Stephen

So do the 0.9% come from Mars? Ahhhhh that must be the percentage of politicians who rule this country :lol:

You mean the 0.9% over 100% that you get by adding 98.8% + 2.1%?

Remember that not everyone who's born in the UK is white and not everyone in Wansbeck who's white was born in the UK.

But then Bedlington was twinned with Mars for a brief period so you could be right.

With the latest downgrading of Greek bonds and their ban on shorting financials it looks like the futility of the ECB/IMF rescue plan is becoming apparent. It would seem Greece is about to bear the brunt of the abject failure of the political class to do anything constructive in sorting out the fiscal problems this country has and looking at Portugal's downgrading contagion is starting.

Let us not forget just why this has become such a problem. Had the politicians grasped the full extent of what was going to happen then maybe a real deal could have been done to negate the full effects Greece will now have to face. Even at the eleventh hour the latest 'rescue plan' is unworkable and doesn't provide the quick, reactive and decisive measures needed to really help Greece. I think there is a very salient lesson in there for us! Greece is about to pay for the folly of allowing the Eurocrats too much self induced importance.

Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, take a pin and see which one will be next to be targeted for having unrealistic fiscal policies. That same pin might just land a bit closer to home of course..........

Malcolm, I don't disagree with what you say about the Eurocrats but ultimately Greece is responsible for the terrible situation it is in and there is a lesson for the UK in this.

This is the same party that is telling us that is prepared to sacrifice £17Bn a year in tax relief in order to provide a £1.5Bn benefit to the lower paid!

Reducing the tax paid by higher rate taxpayers = tax relief

Reducing the tax paid by the lower paid = benefit

So tell me, how high does your income have to be before a tax reduction is defined as tax relief instead of a benefit?

The Lib Dems,,,,, well Stephen might be better placed to say what their take is on future changes needed to our economy because as soon as I get a handle on what they come out with they then almost rescind it. They could be the biggest 'cutters' of all and there is an analogy if we look at the way the Lib Dems have ran NCC since taking control. Their dynamic duo of Clegg/Cable looks the least compatible offering for governance given that they don't seem to understand what each is saying at times. Some of their economic strategies are into the realms of fantasy but then long shots can often do that and get away with it.

The Lib Dems have named £15bn of specific cuts initially including Child Trust Funds and a public sector pay cap, and said that more cuts are necessary (as the party believes the structural deficit is £70bn). You are right that there are no specific cuts identified for that yet although the party have said they will look at public sector pensions and the cost of replacing Trident.

I do think all the parties should be open about the scale of deficit, whoever gets in will regret not doing so when they have to govern. But as NCC has found out, it's one thing to say we need to stop spending money we don't have, and another to actually name the things you'll have to cut.

I really fail to see the significance of these leader debates as we do not elect them directly? We are ripping off the American version in some sort of glitzy glamming up of our democratic system. At best these debates make the leaders into sleazy PR men for their party manifestos don't they? It is surly down to the local candidates to reach their constituents and explain why we should give them our vote. Nice to see there is to be a Wansbeck debate at Ashington Leisure Centre soon where all the candidates will speak and answer questions. Lets hope we see a bit of substance rather than the usual spin!

This is a very interesting point. I've always been a bit sceptical of voting systems like the Scottish Parliament one which are a mixture of constituency MP elections plus a top-up to make the result proportional, as it means you have two types of MP. At the moment though how can people choose someone who they think would be the best local representative and put their area above party policy... while at the same time being able to choose between the party manifestos?

This is a serious question, not one meant to be inflammatory at all, but how many immigrants are there in Bedlington?

Don't know but Wansbeck constituency as a whole (i.e. the former Wansbeck district plus Morpeth) was 98.8% white at the time of the last census (2001) and 2.1% of people were born outside the UK.

This has to be a misunderstanding. Are they seriously saying that they can't find four streets from Hazelmere, Beaufront Park, Humford Way, Church Lane, Towers Close, Church Lane, the new bit of Bower Grange that aren't classed as disadvantaged (even if you don't count Nedderton, Hartford Bridge/Hall)?

These statistics are usually done by council ward anyway, and I wonder if she meant only four wards in Bedlingtonshire?

West Bedlington Town Council has set up a 'Community Chest' scheme which gives local voluntary groups and organisations a chance to bid for funding. This might be to help establish a new group or to carry out extra activities that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do – e.g. sporting activities, arts, music or craft group, new equipment for a youth club – but these ideas will be coming from the community themselves.

To qualify for an award the applicant must be able to demonstrate clearly that any funding from West Bedlington Town Council will benefit the Town, or residents of the Town.

The rules and conditions are set out in the application form. There are two versions attached here - a Word document which can be filled in electronically or a PDF which you can print and fill in by hand.

BedlingtonCommunityChest Application Form.doc

BedlingtonCommunityChest Application Form.pdf

So how does this help Bedlington Stephen? Due to a political stitch-up in former centuries the station is in the wrong place anyway! If Stevenson had had his way and put the station in the natural place the town would be a lot bigger and more prosperous than it is now. The local landowners and politicians screwed this one up for sure!

For a moment there (just for a moment) when I read Stevenson I thought you meant the former Wansbeck DC chief exec...

I think it would help Bedlington Station a lot, not so much Bedlington town though there are some advantages to being part of a national network compared to a disparate system of bus timetables. We had an example on this site not so long ago of a potential visitor to Bedlington who just couldn't find out how to get here. Of course you also need to give people reasons to come in the first place.

Where is the mention of Bedlington Station in this LD proposal?

To be fair, it isn't mentioned though it is on the ABT line and SENRUG's proposal includes it.

Seems to me this is a recipe for being told that we are subsidised for x millions already for a transport link that it is impractical to use. Probably better for us that main-line Morpeth is made more accessible by a better bus service and stopping main line services - even Cramlington station!

The main-line services don't stop more often at Morpeth because it would affect their timetables, and because they don't stop more often it makes Morpeth impractical for main-line travel. I travel by train a lot on business and even when I used to travel to Glasgow I had to drive to Newcastle to get a train that would go back through Morpeth, and probably stop there too... but getting a train back to your car left parked at Morpeth was another matter, and a taxi from Alnmouth to Morpeth station when you get stranded isn't cheap.

There is a lot of travel on the Morpeth to Newcastle line though - it's one of the 10 most overcrowded services in the country - and I think the SENRUG idea of extending that line to Bedlington Station was a good one. If it hadn't had a new station with park and ride at Choppington added to it then I think the capital costs would have been far less (they were estimated at £5 million) and the annual subsidy of £50,000 is something that East Bedlington Parish Council could probably afford on its own.

What a pity they don't have the guts to put a none-of-the-above box on the ballot paper!

I've always thought that Re-Open Nominations should be on the ballot paper so that if RON wins, there has to be a new election. There's a general assumption in politics that low turnout is down to apathy. No doubt some of it is, but if there was a 'none of the above' option that could make a real difference to the outcome, we'd see just how much is due to people not feeling they had anyone worth voting for.

The thing is Malcolm, after reading through the Wansbeck candidate's campaign literature it's just more of the same. The stuff is full of "We need more jobs", "I'll help tackle crime & anti-social behaviour" This is all just stuff to get people nodding their heads and is all blatantly obvious (which is obviously the point). I can't find any real evidence of anything they are actively proposing to do and I fear we are going to have another term of the area not moving forward. I say moving forward in relative terms to the rest of the country of course, maybe I should have said move less backwards.

I read somewhere that a good test of real content in a political slogan is to see if the opposite makes any sense, e.g. "we need less jobs" and "don't tackle crime and anti-social behaviour'

As we're in an election period now I suppose I should wear my party hat for a moment, so I have to say I was a bit shocked (in a good way) to see the national party saying that it would pay to re-open the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne railway (among others, but our line got a namecheck) by diverting money from roads. If I was writing our local leaflets I'd stick that on every one of them.

Not quite GGGG!

Already looking into getting a town map and the costs......about the same as a decent second hand car! As for red tape already hit it!

A lot of town and parish councils have them, so we may have a way through some of the red tape. And at least two of us on WBTC think a town map/notice board in the market place would be a good idea.

I've been on holiday so I've come into this debate a bit late, though I see Dajazar has given info about the town council.

I'd only add that though it is the town and county councillors' responsibility to revive Bedlington, we can't do it alone. We'll be launching a grants scheme from April to give money to people who have ideas to set up activities in Bedlington, whether they are sports, arts, crafts, martial arts, music, dancing, cooking and whatever a group of people would like to do (legal, decent and honest!) that would make Bedlington a better place to live. Those ideas and activities are going to have to come from the community though.

We know also that people want more shops in the town centre, and they are only going to come if national chains or local businesses take the commercial risk. So somehow investors need to get good information about the market here - what local shops will people really use, and are we likely to use them enough to make them viable?

Replying to last comment from Stephen:

There is a black and white printer in the Help Hub - not colour - but black and white should be ok for CVs.

You can make a CV in the Help Hub, email it somewhere, and print it off to take home so you've got a copy of what you sent.

Also, many jobs make you fill in an online form. You can print this off as well, so you know what you've said if you get invited for an interview.

One thing we can't do though at present is let you brink in disks or sticks to modify a cv you've already made. Sorry, this creates a virus risk for our PCs

We don't see ourselves as being technical experts who know everything about the technology. Just trying to offer a basic service. For those who find they can do everything they need in the Job Centre - fine. We don't want to create a problem if there isn't one. We aim to offer a basic service of helping people who need to apply for jobs and benefits

Den

Den, another question for you - the internet symbol in your window looks like a WiFi symbol, does this mean you have a wireless hotspot?

It would be great if a decent area of the Front Street and market place area was covered by wireless internet, it's a reason for people to spend a bit more time in the town centre (however small a reason that is).

That one's going to be built in the Bedlington in County Durham though. I suppose we used to be an exclave of Durham but that was a while ago.

I know there have been a few false starts with this but it does look like it's going to happen this time, which on balance is good for the town IMHO.

Has to be the most pointless budget in history! Gordon wants a give-away, and Alastair - asserting the new-found Independence of someone who's going to lose his job very soon - wants a responsible, steady-as-we-go, one. Neither can to do what will be needed - just yet!

I just don't know what to expect from this budget for the reasons you've given. To give AD some credit, he did admit back in 2008 that the economy was heading for it's worst crisis in over 60 years, and the indications are that he wants to do something about the deficit. But his boss was in complete denial back then and I think he still is.

I'm not sure that voters want to hear parties tell them that taxes will have to go up AND spending cuts need to be made, and I think there's a good chance that some people saying now that they'll vote Conservative will actually vote Labour when they get into the polling station, in a reverse of the 1992 election. But if the next budget tries to pander to this, there's a good chance of a full-speed sterling crisis during the election campaign (i.e. on top of the slow-motion sterling crisis that we've already had).

WEST BEDLINGTON TOWN COUNCIL

To: ALL MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL

You are hereby requested to attend a meeting of WEST BEDLINGTON TOWN COUNCIL to be held at Bedlington Salvation Army Hall, Hartford Road West Bedlington on Thursday 11 March at 6 pm

The agenda for the meeting is set out below.

John Nicholson

Town Clerk 05 March 2010

OPEN SESSION

The Chair to invite members of the public present to put questions to, or draw relevant matters to the attention of the Council prior to commencement of business. This question time will last for a period of 15 minutes overall (which may be extended if the Chairman deems it necessary) and each question is limited to 3 minutes per person.

In order to give every member of the public a fair chance of asking a question, each person will be limited to two questions at each session. The above covers both verbal and written submissions.

Any member of the public who asks a question should first state their name and address.

1) APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

2) MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING

To sign as a correct record the minutes of the West Bedlington Town Council meeting held on 4 February 2010

3) MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

3 residents so far have requested e-mailed agendas and minutes.

They are now being sent out.

Agendas for Council meetings are being left on seats for members prior to meetings.

4) DISCLOSURE OF INTERESTS

To receive from members in respect of any terms included on the agenda for this meeting, disclosure of any personal or prejudicial interests.

5) ANNOUNCEMENTS

To receive announcements on any matters which the Chair wishes to bring to the attention of members.

6) CORRESPONDENCE

To receive any items of correspondence addressed to the Council

7) UPDATE ON BEDLINGTON OLD SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT

- To update the Council on the response from The Planning Inspectorate to the letter written to them by the Clerk on behalf of the Council

- To update the Council with the progress of the petition against the proposed development

- To inform the Council of the contents of a letter received from Mr.D.Murphy. M.P. for Wansbeck

8) UPDATE ON LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY CENTRE

a. To make the Council aware of Northumberland County Council's position on public library's.

b. To discuss the current position with regard to Bedlington Community Centre (BCC)

Update the Council on the outcome of the meeting 5 February with BCC managers.

9) NORTHUMBRIA IN BLOOM

To decide whether or not to proceed with the Council's entry into Northumbria in Bloom

The spring inspection by the judging panel is scheduled for 19 April 2010

10) LEASE OF OFFICE WITHIN BEDLINGTON COUNCIL OFFICES

NCC has drawn up a lease for 1 year relating the occupation of an office in Bedlington Council Offices.

The Council can decide whether or not they are ready to sign the lease.

11) PURCHASE OF WEB DOMAIN NAMES

The Council are requested to sanction the purchase two web names:

westbedlingtontowncouncil.org.uk

westbedlingtontowncouncil.co.uk

This will secure the names for a future web page.

12) COMMUNITY CHEST

The Community Support Group of the Council are proposing the approval of The West Bedlington Town Council Community Chest scheme

13) WORKING GROUPS

To receive reports from working groups:

a. Finance (Councillors Aynsley, and Allen)

To update the Council on the current financial position for the year 2009 / 2010

b. Communications and Events (Councillors Barret and Shephard)

c. Premises (Councillors Harratt and Pegg)

Office lease covered in item 10

d. Planning (Councillors Major and Todd)

- The Council's decision on planning applications:

10/S/0023

10/S/0027

10/S/0028

There may be additions from planning applications after the agenda is issued

e. Community Support (Councillors Hedley and Shephard)

Community Chest is covered in item 12

13) 14) CLERK'S REPORT

a) Schedule of payments produced for Council approval

b. To update the Council in discussions with Northumberland County Council on IT support available from 1 April 2010

15) ANY OTHER BUSINESS

To consider any other items for information only including items to be brought forward to the next meeting.

-Next Meeting - Clerk's terms and conditions + office opening hours if applicable

-Standing / Financial Orders review

16) DATE OF NEXT MEETING

The next meeting will be held Thursday 8 April at 6pm in the Salvation Army Hall

WEST BEDLINGTON TOWN COUNCILLORS: Arthur Pegg (Town Mayor), George Todd (Deputy Town Mayor), Mary Allen, Tracy Aynsley, Anthony Barrett, Peter Harrat, Paul Hedley, Ronald Major, Stephen Shephard,

The Germans have come up with a helpful suggestion for Greece - sell their islands

Maybe we can sell the Isle of Wight?

Newcastle's shiny new city library has a little book-themed museum at the top, and I think it would be nice if Bedlington library included a museum of Bedlington's history. I think if libraries are to compete with Amazon and Wikipedia then they have to provide information that the others can't - local information being one kind.

A cafe inside the library would be good too. Borders branches used to have Starbucks shops inside them, but you couldn't exactly take a book from the shelf and sit and read it while drinking a latte - it wouldn't be either in Borders or Starbucks interests for you to spend all day in there reading a book for nothing and taking up a seat while buying only one coffee. Whereas if you sit in a library and read a book in one visit, it means that book is available to lend again the next day. A council-run cafe would mean more staff costs of course so it would have to be a private franchise.

Audiobooks are another growing trend I think, that aren't just used by the partially sighted now that you can get them onto your MP3 player or phone. You can download them from the internet but they aren't cheap. I'm not sure if you are legally allowed to borrow an audiobook CD from a library and rip it to iTunes though... then again you can borrow a book so perhaps there is a licensing model for it?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. and we can all have opinions MYSELF included as to how and why this catestrophic global event took place, we can ALL point fingers and apportion blame. However the fact of the matter is there are folks and corporations in the world who have actually made money out of this I mean what other business (apart from football) would folks who fail get paid annual bonusus ammounting to decades of earnings for a normal person.

If I fail in my job i,m down the road as are are most of us... not these buggers they should be held accountable and I mean from the highest level it wont make a great deal of difference and it won,t FIX our problems however it might just make ammends to some of the poor innocent individuals who because of the greed of others are the ones who are REALLY affected.

Well I work for BT so I've seen a few people get rewarded very well for spectacular failure. We're told that companies must pay these huge salaries to get top talent, yet some people seem to make whole careers out of failing at one company and being paid a fortune to repeat this at another one... rather like football managers.

Actually Stephen we might be higher up your list than that! If we accept 10 year gov debt bond yields in comparison to German Bunds is indicative then the UK is in a worse position than Spain or Italy. UK 10 yr bond yields are .95% above German ones with Spanish ones .81% above and even Italian ones at .84%.

I know. Our credit rating hasn't actually been downgraded but the yields are such that it may as well have been. The next gilt auction is on Wednesday by the way, £3billion of 2019 bonds up for sale but this time the BoE won't be buying

I think the point about Lehman is that it did expose the whole thing as a house of cards, with the CDS market being so opaque that no-one knew just how badly exposed they were. Yes, the system should allow the likes of Lehman to fail without causing so much collateral damage but it didn't. And we've relied on that - our growth has come from such markets, rising public spending, and rising personal debt. Along with the deficit, the national debt, the high level of personal debt, and the pensions demographic time bomb, one of my other main worries for the future is where our economic growth is going to come from now?

Blunder three was interventionism - remember that of-no-account building society with incompetent management that should have been allowed to fail. Rescuing NR sent all the wrong messages to the big boys. A huge mistake to throw tax payers money at it. And worse: Darling still pats himself on the back that it was the right thing to do!

I disagree with this. The global financial crisis became a crisis when Lehman was allowed to fail. Now we have a similar situation with nation states... in theory Greece should be allowed to live with the consequences of its actions but we know that if Greece defaults, the markets will target Spain, Portugal and Italy next... and then the UK.

There's been a lot of talk about how you compensate for this distortion to the free market by big financial institutions, with the two proposals being the Obama plan (split them up so that no-one is 'too big to fail') and the Tobin tax idea (accept that Governments are providing this security to the banks, and tax them for the privilege). I'm not sure how applicable either of these is to nation states (split Greece back into city states?) but that's the problem the EU is trying to solve at the moment - how to bail out Greece without making it so easy on them that it encourages other Eurozone countries to overspend.

who cares thankfully we turned down the euro so it's got nowt to do with us!

If only that was true... but apparently our banks have invested an amount of money in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (the so-called PIIGS) equivalent to 16% of our GDP.

Perhaps an unfortunate use of words considering the predilections of some of our elected representatives!

They'll probably claim for it on expenses too!

Back on subject: Another confirm today that it is 6th May. So, barring a plot to invade Iran and a resulting national emergency being engineered - on previous form a not entirely impossible scenario (WoMD - Warnings of Major Defeat?) - we should see if we can get a bookie to take our money.

I don't think they're taking bets on the election date now, which is a pity because with yet another accidental slip of a 6th May date I'd fancy a flutter on a March election. Especially as the next quarterly growth figures are due out at the end of April and there's a good chance they'll be negative again.