Whinnies award

 

The Whinnies Community Garden in Sunniside was recently awarded a National Lottery grant of £20,000. Yesterday, there was an event to celebrate the lottery win, attended by the mayor. I was there as well but I also took the opportunity to look at the new transport-themed play area. The garden reopens to the public on 1st April.

Gateshead West Lib Dem branch meeting

 

We have been rearranging the branch structure of Gateshead Lib Dems so that we have an improved campaign machine ready to delivery gains in the local elections in 2026. So on Tuesday members from the west of Gateshead met at Blaydon Rugby Club to set up formally the new branch. Cllr Paul Elliott was elected as chair and Cllr Joe Sowerby was elected secretary. When Lib Dems meet in Gateshead there is the inevitable discussion about next year's local elections and our year-round campaigning.

The next meeting will be in early April.

Paul Elliott, the new chair of the Gateshead West branch.

Joe Elliott, writing down the minutes as the new branch secrtary.

Next meeting of Sunniside History Society

 

Richard Pears has given an number of presentations o the Sunniside History Society in recent years and I'm pleased to announce he is the speaker at our next meeting on Wednesday 2nd April at 7pm in Sunniside Social Club when he will be speaking on "The Fenwick's Four: Bewick, Hotspur, Marley and Thornton. All welcome.

Motions meeting

 

On Monday 11th March 2025, Gateshead Lib Dem council group met online for what we call our "Motions Meeting". This is held 10 days before a full council meeting and its purpose is to come up with motions for debate. The meeting agreed one motion, about council news releases. Next full council will be on 20th March. Watch this space.

Manifesto awayday

 

On Sunday 9th March, Gateshead Lib Dems held an awayday at Sunniside Club, in my home village. The aim was to produce the party's manifesto for the local elections in 2026. 30 councillors and key seat candidates attended. It was a successful day and by the end of it we had a second draft manifesto. Work will continue over the spring and summer on the manifesto and another awayday will be held in the autumn.

Lunch: the most important part of the day.

Focus delivery

 

The next Focus in Whickham has arrived. It is a joint Focus across the three Whickham wards. Delivery has already started. I was out on Thursday. I'll be back out this coming week.

Speaking at the History Society

 

On Wednesday last week, I gave my long awaited talk on the history of UK tv adverts to Sunniside History Society. It went down very well. There was a big demand to replay the Hamlet cigar photo booth advert from the late 1980s. The advertising industry has come a long way from the Gibbs SR advert (the first UK tv advert broadcast in 1955) and nowadays it is often the case that the adverts are more absorbing and amusing than the tv ads.

My next talk will be in May when I will give a presentation on the local locations that were important during the Second World War.

Discussing the local elections 2026

 

Last week the Gateshead Lib Dem exec meeting took place. A wide range of issues were discussed and agreed, chief among them being the local election campaign for next year. Obviously I am not going to write here what decisions were taken - I'm not in the habit of tipping off my Labour readers! Nevertheless, the campaign for the all-out elections next year is shaping up well.

Ron on the BBC

 

As Gateshead Lib Dems' communications officer, I was pleased that Lib Dem group Leader in Gateshead, Ron Beadle, was invited onto the BBC North East Politics Programme on Sunday 2nd March. Sadly, I was out checking on road signs in my ward at the same time so I missed him. No doubt he will be invited back in the future.

Give us a sign

 

With my two ward colleagues - Marilynn Ord and Jonathan Mohammed - we were out and above in Whickham on Sunday 2nd March checking on the state of street signs. It may not necessarily be the most exciting of tasks to do on a Sunday morning, but for Lib Dem councillors this is the bread and butter of community politics. We identified two signs that were in urgent need of replacing as the posts they were on had either rotten or corroded (depending on the materiel from which they are made). We are currently reporting them to highways officers.

Scrutinising the accounts

 

On Monday 3rd March 2025, I attended the meeting of Gateshead Council's corporate resources scrutiny committee. On the agenda (at Lib Dem request) were the accounts of the council-owned Regent Funeral Services and whether or not there had been a beneficial return to the council, despite the company's eight years of losses which anyone can read about in the company's accounts lodged with Company's House.

Council Leader Martin Gannon has publicly stated that the council has benefitted significantly from RFS as many of the services used by the company are bought from the council itself. We want this claim to be closely examined because the provision of these services comes at a cost to the council. We had something of a breakthrough on this however. I asked for a further report to come to the committee outlining the costs to the Council of providing each of the services used by the company. This was agreed by the committee. It means we can scrutinise the details and arrive at a figure for the actual net benefit to the authority. That should make for interesting reading.

Photo above: Chris Ord, Ian Patterson and Paul Elliott at Monday's scrutiny committee meeting. We have 5 members on this committee. Ron Beadle had to leave part way through the debate because of another commitment and I was behind the camera!

Ryton action day

 

On Saturday 1st March 2025, Gateshead Lib Dems held an action day in Ryton, Crookhill and Stella ward. Lib Dem Leader on Gateshead Council Ron Beadle joined with other members to help deliver a targeted survey and meet people outside the Coop. It was great to see Ione Rippeth, former councillor for Ryton, join us on the day.

Pictured: Ron Beadle, Steve Kelly, Jack Muers and Ione Rippeth.

Sunderland Lib Dem dinner

 

Last night (27th Feb 2025) I ventured to Sunderland to enjoy the delights of the Sunderland Lib Dem annual dinner at the Roma Italian Restaurant. I was placed next to the contingent from Newcastle which gave me the opportunity to quiz them about the disintegration of the ruling Labour group, which is now technically without a majority. The guest speaker was Lord John Shipley who spoke about housing and other local government related issues.

Meanwhile, I won 3 prizes in the raffle.

Printing

 

In 2024 we spent the first 10 months of the year on election footing. We had local elections in May necessitating the first 4 months of the year working on electioneering, then we had 2 weeks off before the general election was called. Then along came 2 council by-elections in September and October. It meant that I spend a large amount of time in the Lib Dem print room churning off an impressively enormous quantity of literature. In November we stood down from election footing status but the rest has not lasted long. I was back in the print room today printing 2000 survey forms. 

300 years of the Tanfield railway

 

Celebrations are taking place this year to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Tanfield Railway. Starting off as horse drawn on wooden rails in 1725, ably assisted in some areas by gravity, the railway carried coal from the northern Durham coalfield to the Tyne for export (much of it to London). Steam haulage and wrought iron tracks replaced timber and horses and the railway ran until 1964 when the last pit feeding into it (Watergate) closed. The Railway is now a tourist attraction as well as a reservoir of skilled labour and experts on maintaining steam railways.

Councillor Marilynn Ord and I paid them a visit on Sunday 23rd February 2025. Both of us had a great time. Well worth a visit.

Budget meeting

 

Gateshead's budget meeting was held on Thursday 20th February 2025. The Lib Dem group had met on the Monday before to decide whether to vote for, against or abstain. The budget itself was a standstill. In effect there were no cuts though the council still faces a deficit in the years ahead. The standstill however is only on the basis of a 4.99% rise in council tax. Had the Council not raised the council tax by this amount, the government would have taken away from Gateshead's grant the same amount that would otherwise have been raised had council tax been increased by the full 4.99%. That could have cost Gateshead £millions.

The picture is the same across England. In effect council tax rises have been nationalised and those councils that step out of line will be fined. It was interesting to note in neighbouring Co Durham, the opposition Labour party attacked the joint administration (led by a Lib Dem) for raising council tax by 4.99%. It seems no one in government had sent Durham Labour the memo on council tax! Just as an aside, Labour had previously run Co Durham for a century but lost in 2021. Labour expect to win in the May local elections but their antics suggest they are becoming comfortable with an opposition role. Meanwhile, back over the border in Gateshead, we are getting uncomfortable with the role of opposition. Officers of the council need to know that the Lib Dems are building up as an alternative administration ready to take power in 2026 and take the hard decisions. Hence our decision to vote for the budget.

Pictured above and below, the Lib Dem group at the budget meeting (I took the photo so that's why I'm not in it). The size of the group meant 2 photos were needed to get everyone in!

We need a bigger office

 

I took these photos in the opposition office on Thursday 20th February 2025, before the council budget meeting. As you can see, we are rather crowded. We were joined by a number of Lib Dem campaigners as well. SO we need to eye up bigger office space as we outgrow the opposition office. The Council Leader's suite of offices would be ideal for the growing Lib Dem group. It is potentially going spare in May 2026!

The TV adverts you thought you had forgotten

 

Robots selling mash, putting a tiger in your tank, Hamlet smoking Daleks and a Geordie woman casually borrowing £25K - I will be doing a talk on TV adverts from the past on Wednesday 5th March at Sunniside History Society at Sunniside Social Club. Come along and enjoy all those adverts you'd forgotten!

Sunniside street surgery

 

On Saturday 15th February, Marilynn Ord, Jonathan Mohammed and I, as the three Whickham South and Sunniside councillors, held our latest street surgery outside Sun Hill on Sunniside Front Street. Lots of conversations held and we managed to avoid the rain!

Generosity

 

On Monday 17th February 2025 the Gateshead Lib Dem council group meeting was held online to discuss the council budget. We went through Ron Beadle's report on the budget and then each of us said our bit and announced whether we should support, oppose or abstain on the budget. The budget meeting is tomorrow (20th Feb). Our group decision will be announced then.

There was a second item on the agenda. Labour's Robert Waugh, who won the by-election in Bridges ward in September, started his time as a councillor by setting a precedent for his term of office - he didn't turn up for his own count. Since his election, he has not turned up for any meetings. After his non appearance at his count, I did express my concerns in this blog that his absence could be down to his health. I wished him well and hoped to see him attend meetings as soon as possible.

There are of course other issues floating around in the background, not the least of which being "the Charity Commission looking into concerns regarding Labour Councillor Robert Waugh, who recently left his position as CEO of the organisation which now runs Gateshead Leisure Centre." (quoted from The Chronicle, 12 November 2024)

Nevertheless, in a spirit of generosity (to their own) the ruling Labour group are proposing to give Cllr Waugh a dispensation freeing him from having to attend any meetings until May 2026, which just happens to be when the next local elections are held. And that also means Labour won't face a by-election in Bridges ward, a contest they would almost certainly lose to the Lib Dems.

There will be a vote on this generosity at the council meeting tomorrow. I've never known a person to be elected and never attend any meetings during their term of office. So Gateshead could be home to a record breaker! Whether Gateshead wants such a record is another matter.

Core group meeting

On Sunday, Gateshead Lib Dem core strategy group met online. And what is the "core strategy group"? Effectively it is the campaign managers from across Gateshead. We meet regularly to coordinate campaigning and draw up timetables for activities. On Sunday we also discussed various council issues to consider how they fit in with our current campaigning. So, a busy time for us in Gateshead.

Restoring Kindred Wood

 

Kindred Wood is on the edge of Sunniside, the village in which I live and which I represent on Gateshead Council. It covers 5 hectares and is a recognised nature reserve, it's in the greenbelt and there are preservation orders on the trees. Recently, someone brought a digger onto the woodland, destroying trees and vegetation and dumping spoil on the ground next to one of the ponds. No planning permission has been granted for any development on the wood.

When the presence of a digger in the wood was first brought to my attention, I contacted the council's enforcement team. They very quickly stopped any further work on the site. The local Lib Dem team are now looking for those responsible to remove the spoil and replace the trees that have been destroyed.

On Saturday I visited the site with Cllr Marilynn Ord to ensure no further damage has been caused - fortunately none has.

Website meeting

 

Gateshead Lib Dems are continuing to develop our website. Three of us who are leading on this project met up last week at Sapori Restaurant on Gateshead High Street. I'm not sure whether this was an excuse to try out a restaurant none of us had visited before, a genuine attempt to get some website work done or both! Anyway, I was joined by Yoni Aibi and Matthew Jordison. The end result is that I need to sort out the events page on the website, and keep supplying more photos of Lib Dem activities around Gateshead for the gallery page. Feel free to take a look on this link.

By the way, I'm sure Yoni and Matt are doing a Charlie's Angels pose!

Group budget briefing

 

Last night Gateshead Lib Dem council group met to discuss, among other issues, the forthcoming council budget. We received a briefing from the head of finance and the chief executive, both useful contributions to the discussion. No decisions have yet been taken on the budget by the group (the budget will be voted on at full council on 20th February.) There will be further discussions by the group over the next week.

Chowdene action day

 

On Sunday 9th February, Gateshead Lib Dems were in Chowdene ward for an action day. The aim was to deliver our latest Focus across the entire ward. Target achieved. The ward will have new boundaries in the local elections in May next year. A chunk of neighbouring Low Fell will be added to Chowdene, making the ward an interesting battle.

Throughout the day, 22 members helped out. Free lunch included!

Devil's Porridge

On the first Wednesday of each month I chair the meeting of Sunniside History Society at Sunniside Social Club. Last week the speaker was Liz Purcell who spoke about the "Devil's Porridge". This was the name given by workers (mainly women) who were employed in the munitions factories in the First World War to the material that went into making explosives. An interesting meeting and fascinating subject.

Planning ahead

 

Gateshead Lib Dem executive last week looked at early plans for the local elections next year. We have had a number of new and newish members who are typically half my age but who are taking on much more of a role. This next generation will be taking a key role in the local election campaign. It was a productive meeting and as I head up the social media and literature campaigns, I had plenty to report.

Delivering in Lamesley

 

Yesterday (Sunday 2nd February) we had an action day in Lamesley ward in Gateshead. The ward is sandwiched between my ward (Whickham South and Sunniside) and Lib Dem held Birtley. the aim of the action day was to deliver our latest Focus newsletter. Most of the ward was done but a mopping up operation over the next few days will deliver what is left.

Full Council

 

Last week Gateshead full council meeting took place. The Lib Dems had a group meeting before the start of the council proceedings to discuss amendments to motions. The group meeting was a bit crowded as we are beginning to outgrow the opposition office. So in a cramped room, over homemade lunches, we went through the motions and amendments.

The motions debated at full council were:

• support for social care experienced people - Labour motion, backed by Lib Dems (motion on this link);
• thanking residents and officers for enduring Gateshead flyover closure - Labour motion, Lib Dems regarded it as unnecessary as the thanks had already been given but questions about the timing of inspections have not been adequately answered (motion on this link);
• tackling intimidation and harassment of elected councillors and MPs - Labour motion backed by Lib Dems (motion on this link);
• reducing employers' National Insurance Contributions in the care sector - Lib Dem motion but amended by Labour to remove the focus on shortages of staff in the care sector. Lib Dems opposed the amendment but voted for the substantive motion (motion on this link).

Meeting the new locality coordinator

 

We have a new locality coordinator for the wards in the west of Gateshead and Cllr Marilynn Ord and I met up with him at the Whinnies Community Garden in Sunniside last Friday. Sam, the new officer, is new to working for Gateshead Council so comes with new ideas. We are planning to have monthly meetings but we will have lots of issues to raise with him. Welcome onboard Sam.

Only 3 historical inaccuracies

 

I've spent the last few weeks watching every edition of Downton Abbey (and 2 films) checking for historical inaccuracies. I only found 3. See the video to find out what they were. Last week I put the box set of Downton DVDs into the Sunniside History Society raffle. I'm now trying to watch all 52 editions of Blake's 7. The special effects budget for this was clearly tiny compared to Downton!

Sunniside Hub Meeting

 

Whickham South and Sunniside Councillors (me, Jonathan Mohammed and Marilynn Ord) were at the Sunniside Courtyard Cafe tonight for a meeting of the Sunniside Hub group. The group will be looking to raise the funds needed for a Christmas tree in the village later this year.