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