Stephen

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

They'll probably claim for it on expenses too!

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.

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 04 February at 6 pm The agenda for the meeting is set out below. John Nicholson Town Clerk 29 January 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 13 January 2010 3) MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES 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. a. Update to the Council by the Chairman from the NALC larger councils forum. This meeting was held 28 January 2010 6) CORRESPONDENCE To receive any items of correspondence addressed to the Council 7) UPDATE ON BEDLINGTON OLD SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT To discuss progress the progress in raising awareness of the result of the planning appeal, and the progress in raising a petition stating disagreement with the planning decision. 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 9) BUDGET AND PRECEPT To approve the draft budget and approve a precept to be raised in tax year 2010 / 2011, and to make Northumberland County Council aware of the amount of the precept. 10) CHANGE OF NAME: BECOME BEDLINGTON TOWN COUNCIL? a. To update the Council on the process on how to change the name of the Council. b. To discuss whether or not the Council are ready to make a decision whether or not to proceed. 11) NEW WORKING GROUP To note that a new working group is currently being set up to review how the Council can help the local community with financial support and assistance. Councillors Shephard and Hedley will manage that group. 12) WORKING GROUPS To receive reports from working groups: a. Finance (Councillors Aynsley, and Allen) Budget and precept has been taken as a separate agenda item b. Communications and Events (Councillors Barret and Shephard) c. Premises (Councillors Harratt and Pegg) d. Planning (Councillors Major and Todd) - The Council's decision on planning applications: 09/E/00535 09/E/00536 09/E/00542 09/E/00543 10/S/0003 10/S/0008 09/E00547 09/E/00548 There may be additions from planning applications after the agenda is issued 13) CLERK'S REPORT a. Schedule of payments for Council approval b. To update the Council in discussions with Northumberland County Council on IT support available from 1 April 2010 14) ANY OTHER BUSINESS To consider any other items for information only including items to be brought forward to the next meeting. 15) DATE OF NEXT MEETING The next meeting will be held Thursday 11 March at 6pm in the Salvation Army Hall

There'll be a meeting of West Bedlington Town Council on Thursday 4th February at the Salvation Army Hall at 6pm. The agenda will follow soon but the main items will be: UPDATE ON BEDLINGTON OLD SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT To discuss the progress in raising awareness of the result of the planning appeal, and the progress in raising a petition stating disagreement with the planning decision. UPDATE ON LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY CENTRE a -To make the Council aware of Northumberland County Council's position on public libraries b -To discuss the current position with regard to Bedlington Community Centre BUDGET AND PRECEPT To approve the draft budget and approve a precept to be raised in tax year 2010 / 2011, and to make Northumberland County Council aware of the amount of the precept. CHANGE OF NAME: BECOME BEDLINGTON TOWN COUNCIL? a - To update the Council on the process on how to change the name of the Council. b - To discuss whether or not the Council are ready to make a decision whether or not to proceed. NEW WORKING GROUP To note that a new working group is currently being set up to review how the Council can help the local community with financial support and assistance.

How would you feel about some playground equipment on the 20 acres though or, say, a crazy golf course, as long as most of it was left as open field?

Yes, by next week the town council should be in a position to say how much it has in its budget to spend on events.

But Venus is hotter than Mercury which is some 61 million km closer to the sun than Venus.

I think it is just pubs and restaurants but needs to be more than that to be successful. Perhaps late night shopping one day a week with other services (the library at the moment) timed to match it.

We're working on a grants policy for the town council in Bedlington. The aim of this is to help people who want to organise their own activities, i.e. clubs, teams, groups etc who have ideas for things to do in town but need a bit of help to get started, or expand. We're talking about small grants for things like kit, equipment, materials, venue hire etc There's already another thread about a leisure centre and Bedlington Forum has been working on that, so we're looking at what can be done to bring Bedlington back to life in the meantime. Things that will encourage people to spend time in town, hopefully helping the local economy too. So while this policy is still being written you have a chance to influence the kind of activities we should be trying to help - what would everyone here like to be able to do in Bedlington?

Reading the NPL article it appears that this is not an official council survey, but a political one carried out by Ashington Lib Dems. Actually there seems to be a lot of resistance to replacing the existing Ashington Leisure Centre with a new one although the County appears to believe they can run a new leisure centre at less cost than £300,000 a year for ALC. My guess is that the survey is an attempt to find if the wider public i.e. not just those involved in the ALC campaign would support this. The survey Malcolm mentions will be a far more professional one that won't just ask whether people want leisure facilities in Bedlington, but what they should be, where and how much they would cost. My view is that we've always been told that there might be funding available for a new leisure centre e.g. from Sport England, but we would never be able to afford the running costs. This has been based on the assumption that all leisure centres cost as much as Ashington to run, but Morpeth (for one) is a lot cheaper. If the money could be found to build a leisure centre, perhaps from a combination of grants and council funding if available, then you could well get interest in a private company to run it on behalf of the council as they would not have had to take the risk of making a big investment up front.

I agree with this. I think Bedlington has in some ways suffered because it has had relatively high employment, unfortunately though most people are employed outside the town. I think it would be easier to find office space than factory space in the town centre and would guess that many of us have those kind of jobs. Keep people in the town from 9-5 and we will spend more money in local shops. Another suggestion mentioned at a recent Forum meeting was to build a night-time economy, in other words if people have to commute away for work, try to get them when they get back home.

Although... the town council is currently working on a grants scheme to try to help groups and clubs get activities going on in the town (sports, entertainment, events, music, arts, crafts, hobbies etc). If there was a local currency and there were enough suppliers of sports equipment, kit, musical instruments, venues etc participating in it, then the council would get more value for money i.e. a bigger positive effect for Bedlington by buying and making grants in Bedlington pounds.