought this was going to be quiet because it seems most people still choose August for their holiday time. I went through the suggestions off constituents for the Pothole Fund and sent my three suggestions off. There could well be another two rounds for this funding so I have a good start for them too. I have asked questions about our weed killing programme because some residents are mentioning this as a problem and I have seen weeds in the most unusual places which have just been left. It doesn’t leave a great impression. I have already asked the Town Council to think about getting the weeds around their new litter bins killed off but they said NCC were doing it? I was told NCC don’t do weed killing themselves but I know they were unhappy with the contractor who was doing this job. So let’s see the real tale from the horse’s mouth and maybe even think about some way to get my ward done properly! I have also responded to the Local Transport Plan. This once again gives me three suggestions as to any highways and transport problems in my ward. I have a list of all suggestions residents have written to council about over the last year and good to see the three I was thinking about well represented. First is to look at traffic calming measures on the road through Nedderton Village. This has been a problem for 30 years I know of and I favour physical traffic calming measures. Second suggestion is around the problems of parking at the top of Link Avenue. The cars parked up on that road are being hit by cars using the junction to turn around. We need to take the parked cars out of the equation and it’s also something which I looked at for residents there already. Third suggestions is to look holistically at the parking problems at school time along Bishops Meadow, Deanery Street, Westmoreland and Cumberland Avenues, Ridge Villas and the start of Netherton lane from the COOP to the CLUB. These might be several areas but there is a single root cause, school time traffic. It needs to be resolved as a whole issue rather than just displace one or two problems areas. I have sent those suggestions in too. My surgery was pretty busy this month with one after another resident coming in to highlight their concerns and ask for them to be reconciled. As I left another three got me in the corridor so all in all a very busy surgery! It took me well over half a day to speak to and message the people I needed to get to so I could try and do something about what I had been asked about last night. Some were simple others not so……. I hope most people who came to see me can see the direct response to their queries and concerns which has mostly been done immediately by our (NCC) service arm. Excellent response off them for most things! Town Council meeting tonight and here is the update I gave: • Mentioned the meeting we had with Arch at last update…..we now have a proper press release which I made public. • Thanks Christine for doing the necessary at the Westlea Play area and picking up that broken glass. • Asked for the major road works on the B1331 next to the COOP to be done in summer hols. • Had meetings with Arch about constituent’s problems…..very helpful! • Various new initiatives for our LAC, first one being a pot hole fund. • Another, new Community Chest scheme, please tell any groups you know about to apply….. • Also I was trying to get Bedlington as a venue for these Lac’s or at least our proper share. After many blind alleys we now have a Bedlington venue…….Netherton Club. • Also chasing up on the time taken for an ambulance to get to my ward! • Haven’t let the 500 house application go unchecked either. Asked about the S106 funding or lack of it and I have now been told planners have asked for leisure, highways, sport and educational contributions. I have asked to see the paperwork! It is now designated to come back to strategic planning……. • Fighting the decision about not carrying forward unused Councillor small scheme funding. • I have put forward three suggestions for the pot hole funding, these are: • Ridge Terrace, Nedderton and the bottom of Choppington road, all areas identified by residents. • I have also submitted my three proposals for the Local Transport Plan, again all identified by residents. These are, speeding issues and traffic calming measures through Nedderton, parking issues at the top of Link Avenue and a holistic view about traffic problems at school times especially around Netherton lane, Ridge Villas, Bishops Meadow and Deanery Street, Westmorland and Cumberland Avenues. • I have also had meetings about the NCC weed killing programme and it has commenced under NCC in my ward the very next day! • Well done for the recent events in the Town, the Picnic, Bedlington Live and the Carnival. Not to sit back I have challenged the Cabinet about this Smalls Scheme money. They decided re-elected members can get that funding rolled over however new members/councillors can’t? Don’t quite see any logic in that decision, the money has been allocated and budgeted for and in point of fact its only money residents have paid in anyway, so why anyone wants to stop them getting their fair share????? My opening shot was that it looks mean spirited and unjustified. For my ward its almost £20K, so well worth fighting for! I have also had to get in touch with the police again today. Seems some kids had a hell of a night ripping off door mirrors along Netherton Lane but they were apprehended. So I need to find out what has happened exactly and what the cops are doing about it. I did get a reply off the police straightaway and it was reassuring that they have arrested 4 suspects but obviously couldn’t discuss a live investigation. However it would seem we have a bit of an impasse as I’m representing residents who are sick of this type of behaviour from the same place, while the police are more intent on the good work done by such places! That’s indisputable but there has to be some responsibility taken somewhere doesn’t there or if not isn’t that exactly the wrong message to instill? I contacted residents who had reported the incident to me and told them it was being dealt with seriously. I also had a neighbour dispute referred to me. It was referred by the MP’s office? Seems he can’t get involved in these types of disputes but somehow I can. I have absolutely no jurisdiction but the problem is that everyone still sees these houses and estates as being council owned and they aren’t anymore! It’s like coming to me with a faulty pair of jeans you bought at M&S’s. I did phone up the social landlord and made some enquiries about this problem. I got some answers and reported back to the constituent, hopefully they can progress their own line of action now. While I was on to the social landlord I had another problem which I had reported to them on behalf of another resident some time ago, two months to be exact! I was told this had been resolved now. Not so sure about that I think the lady in question would have let me know, still fingers crossed. I have been trying to sort out the panel for our Local Area Council community chest so it can be up and running as soon as we get applications in. I have agreed a letter with the chair of the LAC and the officer in charge of the community chest. This will go out suggesting the panel is made up of 3 Labour members, 2 Conservative members and an Independent member. This should give maximum representation of the electors in our area. That done time to have another go at another cabinet member about my Smalls Scheme! In had to get in touch with this cabinet member because of his portfolio anyway so while I was onto him…… I had a very interesting meeting with a developer about the possibility of a Bedlington Sports Centre. This was very positive, so much so I need to get some extra information so he can cast a slide rule over the project and come to a decision! With a bit of luck there might be something to present to the Town Council soon! I have been chasing up that information and have finally been put in touch with the right person to give me the answers I need. Well it seems the Town Council are coming up with their own costed leisure centre proposal. Should I drop my line of enquiry or carry on and develop it………think I’ll carry on. I have also been chasing some information for another constituent and this again might well produce real tangible benefits for residents here so I wasn’t willing to take being put off! Been to a Bedlington Forum meeting tonight and Brian the chair was too unwell to attend. Russell the deputy stood in and did a fine job! I answered most of the questions directed towards NCC and Bill took them for his ward. One thing which was a bit unsettling was the police report. Seems we are soon to see our cops amalgamate with Ashington and parts of Morpeth; it was stated as in the parliamentary constituency of Wansbeck, which will inevitably result in a much reduced presence in Bedlington because Ashington is always much busier for our local cops! This didn’t sound right when it was explained on the night and in retrospect looks even worse for us in Bedlington because I can easily see a situation where there is no immediate cover for us in Bedlington. Hate to say it but once again Ashington is benefitting directly from Bedlington’s needs being ignored, this time as far as delegated police officers go. There is no other conclusion any right minded person can reach. Planning site visit this morning at Seaton Sluice. Old care home being proposed to be demolished and a brand new facility created. We walked around the site and I asked several questions which will help me make my mind up at the planning meeting tomorrow. Again I had access to another cabinet member and lobbied him about this underspent smalls scheme monies. He was very well aware of my intent so the others must have been talking! He did seem to sympathise and accepted that I will be fighting this in whatever way I can on behalf of my constituents! In fact he made a perfectly sensible suggestion…….let’s call this day one now and stop rollovers in future! That will do me……it would get my ward another £20K now! Speaking of small’s scheme I have agreed, along with the other Bedlington councillors, to put £2K into the upgrades at the War Memorial. When I was Mayor I bought two WW1 commemorative seats for exactly this project but to fit them we needed a new path and that took ages to get agreements on. The idea was to make a contemplative seating area behind the War Memorial. As NCC councillors we have now agreed to pay for that new path so Remembrance Day should be shown to be even more aesthetically pleasing and something the Townsfolk unquestionably respect and identify with. I had a meeting with Leading Link about putting on another access to democracy debate. The last one I did as Mayor and explained what a Town Council did. This one would take the Kirklees’s example as a marker and try to get the young people fired up about active citizenship and the way democracy, or rather its access routes, needs to change to engage more of our younger people as we go forward. This would lead onto the democracy week NCC hold where young people are invited up to County Hall to see how it works. Tonight we had our LAC meeting but it was only the planning section. With half of the members away on holiday I thought this would be over pretty quickly as we only had one application to hear. Wrong! We had an objector and her councillor speaking against the application and the owner of the property speaking for. Once the officer made the case the speakers were heard. Questions came next then the debate. We were asked for a recommendation and I had no problem proposing acceptance. Christine seconded it and we then had the debate. I gave all my reasons for deciding the proposal should go ahead and most members seemed to agree. We had heard about the possibility of Napoleonic Tunnels running under the site, this from the objecting councillor! This then took over the meeting with questions about “what if” and “suppose……” It was suggested that I change my proposal from accepting the recommendation to include some further conditions about the possibility of these tunnels. I refused saying I read the NCC archaeologist’s report and they make no mention of these supposed tunnels so I wasn’t going to have any knee jerk reactions to this supposition, my proposal stood. There is a condition contained which states if anything of archaeological merit is found then………..that was good enough for me. In the end the planning was granted by a unanimous vote. Once again I then ‘spoke’ to another cabinet member, this time the Deputy Leader about this money I’m after for my ward! He said they were taking it seriously and I will be contacted soon. I also spoke to the head of Planning and asked her to nudge one of her colleagues because I have sent two or three emails with concerns one of my residents has and as yet I have had no reply. Got back home in time to see the News Post Leader had printed my reply to a letter last week about the Dam at Humford. Someone was having a go saying the new councillors needed to step up to the plate, get to know about it and voice their concerns about this project. Hmm, my reply was that I had been to meetings about the project and was at the public presentation by the proposer but coming out on one side or the other would preclude me from voting as a planning committee member when the project came in front of us, if it ever does. So maybe not a case of not stepping up to the plate maybe a case of keeping one’s powder dry! As it stands we have 3 Bedlington councillors on planning and we are all aware of this project and local feeling. Well just got an email from NCC telling me what my smalls scheme allowance is and its reset back to this year only! Well that’s me told……….not! I now need to see what other buttons I can press! I don’t see why we should lose out just because the last councillor didn’t know what was needed and didn’t spend his allowance! The quiet word I had with the head of planning seems to have worked as I now have several emails replying to the questions I submitted on a resident’s behalf. These I can now send on. I now have to get onto several departments within NCC and seek out yet more answers to questions raised by constituents. Had to go and see one of my constituents about a problem he had outside his house. After this meeting I had to request a meeting with one of the NCC managers who I am in almost daily contact with! This will be easy or extremely difficult to sort out! I also asked about the puffin crossing which is due to go in beside the COOP on the B1331. I wanted to know and pass on the timescale or it. While I was onto highways I asked about the traffic survey which is to be carried out in Netherton Village. I have been asked to go up to County Hall for a meeting with the business chair! I should be getting answers back to my enquiries of last week because it was a bank holiday yesterday and everyone had a long weekend. Well apart from me and the weekend workers! I do have several more questions to ask now though! The puffin crossing next to the COOP is to be started during the October half term, hopefully that will minimise traffic disruption. I had asked for it to be done during the summer holidays but the paperwork couldn’t be done in time? Had the meeting with the NCC Business Chair and I think I can describe it as a full and frank exchange of views! I think both of us are in no doubt about where each of us stand on several issues and time will tell how sincere each of us are. This month’s Diary and the start of next month’s diary will inevitably be somewhat curtailed due to the fact that my Internet supplier seems to have switched me off half way through August! I have made efforts to at least describe what happened in the last 2 weeks.

I’ve recently spent a couple of weeks wandering about in the Cotswolds and was delighted in several towns and villages to find FREE walking tours available. Guided by a member of the local history society, groups of 2 to 20 people are shown points of historical interest and the history of the town is briefly related. The walks were 1-2 hours. The experience was both interesting and enjoyable. In some larger towns the tour took place up to 4 times a day, while in smaller towns it was only once a day. It was free because it encouraged visitors to the town and in small towns (timed as it was directly before or after lunch) it brought income to pubs, tea-rooms and restaurants. These towns and villages were places no larger than Bedlington and in many cases, though interesting in their history, had not as much to offer as Bedlington. Could it be something for Bedlington? I’m not suggesting every day, but perhaps a couple of times during the summer? Or even an autumn or winter walk, perhaps with pleasant lighting in places.

Looking good today!

Seems another, albeit less important, election has been forecast for June 8th.

my name is joe steel the photos were took in the howard arms in the market place bedlington this is my granddad who brought me and my brother brian up and we are very proud of him .the middle photo is our real dad also called joe steel.hope this helps a little bit

Excellent love the new Gateway Features

That article is so true. The sad thing is, Bedlington has lovely character that other towns in Northumberland lack (such as Ashington, Blyth and Cramlington). It's good to see new business' springing up like Root bean, fishy feet, etc as well as the old classics such as Tallantyre, Dennis Todd music and Moods (where the gentleman who served me yesterday was bloody lovely, and not a generic tesco uniform clad zombie. We just need that extra boost, but the government have ignored us for the likes of Whitley Bay, Ashington and some pointless human sculpture made out of land near cramlington. To be fair, I don't even know how they can, with good conscience, build that sculpture while there are policemen and nurses being laid off. I'd rather have good health care and a decent police force than have my taxes pay for the second angel of the north!!

Just what everyone wants to know: RE: J D Wetherspoon: Contact Form Submission†From: Acquisitions Internal (Acquisitionsint@jdwetherspoon.co.uk) Sent: 05 July 2010 09:10:23 To: claire jackson Dear Ms Jackson Thank you for your email. JD Wetherspoon has purchased the Red Lion in Bedlington. At the moment there are no onsite or opening dates agreed. Once again, thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us. Kind regards Carolyn

As far as we're concerned, the matter IS closed thanks. There has been no problems at our door since one of the kids has received a behaviour order(not quite an ASBO) and the police visited another one and warned his parents! We don't wish to listen to some "other story" that some of the other kids have told their parents, as do you honestly believe they'll tell it as it is? As i know their names, you are not the parent of those that the police have reprimanded but i do know the names of the larger group and a simple check informs me they are friends of those involved. This does not mean they themselves have been involved, so any "misrepresentation" of your children is not the case. We are just a little curious why you think your children have been somehow been mentioned in all of this as names have NEVER been mentioned? There are many groups of kids that roam around our estate and 99%of them are great and behave themselves. As to a "completely different story", for the last 18 months or so, the police have a detailed list of all incidents including dates, times and names of those stopped and questioned in the area at the time. They also have recordings of all calls to their office of incidents happening at the time. We have the full support of the local police and have received routine call-ins and checks at our house since the last incident. As far as we are concerned...police and local liason officers have the job done. In the meantime, it's come to light that one of our neighbours were having similar problems to us as well as a house in the next close. Neither have had any problems since then, so logically, they got those directly involved. Thankyou for your wish for us to have closure and possible apologies etc but we already have and wish to leave it at that. Jester & Family

I first met Mr Lavery after leaving school and joined a Y.O.P. (Youth opportunities Programme) at Ashington Technical College. Then I started work at Lynemouth Colliery with said Mr Lavery, then got my mining craft apprenticeship with Mr Lavery, then transferred to Ellington Colliery with Mr Lavery, then went to a Ashington Colliery training centre with Mr Lavery, then spent nearly five years at Ashington Technical College mining department with Mr Lavery. Yes you could say I know Mr Lavery very well! I wouldn't trust him as far as I could kick him!

There are to many do-gooders now. I think there is a big difference in disciplining a child and abusing a one.. We are talking about a smack here not a full blown assault lets get this right. I think the kids have decided that they are in charge because they are not taught that its their responsibility if the've done wrong and thats because everyone is frightened to do anything about it as it's their so called rights. I don't think there is anything wrong in having a reason to be afraid that a smack will happen if bad behavior is happening child line and ethser rantzen has a lot to answer for.

tesco closed 6 stores in that block and opened one inadequate tesco store.I'm sick of this town playing second fiddle to other towns. Newbiggin got a beach Ashington get a superstore, sports centre. Blyth get parks and play areas. Morpeth get MILLIONS spent on a shopping precinct. We get 2 million spent on some paving slabs. Although very pretty in does not detract from the fact that the surrounding buildings are crumbling as is our community. The population of Bedlington is huge and continues to grow, yet the council refuse to add to the amenities. Prefering to gloss over the cracks and hope we wont notice. Buildings are left derelict for years.While OUR council tax is spent elsewhere.

Ok i'll admit now i've not read 100% of this topic, only up to Toby's second post. But anyways, I'd just like to say, that when i was younger, i was quite the opposite of you Toby. I say younger, i mean when i was 15 - 18. I had loads of mates, i was always hanging about the streets, and i will admit i used to knock about with some troublemakers. I went to all the 6th Form Socials, I organised them back in 6th Form. I was drinking before i was 18. I was rarely in the house, even though i did have a playstation/internet or whatever. The one thing i did have, was respect for other people. ...I've never done anything like harrassing or taunting people, i've certainly NEVER done anything like Jester is describing, i personally think it's absolutely disgusting. I'm not a 'somebody' but i do look down my nose at scum like that. I actually caused quite an uproar on the bus not so long ago when some youths were firing spitballs across the bus, which resulted in me telling them to grow up (only being 20 myself) and another elderly man telling them they were 'the scum of the earth', in which i strongly agreed. They were really upsetting some elderly passengers and i was just filling with anger. I had no where to hang about, nothing to do but wander round with a group of mates, sit at the doctors, or down the front street...but i never resorted to all of this. What i'm trying to say is that i don't think it's about not having anywhere to go. It's about how they're brought up, what principles they live by, not being taught to respect others, not being taught to THINK FOR THEMSELVES. If someone is brought up to belive that doing this sort of thing is 'funny'...then...that's what they're going to do. I had one hell of an upbringing, i was taught right from wrong, i was punished for my actions, but i was also taught to think for myself and learn from mistakes. I really do hope you get this sorted Jester! There's just no call for it.

As someone who is self employed and an owner of said white van I find your remarks quite offensive! As said van, tools and eqipment cost about three times as much as your average family car where the hell do you expect people like me to park their vehicles? Down plessey woods car park? I think not! It will be parked outside my house so said younger generation can not help themselves to my van,gear and livelyhood.Get your head out of where the sun don't shine,if it wasn't for the likes of us your estate would probably be half boarded up houses and a haven for hoolaganism,and if this is your snobbish attitude to hard working decent people then I am not surprised you are having bother,in fact I'm surprised you are still living where you are and haven't moved in with the Queen

July 2018. 2nd of July and straight into the thick of it again. Full council had been changed and was now on today. Plenty of things to go through on the agenda plus two questions I had submitted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tIDjcTsPrM The first one was pretty straightforward with the portfolio holder promising to get me and the other members the contact details for the right people within the various social landlord businesses, especially the largest ones. My second question wasn’t so accommodating. This was the one about the safe drive in’s and drop offs at new schools and having been told there was one included in the new school we at the strategic planning had passed for Loansdean then on further inspection been told we were not allowed to have them, I was somewhat mystified. Well after asking my question the portfolio holder told me on one hand there was such a facility in this new school and in the next breath told me why they couldn’t be included? So when asked if I had a supplementary question my only response was that my original question stood. Clear as mud! I also question the Leader about the £20M a year we have been promised as part of the Devolution Deal. It was £30M a year as far as I understood? He assured me no it was £20M. I have since looked back and both the BBC and ITV reported it originally as a £30M a year deal. I can only assume it changed when the 7 members became 3! Next day it was back up to county hall, first for the community chest panel, which I chair, and then later for a strategic planning meeting. I had been around most of the community groups in my area telling them to apply for the NCC community chest funding and out of 8 applications 6 were from my area! We had just started when the fire alarm went off and everyone had to leave the building. After 40 minutes waiting outside we decided to hold the meeting somewhat apart from everyone else but under the shade of the trees. Couple of problems with two applications but nothing that couldn’t be straightened out. Still feel troubled by the lack of applications and we still have quite a wedge to award out at our last session in September! Next came the planning meeting and yet more houses on the lists. The Alnwick Gardens came up and while I fully supported the project I did ask if better and two way signage could be introduced to show visitors where the Town centre was so those traders might get a lift. I also questioned the business plan which sees the need to turn the attractions into 2 days stays yet only allows for 3 hr parking? I had also made the case for using this to boost our demand for road improvements on the main A1. Another application came through for houses in Amble and in rounding up the application just before the vote I said out of the 1300 houses I have had to give outline planning to in Amble this scheme looked the most needed and sustainable. It has a mixture of 1 and 2 bedroom houses, is adjacent to a modern estate, is getting new bus stops etc and the ‘developer’ is a social enterprise, so a not for profit group! Next up came a site visit for the planning side of our LAC. This was at a stables in Seaton Valley. Really pleased I checked Google maps before I set off. Only 4 of us turned up, myself, Russ, Bill and Christine the chair of the LAC. Once again the 3 Bedlington councillors turned up to discharge their duty yet none from the immediate vicinity! We were taken around and shown the application then it was a very quick dash up to County Hall for the Economic Strategy presentation. Again I was shocked to see only one opposition member had turned up for what is really one of the most fundamental and important policies we as a county council have to put together. The meeting was led by our Economic Strategy officer and there was a good smattering of cabinet members present as well as the Leader and Business Chair. I listened to the proposed changes to our strategy which are being introduced and got the chance to ask questions. I asked what was the definition of these much heralded “better jobs” which we seem to be chasing. I questioned whether it was just down to salary because job satisfaction must have to play a part and some people will feel they have great jobs but not necessarily the highest paid ones. That point was conceded. My second question related to two points in the presentation, one about our area not being a high wage earning area and another about affordable housing. Again I stated this affordable term we are using for housing is in no way accurate, in reality it only means less expensive! I said until we relate local salaries into the affordable nature of our housing then we are doing our people a disservice. I also related the question directly at the Leader saying that if and when we start our social house building programme we have to make it really affordable, and that would be the dictionary definition, in terms of sales and rent for our indigenous young people. My third point was about job creation and it was nice to hear an officer repeat almost word for word what I had said to her previously about the potential our smallest business have in terms of job creation if we can get them to develop to their potential. I said I thought we should start to look at this aging population which we as a county have going on and is forecast to grow even more so in the future. Maybe there are lots of retired people who still want to do something and could well be interested in starting or restarting businesses if we went out and asked? That raised some eyebrows. I had already pressed the point that real sustainable regeneration doesn’t happen because someone wants it to happen in a certain area. It’s about time we realised that and looked at the natural assets each area has which can be exploited to everyone’s benefit instead of seeing the same places get one regeneration package after another, most of which are destined to fail because the simple lessons haven’t been learnt! At the end of the presentation I spoke to the officer at length about these community partnerships which are a central plank in the new policy. I pressed him about how open the authority would be if places came together and presented viable business plans. He said he knew exactly what I was saying and any area would get a full and fair hearing. In my view this is the best chance Bedlington has to see a successor to the Market Place regeneration currently in place. It is certainly something I will be pushing for. This week is the LAC and I have several unanswered questions relating to the last LAC! The LAC once again took place At Netherton Social Club and even getting their early there were no parking places left! I had a feeling all these cars were there for one thing! The planning meeting commenced at 4.30pm as advertised and there were two items which needed to be addressed. The first one was the retrospective permission for the stables and there was plenty of opposition. For my part I listened to all the arguments but most were not planning matters so I had to discount those. The legitimate ones were answered by the officers and we then had it to decide. I proposed acceptance, seeing as no one else was going to risk the wrath of the audience, and this was duly seconded by another member. That meant I had to sum up and doing so countered most if not all of the weak planning arguments which had been presented. The vote came next and it was passed by a majority, with some members voting with their hearts not their heads! The second and even more contentious application came next. This concerned a small parcel of land which the owner wanted to turn into caravan storage. This had actually come to us last year and we had turned it down for two reasons, one overdevelopment of the land and two the impact it might have on the road infrastructure where it was. In my opinion the owner had addressed both issues in this current application. I still thought it a bad idea but couldn’t see any planning reasons to turn it down and I said so. I was certainly not the most popular person in the room then! The vote came and again it was turned down by all the other members, in my case I abstained saying I didn’t like it but couldn’t find legitimate reasons to actually vote it down. I think the owner has been given a gold plated appeal and I would expect to see caravans on there before a year is out. Of course everyone else thought it was a great decision but the wry smile I got off our planners told me differently! One thing was did strike me was the bare faced playing to the audience done by a couple of members. Now I know it’s hard not to address the audience but we are just supposed to address the committee. Watching members quite openly fawn over and almost flatter the audience was a bit queasy and I know how the planners must have felt. After the planning was over and about 80 people trouped out we had our normal LAC. I was very happy to give out presentation plaques again on behalf of the LAC Community Chest. Groups were there to receive them and there are more to come! The main meeting started and several questions from the audience. Some were answered, one or two deemed to have already been answered. The main part of the meeting was to receive an update about the Local Plan. We were taken through various aspects and all my questions were answered, as were others. I was particularly happy to hear my view that ‘Bedlington was now full of new house builds’ was generally agreed with by officers. I also asked about house design. One being some sort of Northumbrian vernacular and the other forcing new houses to be of better standards as far as future proofing and basic stuff like insulation went. Again they were generally accepted. The meeting closed about 7.45pm and I had to run to catch another community one. This week all members were invited to a presentation about Devolution. I went up to County Hall to take part and again mainly cabinet members and admin councillors. Again one opposition member and another independent from the West of the county. One Conservative councillor came in and sat down next to me jokingly saying he didn’t mind sitting next to the troublemaker. I said I consider that a badge of honour given that it was mainly cabinet members! So we were taken through the presentation and I have to say while I still do support the intent some of the detail is far from worked out. Well according to some of the answers I got back anyway. At least I was able to get a better understanding about how this will work and the functions it will contain. I even suggested making Bedlington the central plank in the economic policy for commercial development and job creation. I also spoke about the potential Cambois and North Blyth offer in terms of river usage and developing the potential of the Enterprise Zone. My only reservation was that if the Tripartite authority are looking to expand port facilities will Newcastle and North Tyneside somehow out vote us arguing for investments for the River Blyth. I was assured no because our offer is vastly different from theirs. I honestly hope that is the case. I do think this is something which we might exploit and I will be thinking up ways to put in some suggestions regarding future develop and investment into Bedlington. I went up to the Local Plan presentation held in Bedlington and was slightly bemused when the officer told me the two main topics which people had been asking about. One was the possible Golf Club development and the other the Town Centre regeneration project. I said one I didn’t know anything about because I have kept my distance as I sit on a planning committee and the other I hadn’t heard anything untoward or anything which had been changed. I was surprised when I was told the detailed planning would go in by September with a start date of January next year. That’s wasn’t something I understood to be happening but before I could get the answers off the people who would have them, I needed I had to get over the weekend at work. Unsurprisingly social media here is alight with claims and counter claims for each of those subjects and whilst I can’t get involved with one I can certainly get involved with the other! After the weekend I made some calls and had some meetings lined up to check out what exactly was going on with our Town Centre regeneration. I was assured it was proceeding as planned and that whilst an act of God couldn’t be foreseen everything being equal we will see work start very soon. I explained why I was concerned, and a lot of people in the Town too and there doesn’t seem any rhyme or reason for the planners to have told people there was a long delay? That’s being checked out. I am of the opinion that it’s still a sound goer and whilst there are several reserved matters to be attended to which may incur a slight delay, it will certainly not be months and months. I do have to say I find it a bit strange when people are questioning the exact day, hour and second this development will commence when for the last 50 years we have had nothing like it for the Town. It’s almost like Schadenfreude to some and even though they might have a political reason not to want this to happen surly supporting it for the greater good is the right thing to do? I completely understand why people are hesitant and some even doubting Thomas’s because we have been ‘misled’ for so many years in the past but I hope when this does start and people can see real action they get behind it en masses and prove Bedlington can have a successful development of this type.

...and he added a bit at 2:40 just for Merc!

Thats the wonderful thing about living in a democracy we all get to have our say, although I an sure some wish we did not

Hello! sorry about the disappointment, We had an electrical fault which prevented opening! Back to norm tomorrow! "New times though : Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday 9.00am/5.00 Sunday 12 til 6.00 kind regards ??????☕️

What a beautiful beautiful world when all the sane and stable pillars of the community show so much concern for the terminally unhinged?! Pop stars Jarvis Cocker and Bob Geldof to speak at Brexit fallout event First she cares about our fledgling democracy, and now she's caring about our mental health. Is there no end to this woman's humanity?

Each week I'll be leaving tips in this topic for lesser-known features on Bedlington.co.uk to help you get the most from the site. #1 Mentions If you want to alert another member to something you have written it's as easy as typing @ followed by the members username. As you type the list of available options will reduce and get more relevant. When this is added the member will receive a notification that you mentioned them in a post and send them a link to it. The link in the post will also link to the member profile page.

Been organised even before you wrote it _Pauls I hesitate to say we are not all amateurs! They have all been placed at 90 degrees to the section of the road as you come in. Like them or loath them they "announce" when you enter Bedlington Town, in other words they are gateway features....

Unlikley visitor to Bedlington Police Station, http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/singing-like-canary-yellow-bird-12410418

Hi. The photograph was of the first football team at Barrington school. When we played away games, mostly at Ashington, we had to walk to Choppington Station to catch the bus. Another story from Barrington is that when my father took me and my brother to see Newcastle play we caught the bus at Choppington Stn as usual, went upstairs for a good seat and guess who was sitting there - Jackie Milburn on his way to play in front of 80,000. He had been working in the mines on the Saturday morning; needless to say I got his autograph,that day Charlie Wayman scored a hat-trick and Len Shackleton scored the other.

You forgot to add watching the wedding video in reverse, the bride walking up the aisle, getting into the taxi and going back to her mother

...........................................................Welcome To Bedlington .......................................................... A Terrierrific Place ........

On a happier note, these are my 'babies'. They cost me a fortune in crushed oats, sunflower seeds and carrots.They've learned to 'headbut' the bird feeder causing the seeds to gush out onto the ground and wait at the kitchen door for carrots. Not completely tame yet - they won't let me touch them but I can stand among them.

It is certainly the elected officials duty to listen to the public who elected them, then act as they see fit, (but not always necessarily the way the electors feel they should.) there are often many legal or financial considerations that are not known to the public. How well do you know your councilors? have you been to any council meetings or talked or e-mailed them to tell them of your concerns? (not only you but all of the readers) Living here in a small community it is very easy to for us to all that, as we work, live and play very closely, my point is they are elected but only if you vote for them! At work yesterday a good friend of mine said he is being asked to run for Mayor or at least for council, he sees the core of the council being local businessmen with their own agendas! a few years ago my plumber was almost elected as Mayor!!! (failed by less than 20 votes.) We have our council minutes posted on a web site, I read them and often follow up by going to a meeting or sending an e-mail, our local newspaper is a good means of telling the council what the people really think! I think we have many capable readers here who should get involved with the council and the community in general, great ideas and enthusiasm but only lack the formal skills, I'm sure the council read this web site, use it to tell them what you think! Respectively submitted, Sorry for the rant!