I will tell you exactly what's at the core of Bedlington's problems. This isn't my personal opinion, it comes from the mouths of the culprits themselves - the present councillors that represent the Town! The problem is that they are very sure of their support base - people who would turn out to vote for them, no matter what! Those people reside mainly in the East of the Town. They also know that people living on the new private estates only sleep in the place, drive straight out every morning in their cars, and generally couldn't give a monkeys! Those folk are hard work for any sort of opposition to garner support from. The consequence is that the people who have to earn their living in the place - either employer or employee - aren't properly represented on WDC. So.. the Town gets regularly shafted! Only when the people who keep this lot of time-servers in office do the decent thing by the Town, and refuse to turn out to support them, will we get any change. Either that or some pretty publicity-grabbing mass civil disobedience, which, given the present apathy, would be very hard to organise. That's the truth of it, and no politician of any political persuasion will say any different in private conversation.