Whickham East action day

 

On 15th March it was the turn of Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward to host a Lib Dem action day. Cllr Peter Maughan's house was used as the HQ for the day. Most bundles were delivered though some people took away Focuses to deliver on another day (I still have a patch to do).

Defibrillator training

 

The Whinnies Community Garden in Sunniside was recently awarded a grant from the Council's Local Community Fund to help cover the costs of installing a defibrillator. The three ward councillors - myself, Marilynn Ord and Jonathan Mohammed - were invited to take part in the training, which we did. There are now 3 defibrillators in Sunniside: at The Travellers, Sorella Sorella and at the Whinnies of course.

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.