Malcolm Robinson

If you say so Malcolm.

I do but you don't sound swayed by my argument somehow Denzil!

Getting back to the subject of this thread: it's this that makes such damn silly statements possible from our MP's, of whatever party. They've lost all grip on what really matters!

Lost the grip, I don't think many HAD any grip on reality! We seem to have created a political/aristo class where MP's are career politicians with no real outside world experience. That is bad enough but when they show no regard, certainly morally, to the people who put them there you have to wonder what is going on! We can organise a telephone vote for a twopenny happeny TV show where people vote in millions but we cannot have a referendum on matter which effect the country/us greatly? Course they might just reflect the values in society these days.........

How true, Bungler Brown the unelected Prime Minister

Do we, the general public at large, ever get to elect a Prime Minister? We elect a MP who then if he is in the majority party elects somone as Prime Minister. I think we are jumping the gun somewhat on this one GGG, we would elect a President if it was a republic but we have little impact on who becomes PM, save the fact that he/she has to be media aware of course!

Course we can compete, but we have to use investment, innovation and R&D. Any successful economy is based on a good spread of sectors with depth to each. With a manufacturing sector now around 10-13% of the economy we have really taken our eyes off the ball! I know wages are a problem but transport costs are rising fast and one will compensate for the other. The problem is that we do not have the where-with-all to make the goods which people want to buy in the shops now, through years if not decades of allowing our jobs to be exported and no investment into that sector! Having most of our expertise in the financial sector now has produced the problems the country has at the moment and considering most of the country’s wealth is in house prices…………..

How come parts of the public sector can be privatised and immediately start to earn mega bucks while when they were state run they were lame ducks? And with by and large the same people! I can use the same analogy with regard to Wansbeck Homes on the other thread.

There's at least a third to go in an effort to make the company tradeable. I don't belive this is what nationalisation was all about, it used to be about workers rights, job protection and having industries which are necessary for the state to control its own future in the public sector. We now have a socalist Gov essentially running a private business? How times have changed!

Almost daily we now see billions of pounds/Euros/dollars pumped into what are private businesses in an effort to stabilise them. I can’t help but wonder if we had done the same for our manufacturing companies we might still have a manufacturing base left in this country and be in a much better place, economically, for it! Course that would only have benefited the Midlands and the North of the country and done little to protect the insidious bonuses paid to workers in London’s square mile!

Morpeth joins in the fun.....but not at Choppington Welfare!

http://www.newspostleader.co.uk/wansbeck-n...more.3776334.jp

Looks to be the same level of information in the article though!

Also

*I am not allowed to know whether David Nicholson et al are in a paid capacity with Wansbeck Homes and if they are salaries 'cannot be divulged'

*The future of Wansbeck council is undecided and the decision to create Wansbeck Homes has nothing to do with it

Finally

*'As this only affects council tennants, I don't know why you want to know this information'

Surely there is some public body that should be scruitinising these gentleman-rogues

Welcome to the world of walking around with your eyes open!

An simple answer to the above would be that you were a 'shareholder' in the asset base until it has handed over and treated in such a cavalier fashion! It would therefore not be unreasonable to question and look for 'best value' in the company which has taken them over!

The future of Wansbeck council is undecided and the decision to create Wansbeck Homes has nothing to do with it

A particulally facile remark as one would not have been developed, or probably allowed to be, without the other!

3 North East teams relagated!!!!!!!! Give Keegan 150 million he might turn it around next season!

Perhaps I'm just suspicious? But when something so huge is taken on in such a covert manner, usually something is up!

Wise head on young shoulders for a change!

I would be really concerned if the old council stock is used as collateral for present/future loans against it. They shout that it is a 'not for profit' company, ok it just has to pay its employees and staff, but why the need to include Cheviot and whats in it for them? We have all seen the implications of a 'mutual' going private and what happens if managment isn't up to the job.........

Lots of questions which need to be answered and I hope our elected representatives were on the ball when this came before them! Speaking of which we still seem to be waiting for Stu's councillor to put in an appearance!

Malcolm, could you enlighten me a bit further on the management of Wansbeck Homes and/or about any other financial interests that they may have... I've been having a bit of a scout around on the Cheviot Homes, Kingston Property Services and Bernicia Group sites, and although they can tell me what they do there seems to be no explaination as to how or why they do it...

New kitchens, bathrooms and windows all seem fine and well, but I'm not sure whether these improvements are worth Wansbeck giving up such an asset?

Looking at the current house prices to modestly value the average council home at £60,000, this means the council have given up £330m in homes (plus rental costs) all for a £80m investment. Something is up, is it not? Or am I being cynical?

You are getting there Missvic!

Let me put it this way……..hypothetically speaking of course!

Suppose you are the big cheese in the public sector in the area but for some reason you are about to loose your job. Now you don’t really want that to happen, you have been calling the shots in what is really a ‘nice’ little jobbie for so long anything less is unthinkable not to mention the salary so what can you do. In your old job you control a very valuable asset, the only one the private sector would back, but it isn’t really under your control as such. So you come up with a plan to take that asset into the private sector under your control but first you have to butter people up to get them to agree to it all. Most will not give it seconds thought of course but some might need convincing! You then use everything at your disposal while you still have authority to get everyone to agree to your plan regardless of the cost implications or who picks up the tab! Once you have everyone on board, or you say you have the majority on board, you can then put your plan into action. You form a private company to take over and control this valuable asset with you in charge but you really need a friend who has experience of this sort of thing so you look for a partner. You find one locally, it may even have been them who put the idea into your head, as they can see the income stream about to come their way for very little work and almost zero outlay. You then use your present position to write your own lease on a property you have control over, for the time being anyway, and set the whole thing up. Now you have control over a very nice ‘cash shell’ which enables you to borrow money to do the things you said were going to be available without anyone realising the whole thing is now open to the variances of the private sector and that is a whole different kettle of fish than what has gone before. You will then end up loosing your job but getting a very nice golden handshake and being able to step straight into one paying around the same money, about a grand and a half a week, and only having one part of your old job to worry about. Oh and you also take your pals with you…………

In reality this could never happen of course there are too many checks and balances in public life not the least being a legal obligation to obtain best value for any publically owned asset and everything having to be transparent!

Cynical, moi, never!

It is hard to see what could have been available to the housing stock of WDC if Wansbeck Homes didn't take control but I guess that is why there has been so much discussion and debate about the immanant changes in local government which are happening now. I would like to see/know how other authorities solved this as it is not just WDC which is to disappear. Course we have at least been able to ask the questions, everyone being a'shareholder' in WDC, we even paid people to represent us at 'board level', now we have no insights into the goings on at Wansbeck Homes that being a private company, even one to which we gave their asset base!

From today's News Post Leader:

Homes group sets out aims

An organisation now in control of council homes in Wansbeck is to set out its aims for the next four years.

Wansbeck Homes took over the management of 5,297 council homes in the district of February 25 after 85 per cent of tenants voted in favour of change.

And tonight (Thursday) the newly created, not-for-profit registered socila landlord is holding a special event to mark it's official launch.

Junior housing minister Ian Wright MP will join officials from Wansbeck Homes at the event at Choppington Welfare Hall.

It is anticipated that the move will unlock increased funding and allow £80m to be invested in homes over the next 5 years.

Wansbeck Homes has pledged that by 2012 it will have:

* double glazed and fitted doors to at least 4,000 homes

* fitted up to 2,500 new kitchens and bathrooms with over bath showers

* install 2,500 new heating systems

Work is already underway to improve homes to standards higher than the Government decent homes standard and create safe, sustainable communities.

Do you think anyone could pop along?

And I believe the Chairman is none other than the CEO of WDC!

Have you seen this thread malcolm?

Sorry didn't know it had already been voiced but it must be worth a go................

So car stickers and tee shirts.... designs please.

Anyone got any contacts for getting these knocked up?

...

That I can partly understand; but more importantly for the community there are a lot of dumb business folk who don't know an effective marketing medium from their elbow (there I almost said it Malcolm! ). Quite happy to pay for ineffective press advertising, but haven't got the wit to exploit what other people are providing to them for free. Do these business' deserve to be part of our community? Maybe it's a self-leveling playing field? In business you reap what you sow!

But - and here's the really sad fact - many of the prime movers here have already left the Town, and I suspect more are to follow! Can your generation rise to the challenge or will they give up on the place and move on to greener pastures like many before? That's the real question!

Go for it GGG.........there is an old saying, a prophet is never recognised in his own country!

Course there is another way to look at this......why not promote this site more? By that I mean members doing more to get others involved. Maybe even some tee shirts? As you said that would be easier if certain sections of the community recognised the opportunites this site offers but a stick in the eye is rarely ignored!

The logical extension of the carbon trading madness is to trade deaths. When you die all your carbon is released to the environment again, so, using current logic, somebody must pay for this. A carbon tax on dying is the obvious solution. This would introduce the offence of intent to die without a permit!

Guess we would all be guilty on that one!

Happy Birthday.......have a good one.

Maybe we should introduce a "green tax" based on the capacity of our lungs and the amount of CO2 we exhale. I can picture it now, we'll all be walking around with 6 or 12 month discs stuck to our foreheads.

Don't mock fourgee with this Gov anything is possible!

Why are staggering sums of public money available in a vain and pointless attempt to alter the world climate by a mere degree or two, but totally insignificant amounts never available for a town like Bedlington to build a youth/sports center and address real problems?

Now GGG if I didn't know better I would think you were schooled in the art of politico speak, appealing to people's other rightful injustices and greavances to make your point!

The whole problem with this subject is when the proof is avaiable it is too late to do anything about it. It may be entering into the realms of a subsitute religion for some but all of our pollution must have an effect?

Had a bit of liver the other day gans down well with a pint of Guinness and I am still here, I think?

Ahhh Pete, you must have drunk the meat and carved up the drink!

Maybe if any of you know a council ( wansbeck homes tenant) you could get to read the booklet.

Thanks for the reply charlie, any tenants online with a scanner?

Charlie,

As you seem to be in the loop on this one maybe you can answer a couple of questions which bother me and I will only use your last reply as reference.

Is Wansbeck Homes a private company, a limited company, a partnership or a co-operative and who is on the board? As a company now in the private sector, depending on their make up, they might well say it’s none of my business but seeing as they have taken over what is a valuable public asset and as a new venture I think we have the right to know everything about them. I would also like to know why they thought it necessary to go into partnership with another housing association; surely that increases the cost base even if they get the expertise they need it has to be paid for? And conversely what is Cheviot getting out of the deal? Why didn’t Cheviot just do the deal?

Another question, if Wansbeck Homes is made up from sections of WDC does that mean they negotiated with themselves when we consider the lease, rent and use of the council offices in Bedlington? I would still like to know who owns the building now and once WDC is no more! Councils charged with getting ‘best value’ for any publicly owned asset normally get around this by putting out to tender, did WDC put this building and its lease out to tender before handing it over to a ‘private’ company or was an independent third party brought into the negotiations to make the whole process legit?

Next considering the 3 ‘done up’ properties, who actually paid for their modernisation, WDC or Wansbeck Homes? It would be a bit strange if WDC had paid out public money to show what a private company may be capable of in the future. Also how come 3 empty houses were found, are there no waiting lists for council houses these days or were they uninhabitable?

Lastly was it really necessary to produce a DVD for tenants? I will take a wild guess but I think these tenants, now customers, would prefer better service rather than promotional gizmos!

I got all the bricks from building sites, i bought the fire bricks used in the dome from a nearby town called Maryborough they are 100 years old and have not been used, I got the tiles used in the floor of the dome second hand, we have done pizzas, legs of pork and a full side of lamb.

my cousin and his wife from the station will be here on Saturday the 1st for ten weeks so we will give it a workout his name is Allan Rowell if anyone knows him.

I a pretty sure I know Allan.......the name rings a bell, would he have anything to do with an old butchers shop?

When council tenents were asked if they wanted a private company to take over the ownership and running of them what was the reply?

Hmm, moving from Bedlington to Ashington........wonder why?

Could this have something to do with the immanent demise of WDC and if so what would the reason be????

It might well be tied up with another thread on this board!!!!!

GGG, you will no doubt know but isn't the council offices on Front Street wholey owned by WDC after being transferred from BDC at the time of the amalgamation in the 70's?

The council offices has gone green. Well it has a green sign on the front now. And one on the verge in front of it too! "Wansbeck homes" it reads.

I doubt I would have noticed it if there hadn't been a fella pointing an outdated TV camera at it earlier on... perhaps something exciting is happening?

Something is certainly happening but I won't put my two penneth worth in on an open forum! Perchance someone might want to look at the board and managment of said Wansbeck Homes!!!!!!