It’s time to present the facts rather than the misinformation and inaccuracies pedalled by Tory councillors Daley, Flux and Collins and their acolytes who have published recent letters.

12 Grosvenor Close

Cramlington

NE23 6PX

Tel 01670 714731

28^th September 2014

 

Dear Sir

I trust you feel able to print this letter in your newspaper in response to the criticism of the decision of Cramlington Town Council to purchase the Surveyor House in Cramlington as its new offices.

It’s time to present the facts rather than the misinformation and inaccuracies pedalled by Tory councillors Daley, Flux and Collins and their acolytes who have published recent letters.

Just so the people of Cramlington are aware of the true facts these are:-

The Town Council have got to move out of our premises in Concordia by the end of the year to allow improvements works to start and we agreed that alternative premises should be located centrally to provide easy access to the public

Much has been made about disability access by the Tories but they were at the council meeting when I proposed that structural and disability surveys should be carried out first, which they voted against. Strange that later they played the ‘disability card’ in the full knowledge that purchase would not go ahead unless positive surveys were received.

The Tory Group leader was asked to identify alternative premises which he considered to be more suitable which we would have investigated. Cllr Daley did not respond to this request

The Tory Secretary of State, Eric Pickles MP, granted borrowing approval for funds, at a preferential interest rate, to purchase the property and costs of compliance with disability access and conversion works are built into the loan. He clearly believes that the purchase is value for money even if local Tories do not. This, by the way, is the same kind of loan that funded the new Cramlington Specialist Emergency Hospital.

There will be no increase in Council Tax as the costs for the new office can be met from existing budgets.

An extensive search by the Town Clerk in conjunction with the County Council revealed that rental costs for premises elsewhere in Cramlington were prohibitive at over £40,000 per year considerably more than the cost of purchase of the Surveyors House.

Clearly we have invested in a valuable asset for the people of Cramlington which will increase in value as a heritage for future generations. Renting would be throwing good money after bad. It’s strange that the party of personal ownership would be against purchase. They are clearly out of touch suggesting the property would lose value when history shows that home ownership has shown increases in value over the longer term

Purchase of a property in a residential estate is clearly a non-starter. Would your readers relish seeing an office located on their estate resulting in an inevitable devaluation of their property? I think not!

The Labour controlled council instituted public question times at every council meeting to allow Cramlington residents to ask questions and hold town councillors to account. We will be taking Town Council meetings out into local venues throughout Cramlington so that we will be going out to the people and not expecting people to come to us.

We’re also committed to improving Cramlington through a partnership with the County Council which has created 10 new jobs and seen a substantial improvement in estate services like grass cutting. We have developed a landscape strategy to improve Cramlington to realise our ambition to make it a ‘Gateway to Northumberland’ of which people can be proud.

It’s a pity that Tory councillors are more interested in ‘political point scoring’ and pedalling misinformation than having a positive strategy for improving Cramlington. We in the Labour Party are standing up for local people. Isn’t it about time the Tories did the same?

Yours faithfully

Allan Hepple

Labour Group Leader Cramlington Town Council

 

 

 

I noted with interest the letters from Mr Gorman O’Gowan (23 January) and ‘name and address supplied’ (30 January) about the rise in the Cramlington Council Tax precept and alleging broken promises.

12 Grosvenor Close

Cramlington

01670 714731

 

Sir

I noted with interest the letters from Mr Gorman O’Gowan (23 January) and ‘name and address supplied’ (30 January) about the rise in the Cramlington Council Tax precept and alleging broken promises.

Let’s be sure of the facts here.

Last year my mail bag was overflowing with complaints from local residents in Cramlington about the poor condition of grass cutting, overgrown hedges, tree maintenance, litter and overgrown verges to footpaths. In our recent consultation on the budget the responses indicated that this was a huge concern and that things needed to improve.

Northumberland County Council, thanks to Mr Gorman O’Gowan’s own Tory led coalition government, faces £130 million cuts in spending over the next 4 years or around £259 per person per year in the county. That is a 23% cut in the budget. And we learn today that the constituencies of Tory ministers in the affluent south are seeing not cuts but increases in funding by as much as 7%! We’re clearly not all in it together in Northumberland!

In the last 4 years to 2013 the Lib Dem run County Council cut the budget which saw cuts of 500 jobs each year, resulting in a devastating impact on front line services especially grass cutting.  Whilst the Labour administration at County is now committed to protecting existing front line services as far as possible these unprecedented cuts in public services mean the County Council simply can’t provide additional resources to improve neighbourhood services that people want to see The situation is unlikely to get better any time soon. If public spending cuts continue things may indeed get worse.

And promises, our manifesto set out clearly that our priority was to improve Cramlington which sadly had been let down badly by the refusal of the previous Lib Dem Town Council to invest in Cramlington. Let’s not forget that the people of Cramlington overwhelmingly backed this manifesto commitment in the ballot box last May.

Talking of broken promises, his Tory led coalition government have over 130 broken promises the biggest of which are the creeping privatisation of our NHS and the loss of 16,000 police officers. They weren’t in the Tory manifesto.

And ‘name and address supplied’, I always worry about the motives of people who want to remain anonymous, the decision to increase the precept wasn’t made behind closed doors but democratically at full council on 15 January in which Tory members abstained and still won’t commit to supporting our plans.

And the cost! The majority of people in Cramlington will be paying around 75p a week extra. What Mr Dorman O’Gowan failed to say was that 156% increase applies to less than 900 properties in Cramlington!

We believe that people will accept that for a modest increase we’ll see a much improved Cramlington. It will create 9 new full time jobs with the possibility of apprenticeships for our young people, weekly grass cutting, much improved hedge and verge edging, minor tree maintenance, litter removal and winter maintenance services like gritting but more importantly for the first time local control over the quality and performance of the service.

Cramlington soon will not just be the largest town but is the gateway to Northumberland. Does it not deserve better services? I believe it does!  The alternative of doing nothing would see a town’s environment being much worse and unattractive. The town cannot fall short because we aren’t prepared to have the same vision as our people for a better town that looks great and makes it a place that people are proud to live in, visit and for businesses to invest in

Of course, had we not had these public spending cuts imposed on us then we would not have had to raise the council tax precept. So let’s be clear about where the blame lies – firmly with his Tory led coalition government who’ve imposed this devastation on our local services.

We are prepared to stand up for the people of Cramlington but the real question is are the Cramlington Tories and Lib Dems prepared to do so? I’m not expecting an answer any time soon as they have been remarkably quiet on this and in challenging their own government on the scandalous public spending cuts in Northumberland.

Councillor Allan Hepple

Labour Group Leader Cramlington Town Council

I don’t usually respond to the letters in your newspaper but the scurrilous allegations by Mark Swinburne, a Tory party member, (News Post Leader Oct 9th) on me personally need to be answered. I do think your readers need to be aware of the facts not the fiction he pedals which besmirch my reputation

Allan Hepple                                                                                          

October 2014

12 Grosvenor Close

Cramlington
01670 714731

Sir

Facts not fiction

I don’t usually respond to the letters in your newspaper but the scurrilous allegations by Mark Swinburne, a Tory party member, (News Post Leader Oct 9^th) on me personally need to be answered. I do think your readers need to be aware of the facts not the fiction he pedals which besmirch my reputation.

I can only assume that the truth really did rattle his cage.

Firstly I did turn up for the council meeting he refers to but had to excuse myself because of a severe illness, which kept me out of circulation for over a week. Had he bothered to check with his Tory councillors then he would have known this. I won’t hold my breath for an apology that won’t come. But of course the Tories aren’t new to being economical with the truth or apologising.

We won’t hear an apology for beating up the poor and vulnerable with their austerity measures or for paying down the nation’s debt on the back of the vulnerable and disabled whilst giving tax hand outs to the rich  or for robbing every person in Northumberland of £269 a year with cuts to public services. And with planned cuts for another £269 reduction in the next 4 years. I don’t hear the local Tories apologising for that or standing up to the devastation heaped on public services in Northumberland by their government. By the way that cut is around a quarter of the County Council’s revenue budget

Paying down the nation’s debt is a subject close to the Prime Ministers heart. He lauded at his conference that his government was’ paying down its debt’. In a letter to Labour’s Shadow First Secretary to the Treasury, Chris Leslie MP,  the independent UK Statistics Authority stated that the county’s  public sector debt in April 2010 was £997.4 billion but in August 2014 it was £1,432.13 billion . That’s an increase of £434.9 billion – hardly paying down our debt – and a sign his government’s economic policy is in tatters. The truth, unlike Mr Cameron, will out!

 In relation to the landscape strategy favouring certain areas of Cramlington, the Town Council decision was to target linkages to the new hospital given the increased visitor numbers to present a positive image of the town, which his councillors didn’t oppose. Does he not know that the introduction of an extensive and expensive strategy needs to have a phased introduction because it can’t be paid for in one year? The strategy covers the whole of Cramlington and supports our manifesto promise to improve the town which was supported by residents in the ballot box in May last year.

Yours

Allan Hepple

Labour Group Leader Cramlington Town Council