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I agree toffo but you have a responsibility too and that is to find out the basics before you start firing bullets. I know this is not the popular scenario but the implied contract is there! What's the difference between Town Councillors and County councillors and where does the MP fit in? I will take any criticism for anything I have any responsibility for, I won't take it for things I have no input or authority over! As for letting a wider public know through local media, here's a letter I sent into the NPL last week………….............................................................................................................................................(sorry about the spacings etc I still have a virus!)........................................................................ Now we have had time to digest the official closure notice by Tesco and think about how it may impact onto our town we really need to see just how much of a catalogue of disasters this has really been from start to finish for Bedlington! I will stand to be corrected but chronologically the first the Bedlington community knew about this supposed development was at a Bedlington Forum meeting back in 2009 where one of the then WDC officers who put the deal together informed us that Tesco were going to do a large scale rebuild which would incorporate the car park and Gap Site. As part of the build, new shop units (6) and offices above were to be built and a long term lease (25yrs+) would be given to what was then Wansbeck Life and they would administer that commercial space. (What a can of worms Wansbeck Life turned out to be but like a phoenix rose from the ashes and became the resplendent Arch, the County Council owned Northumberland Development Company!) It was explained that council were going into a form of PARTNERSHIP with Tesco and would be handing over the Gap Site and car park freely to Tesco as their contribution, in turn council would get and run the new shops and offices. Tesco then acquired the covenants on the car park off the CO-OP. These covenants at the time guaranteed free parking for Bedlington residents (180 spaces!) and the site for a weekly market. These conditions were quickly changed! We then had the plans put in by Tesco's and the fanfare public presentations they did. When asked a bit deeper for information it transpired Tesco were going to slap a 2/3 hour parking limit on their car park overseen by number plate recognition cameras and charge transgressors a parking fine. It became crystal clear why they had needed the covenants on the car park and why they changed them! Skip forward a few years and the planning permission which had been eagerly given was starting to run out and still no signs of any development. Why was no one working on a Plan 'B' as it became increasing clear Tesco would never actually do this redevelopment. Questions were asked of the County Council about the terms of the deal which had been agreed with Tesco especially any claw back arrangement if their development didn't go ahead, because as far as I could see we had handed the two prime commercial assets in Bedlington over to a multinational for nothing! It took many many months of repeatedly and doggedly asking the question and what came back was at odds with what we had been told all those years ago. County claim Tesco paid £1 million pounds for the sites (car park and Gap site) but didn't put any timeframe for development into the agreement reached with Tesco and certainly no claw back. I asked to see the cheque entry and even asked our county councillors to look for it. No one has come back with any proof any money was handed over, I can therefore only assume what we were told at the very start of this unedifying spectacle was correct, council handed over those two site to Tesco free! Even if I did believe the 'official line' that in itself makes the much Bedlington despised disappearance of the Golf Club money pale into insignificance as we are now talking about £1 million Pounds in cash not the half million pounds Golf Club money county previously sequestrated off Bedlington! WHERE'S THE MONEY HONEY? What really is the problem and where I would apportion blame is in the fact that there is no plan 'B'. One council after another was keen to sit back and do nothing in/for Bedlington because they had sold OUR souls to a private company which could do almost what it wanted. This is not governance it's actually the antithesis of good governance! We then saw out MP come riding over the horizon into Bedlington like the Lone Ranger, only he wasn't firing silver bullets he was firing blanks! Here's an idea for plan 'B'! Every other Town in the South East of the county if getting sizable investment from the staggering (approx.) £150 million going into Ashington to the latest £500K we have been told going into Blyth. What about this for an idea, let's put some of the millions of pounds Arch has been 'given' and allowed to trade into, as investment into Bedlington? After all it is the "Regeneration Company for Northumberland” and last I looked Bedlington was part of Northumberland! The whole Tesco site should be compulsory purchased for a pound and developed sensibly with reference to its position in a conservation area as well as overriding commercial considerations. What is abundantly clear is that there is no one with any imagination or business acumen abroad within NCC and certainly not anyone with reference to Bedlington's needs! Never has been since the old WDC days! As well as the Tesco employees who are to lose their jobs I feel sorry for Greggs and their employees because at least and at last here we have a national company demonstrably willing to invest in a full new shop refit in Bedlington and they must be left wondering what might happen to them too as their premises are part of the Tesco owned building?

I'm starting to take exception to this………I am a councillor and I do nothing else except stand up for Bedlington! I can think of another 3 who do the same. So please get your targets right and fire the bullets at the right people. Don't paint all councillors with the same brush you have to be more selective, some of us are actually fighting bloody hard for this community!

The Town Council past and present aren't to blame for the Tesco Debacle or the lack of investment in the Town. The blame lies solely with our County Councillors and the Member of Parliament that was elected to represent us. They have failed miserably to support us whilst channeling their efforts and our monies into a neighbouring town of the MPs choice. They are aware of this website and get regular news feeds of what is being discussed on here, some of them may be members but unfortunately they choose not to respond because they can't defend their actions.