Malcolm Robinson

Jim, Get with the programme! It has taken 2 years to get to this position and for the first time we will have an independent report into leisure facilities, the lack or need, within Bedlington. Mistawispa, When you identify the piecemeal attitude toward any re/development within Bedlington that is something I can particularly identify with. There has never been any holistic strategic planning for the town since BUDC disbanded! That needs to change if we are to have any hope of bringing it back from the brink.

Just put in the first 2 letters and 2 numbers of the local post code Mr D!

I am not sure this is a completely stand alone project by Tesco. It may well be the case council have retained a part share in this development and their payback is in the small shops and offices to be built alongside which I believe Go Wansbeck will oversee. I would also be keen to ring fence that money Tesco's is/was/had/might/ in the fullness of time pay for the car park. Now what could we do with a million quid.........is there a nearby (across the road) eye sore which is crying out to be redeveloped into something more fitting for the middle of a conservation area, maybe even a few more decent shops and offices?

Might be worth mentioning Standard and Poors statement about Greece here. Not because they have taken Greece off their long term credit watch negative but for one of the more generalised sentences contained in that report. 'In light of these considerable budgetary challenges and the difficult economic environment, it remains to be seen whether Greece's leaders will demonstrate the political will necessary to achieve fiscal consolidation.' Now where have I seen, almost to the word, that sentence before? Ah yes the latest Government inspection report into our county council! In fact transposing 'NCC' for 'Greece 'anyone would think the same person wrote it!

All the best Brian have a good'un.

Deb I sincerely hope I haven't put you off posting about anything, believe me that was not the intention at all. The problem for me with the whole Market Place is that it was originally a community driven idea which, probably because of the amount of money it brought in and the PR associated, was 'taken' over by council. That means it started with a few people getting off their backsides and putting some work into doing what they could for the place. Isn't that exactly what you are calling for now? When I read comments like, 'the place is a disgrace' and 'it's a mess' I hope the people who put their time and effort into the project don't think, why the hell did we bother! I understand completely where you are coming from and in many ways agree I just think we should be a bit more selective in where we throw the stones so we hit the right targets, god knows there are enough of them!

Sorry misinformation warning!!!!!!! The parish precept is per annum so that would make it the county gets £146 out of the total £148 figure! Actually makes it worse not better!

Two points, first congratulations Dajazar for coming out of the shadows on a difficult issue! I think your post has the most number of positive reps for a single post, might be a lesson there for other councillors! Second Jim, the average used by council in these matters in band D which translates to £148 a month or just under 12M a year, given your population figure. (You have to multiply by 10 not 12 for the annual!) If you look a bit closer you will see a Parish Precept of just under £23 which would mean county get £125 a month, now who gets most of the blame?

Interestingly the Nordic, or the countries being asked to bale out Greece, have their own take on the situation. With 95% of their population not willing to see their hard earned savings disappear into the Club Med area they have come up with their own bale out plan, chuck Greece out of the Euro blaming fraudulent entry. That may well end up the case. Seems the Greek finance minister et al are now, privately, asking the ECB to underwrite their bond issues in the short term anyway. Not only underwrite them but take them at a preferential rate. Having to pay upwards of 6% to get their bonds away Greece is being locked into repayments which it cannot hope to make. These really have to be met by increased productivity at a time when Greece will be going through an austerity package which will mean an increase in unemployment etc. The two just do not meld no wonder they would like to set a benchmark of around 4% not the 6% the markets insist on. With no real details emerging of any rescue plan by the EU and even more asinine remarks by the likes of the chair of the committee, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, "We think the question (of aid for Greece) will not arise”, the benefits of membership of the euro club for Greece are becoming less and less apparent.

Isn't this thread in danger of justifying monsta's other views? Just because you talk crap (literally) on this one and people agree monsta that doesn't mean.........

25th, Thursday night, 6.30pm at the community centre, Merlin. Report by the independent group commissioned to look into this.

Deb, First let me say I support your initiative 100% the more we can get people talking and discussing what concerns they have, where they want the town to go and how they suggest we get there the better in my book. As for your comments about the Market Place, the whole tilt of your tirade is aimed at the ubiquitous 'they'. The problem is that the 'they' in this case represents council and our tax money! We paid to get that area done, oh 'they' might say it came from grant monies and yes it did but who put the dosh in to start with, and now we are paying again and again to keep it clean. Every quid spent going back to clean up or repair comes out of our tax and the real problem at this moment is that every quid spent there is a quid less spent in other, probably more worthy, areas. Look at the swingeing cut in voluntary sector funding county have just put through! Getting to the old chestnut about the kids not having anywhere go or do, I recognise that but I don't accept it as an argument to justify this type of behaviour. I certainly won't be giving out any 'get out of jail' free cards because of it. I would be fining them for the costs of any clean up necessary and if below the age of responsibility their parents!

Moodys has just come out and said with a deficit of 12.6% of GDP even with AAA rating the UK Gov will be hard pressed to make headway without resorting to another round of QE. Looks like we will have to keep paying the mortgage with the credit card for some time!

Anyone wanting to go further up the tree............ I have to declare an interest here, I have tried to get in touch with our Labour MEP twice and I am still waiting for a reply!!!!!!! http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=385

Here is the full list of county councillors; you might want to go to the bottom of the list for our 'local' ones. http://www3.northumberland.gov.uk/Councillor/CouncillorList.asp Here are the results of the last parish council election for Bedlington West. http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=4631 This is fairly basic stuff people, you should know it, you are paying for it!!!!!!! Deb, I have to take issue to your comments about the market place. You seem to be suggesting that somehow the council have sole right to keep the place clean and tidy, isn't that a collective responsibility? Maybe if the kids that are leaving these tyre marks on that paved area were 'dissuaded' from doing so, by whatever means necessary, it might in fact turn the Market Place into what was hoped for. Also the seats have already been vandalised. If we are going to play a blame game lets pick the right targets!

Depends on what you mean by council. With the change to a Unitary Authority, (which by the way everyone got to vote on and the fact that the majority decision isn't what has gone though is another argument) Wansbeck District Council has been scrapped, along with 5 other district councils, and we now have a county council overseeing all the important decisions. We do have a Town/Parish Council but their powers are pretty limited with regard to the main impetus in this thread. New rates bills are dropping through the doors now that will give everyone some idea of where their money is going and how it is being split. The 'local councillors' of old are not the same kettle of fish as they are now, might be the same people but their influence and authority has diminished somewhat. County councillors, different ball game, but here we see politics once again muddying the waters! As for Elliott's Garage this is privately owned, it can't be pulled down unless the owner agrees. It's like council saying they don't like the way your house looks so they will pull it down, what would you say?

So the EU have come out now and criticised the UK and in particular the Brown/Darling deficit reduction plans. This from an organisation which cannot even sort out its own house.........the problem is they are right: its just we never like 'Johnny Foreigner' telling us where we are going wrong! The reason for this statement is that we have breached EU stability rules, exactly the same as France and Germany!!!!!!! So the B/D plan is to half the deficit in the next four years, possible, maybe, probable no, they are now hooked on a huge PSBR which has been inbuilt into the system. This deficit figure doesn't even take in the real position as the likes of PFI, public sector pensions, etc are not included. If we look at public sector pensions and take our own county as an example of this particular black hole country wide, we find 50% of the total combined overall budget for county is the same as their pension deficit, over £400 million and being reassessed (upwards) as we speak! When I questioned county about this, after being told we (ratepayers) will just have to keep paying into it, I was then told as it was a countrywide problem it was almost being ignored. Sound financial planning indeed and conveying a high sense of confidence in abilities to actually manage a billion pound a year business! If we then think about the fact that almost 50% of all jobs in our county are in the public sector I hope we can all start to see the very real problems we are about to face, its called reality! The forthcoming election (only concentrating on the two major parties sorry Stephen) now seems to have some blue water between the parties, fiscally anyway. We have a choice of either paying more and more into an ever increasing black hole of debt or seeing policies implemented which could result in 10,000 plus redundancies locally, and that's just public sector ones. Neither would seem particularly appetising but sometimes that's politics! I think it boils down to 'Do we take the medicine now or put it off for a while?'

Well it would seem the Guardian's 'senior European source' might have jumped the gun as we still wait for official news of the Greek bailout. France's finance minister, Madam Largarde, has just spoken out in the FT seemingly at pains to point out German culpability? The point of her tirade, she says the Germans are as much to blame for the euro crisis because of their productivity gains, increased competitiveness and trade surpluses? WHAT, oh yes this is France!!!!!!! She then goes on to say the successful German economic model is not one the rest of the EU can sustain, or would want to for greater convergence. (Is that what you call a backhanded compliment or what?) The Germans meanwhile go on with their, non aggressive this time, take over of continental Europe insisting on fiscal discipline and stable prices, always centre pin in German economic after their own spectacularly disastrous QE programme! Can anyone really expect Germany to somehow stop being as industrious, stop insisting on a stable currency and ask it workers to work unpaid overtime to allow its continental partners to benefit from their more relaxed way of life? No wonder the leaders can't agree, the whole thing is nuts and all the while Greece is left like a gaping sore on the side of the Euro!

Just watched Ken Clark on the Andrew Mars show yesterday morning and like Vince Cable what came over was a sensible option, even at the expense of support from the more extreme party faithfuls. These two have to be in treasury positions whoever gets in! Cameron and Clegg are little more then fags whilst Gideon (Osborn) is fagging to the fags! Survivalist extraordinaire, Gordon Brown, must be wondering how on earth he is still in his position after several halfarsed failed attempts to get rid of him by his own party. He is there because they deemed it better to go with him at this time rather than let Milliband reorganise everything at the eleventh hour. I think it is odds on that if Gordo pulls it off and wins the election he will be replaced soon after and consign the country to yet another PM by default.

I think that is Monsta's point Mr D, this is not a Citizen's Advice board where questions and answers have broader repercussions. Of course some questions can be answered in an authorative manner given the expertise of members in certain areas but by and large this is a general discussion board where people post their opinions on the topic subject matter.

Gives new meaning to the term 'hung' parliament! http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100314/tuk-uk-britain-libdems-porn-fa6b408.html

To show just how out of touch if not incompetent the current ruling Euro politico class are here is a statement made by Romano Prodi , one time prime minster of Italy and former European Commissioner. "For Greece, the problem is completely over, I don't see any other case now in Europe. ” I disagree Signor Prodi, and I guess the 25,000 strikers in Athens the other day would too. Even with this 'new' package of backing announced by the EU, Greece still has a hard road to go down to get its deficit back under control. The austerity programme their government is trying to implement to get the fiscal deficit back to the Euro level of 3% of GDP by 2012-13 will produce even more populous unrest and once we consider other states stumping up their own domestic cash to help Greece out we will soon see unrest there too as their populations ask why they should have to go without to further the grand EU experiment. As I have said before without political union.......... BTW, if Greece does manage that trick it will beat the German plan to get their deficit under that threshold! I wonder if Signor Prodi has heard of Latvia who the IMF 'helped' out with a similar austerity package when their economy went bits up? They are now in junk bond status with a B rating and dropping. Remember those Greek bonds which went out at such a premium our hedge fund managers fell over themselves to get in the action, well the market is catching them up and eroding that premium. Currently Greek 10yr bonds attract 6.33% not so far off the 6.75% the 5 billion issue went out at. I expect we have seen some reassessment of positions in those figures!

Here comes the rewording............ http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100313/tpl-uk-greece-20b2d2f.html

Stout fellow.

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!