Malcolm Robinson

Maggs, The population figures at the last census were something like 29,000 odd for Bedlingtonshire and 31,000 odd for Ashington. These were the only two I totted up becasue I though with all the new builds we have seen over the last few years we might have been on par or even more populated than Ashington. Still with only one or two thousand difference the facilites going into one area and absolutly nothing for the other area cannot be justified.

Adam,………..I have a real problem with this bit…………..”The golf course money some was given for the reopening of Bedlington Community Centre”………………..no NCC can't have it both ways! Either that money was designated for Bedlington, and if that's true then it HAS to be capital projects like building something and it's still missing, or it disappeared into the general NCC pot which we were told it had done by the then Deputy Leader of NCC. If that's the case then NCC didn't give a grant to the community centre it actually STARTED paying for some maintenance issues because of years and years of neglect and underinvestment!................. Once NCC took over that asset from the defunct WDC it also took over a responsibility for service and maintenance, the fact that it never had any repairs only exacerbated an already difficult situation and meant that when it was taken over by the Town Council there was a huge amount of work to be done to get it fit for use! NCC had a duty to pass it over as fit for purpose, therefore the cash granted for its repairs.

Don't know where better to post this............. http://www.newspostleader.co.uk/news/local/new-leisure-centre-build-hits-milestone-1-7085934?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Looks like an old map toffo?

I agree toffo but you have a responsibility too and that is to find out the basics before you start firing bullets. I know this is not the popular scenario but the implied contract is there! What's the difference between Town Councillors and County councillors and where does the MP fit in? I will take any criticism for anything I have any responsibility for, I won't take it for things I have no input or authority over! As for letting a wider public know through local media, here's a letter I sent into the NPL last week………….............................................................................................................................................(sorry about the spacings etc I still have a virus!)........................................................................ Now we have had time to digest the official closure notice by Tesco and think about how it may impact onto our town we really need to see just how much of a catalogue of disasters this has really been from start to finish for Bedlington! I will stand to be corrected but chronologically the first the Bedlington community knew about this supposed development was at a Bedlington Forum meeting back in 2009 where one of the then WDC officers who put the deal together informed us that Tesco were going to do a large scale rebuild which would incorporate the car park and Gap Site. As part of the build, new shop units (6) and offices above were to be built and a long term lease (25yrs+) would be given to what was then Wansbeck Life and they would administer that commercial space. (What a can of worms Wansbeck Life turned out to be but like a phoenix rose from the ashes and became the resplendent Arch, the County Council owned Northumberland Development Company!) It was explained that council were going into a form of PARTNERSHIP with Tesco and would be handing over the Gap Site and car park freely to Tesco as their contribution, in turn council would get and run the new shops and offices. Tesco then acquired the covenants on the car park off the CO-OP. These covenants at the time guaranteed free parking for Bedlington residents (180 spaces!) and the site for a weekly market. These conditions were quickly changed! We then had the plans put in by Tesco's and the fanfare public presentations they did. When asked a bit deeper for information it transpired Tesco were going to slap a 2/3 hour parking limit on their car park overseen by number plate recognition cameras and charge transgressors a parking fine. It became crystal clear why they had needed the covenants on the car park and why they changed them! Skip forward a few years and the planning permission which had been eagerly given was starting to run out and still no signs of any development. Why was no one working on a Plan 'B' as it became increasing clear Tesco would never actually do this redevelopment. Questions were asked of the County Council about the terms of the deal which had been agreed with Tesco especially any claw back arrangement if their development didn't go ahead, because as far as I could see we had handed the two prime commercial assets in Bedlington over to a multinational for nothing! It took many many months of repeatedly and doggedly asking the question and what came back was at odds with what we had been told all those years ago. County claim Tesco paid £1 million pounds for the sites (car park and Gap site) but didn't put any timeframe for development into the agreement reached with Tesco and certainly no claw back. I asked to see the cheque entry and even asked our county councillors to look for it. No one has come back with any proof any money was handed over, I can therefore only assume what we were told at the very start of this unedifying spectacle was correct, council handed over those two site to Tesco free! Even if I did believe the 'official line' that in itself makes the much Bedlington despised disappearance of the Golf Club money pale into insignificance as we are now talking about £1 million Pounds in cash not the half million pounds Golf Club money county previously sequestrated off Bedlington! WHERE'S THE MONEY HONEY? What really is the problem and where I would apportion blame is in the fact that there is no plan 'B'. One council after another was keen to sit back and do nothing in/for Bedlington because they had sold OUR souls to a private company which could do almost what it wanted. This is not governance it's actually the antithesis of good governance! We then saw out MP come riding over the horizon into Bedlington like the Lone Ranger, only he wasn't firing silver bullets he was firing blanks! Here's an idea for plan 'B'! Every other Town in the South East of the county if getting sizable investment from the staggering (approx.) £150 million going into Ashington to the latest £500K we have been told going into Blyth. What about this for an idea, let's put some of the millions of pounds Arch has been 'given' and allowed to trade into, as investment into Bedlington? After all it is the "Regeneration Company for Northumberland” and last I looked Bedlington was part of Northumberland! The whole Tesco site should be compulsory purchased for a pound and developed sensibly with reference to its position in a conservation area as well as overriding commercial considerations. What is abundantly clear is that there is no one with any imagination or business acumen abroad within NCC and certainly not anyone with reference to Bedlington's needs! Never has been since the old WDC days! As well as the Tesco employees who are to lose their jobs I feel sorry for Greggs and their employees because at least and at last here we have a national company demonstrably willing to invest in a full new shop refit in Bedlington and they must be left wondering what might happen to them too as their premises are part of the Tesco owned building?

Any offers........ http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/newcastle-city-centre-landmark-buildings-8557849

GGGG, for some reason I have lost all the grammar tools within the postings. The only way I can get my posts to display properly is to do them in Word then change it into a picture to paste into the text box. This posting's sentences and paragraphs will no doubt run into each other. The letter you asked about is just me trying to find something which affects all businesses and in so doing could be one of the fixes needed to start addressing our Town's commercial problem. One thing is for certain no one can expect businesses or anyone else for that matter to keep paying more and more out of less and less.

I'm starting to take exception to this………I am a councillor and I do nothing else except stand up for Bedlington! I can think of another 3 who do the same. So please get your targets right and fire the bullets at the right people. Don't paint all councillors with the same brush you have to be more selective, some of us are actually fighting bloody hard for this community!

I glanced at the title and though GGG has lost his virginity!

GGGG/merc,.............. I wanted to do something like that with the old Elliotts Garage site, though the Development Trust, but my idea relied on attracting someone like Wilkinson's to take the ground floor and having a second floor for open office type spaces. The point is that as merc said a lot of people said they would be willing to use the hot office space just for the social aspect if nothing else as long as the charge was reasonable. I think it could have worked.

Only way I can get the thing to display properly!

Just when I was ready to stop liking Mr Fry he goes and says this...............

Phone or just send the e-mail Christopher.

All sorts thats the point Christopher........5 mins of your time weeding or watering would be great!

Always enjoyed a good scrap tomtom!

Have a read everyone I'm sure we will get some volunteers off this site! Please send it around/print it out and ask friends and relatives if they might like to join in.

Jeeeze I used to get around!

I do like that idea tomtom. Here's a novel thought.........why not start electing people because of their qualities/acumen/intelligence and character. Not because they wear the right coloured tie, not because they can talk a good fight not because they say the right things, sometimes you have to say the wrong things to get stuff done!........Looking at what we have now I wouldn't follow any of them into a WC never mind a battle and its going to be a battle, no mistake there. .........so yes lets have a coup d'etat and we can do that through the ballot box........We need to form lobbying groups and we certainly need to be better informed.........How many council meetings have you been to Tomtom, have you seen whats going on in them? We need to get people impassioned about the political process again because that's where the decisions are made. We have allowed our politicians to get away with far too much for far too long! Instead of the communities dictating politics it's the political elite which dictates to the communities, that's the wrong way around! This is what happens when there is little or no oversight by a laissez-faire electorate or when the electorate abdicates its responsibilities.

Tomtom/merc…………… I kinda agree with points you both raise and respect where its due tomtom, being swayed only by the argument put forward by merc is a very mature frame of mind. Nice to see! Anyway I do think if we are going to get our Town going again we are going to have to do it ourselves! We have spent 50 years waiting for the 'great and good' to do what they have repeatedly promised, as Einstein said doing exactly the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is idiotic! It's time we broke that mould! ………… I would condemn the fact that there is no plan 'B' in place but then we are talking about Bedlington!!!!!!!!!!

As I have said previously first Ashington now its Blyth's turn……….. https://www.facebook.com/TheNewsPostLeader/photos/a.215259731870647.56461.123172394412715/864757720254175/?type=1&theater

Like your thinking Pete!

Lets hope it keeps blowing that way! http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYC-New-York-New-Jersey-Connecticut-Blizzard-2015-NorEaster-Snow-Wind-Whiteout-Record-289770081.html

Hope this happens and I hope the media give it decent coverage! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HARmknHLVk

GGG you will be joining the Labour party next!!!!!!!!!!!