Visiting the Dunston Staiths

The Jetty Project is an Arts & Humanities Research Council funded project led by Newcastle and Manchester Universities. It has created a temporary large-scale architectural artwork, “The Cone”, on the wooden structure of Dunston Staiths in Gateshead, a landmark Scheduled Monument and Grade II structure on the south bank of the River Tyne. The Staiths are the biggest wooden structure in Europe and are undergoing restoration. I was able to visit the Staiths to look at the restoration work last week though at the moment they are not open to the public. I filmed the above video whilst on the visit. Photos will follow in a later post.

If you visited the Gateshead National Garden Festival in 1990, you may recall walking along the Staiths which formed a significant feature of the show. Restoration has had to take place because of vandalism. A significant section of the Staiths was lost to arson a few years ago.

The Staiths are part of the coal mining heritage of the North East of England. They were built in the 1890s to load coal from the North Durham coalfield onto colliers to export from the Tyne.

Judging at the New Sands Allotment Show

I was judge today at the New Sands Allotments Annual Show in Swalwell. The show was held at the Sun pub. In the past I have swapped produce with some of the allotment holders and sold some of them ducks.



There were no individual competitions for different vegetables. Instead, each allotment holder entered a tray of produce and the judging was on all of the contents as a whole.



So congratulations to the winners and commiseration to those who did not come first, second or third. The contents of the boxes were sold after the show to raise funds for flower beds and planting in Swalwell.

Whickham Flower Show

When I am not wearing my self-sufficiency hat, I am wearing my local councillor hat. Alas, that restricts me (morally) when it comes to entering our local flower show. One of the sponsors of the Whickham Flower Show is Gateshead Council and were I to enter the competitions and win, it would look decidedly dodgy that the local councillor has won competitions put on by Gateshead Council. Nevertheless, I did visit the show on Saturday and took a stack of photos and video. The video is not yet edited but here are some of my photos. You can see more on this link.

Big Lib Dem win in Newcastle

We can look across the River Tyne to Newcastle today with a sense of achievement - the Lib Dems won a by-election to the City Council yesterday in North Jesmond ward. In one of the most hotly contested wards in the city, Labour had high hopes of picking up the Lib Dem seat but ended up seeing their vote nosedive.

In May we had a slender majority of 33 votes. Yesterday, victorious Lib Dem candidate Gerry Keating romped home with a majority of 391. The Lib Dem vote was up on May, Labour's vote collapsed to just over half their previous total. There was an interesting three way contest between UKIP, Conservatives and Greens to come last. In May the Greens and Conservatives had a modest vote with the former beating the latter by one vote for 3rd place. This time the Greens suffered a more horrendous collapse than the pitiful performance Labour clocked up. They ended up with only a third of the total they got in May. The Ukippers achieved 4th place, jumping ahead of the Greens only because the Green collapse was more substantial than that of UKIP.

The Lib Dems were returned with over half the votes cast. Well done Gerry.

The summer recess ends

For me, the Council recess ended today (Wednesday 27th). I was in Gateshead Civic Centre for the chair's meeting of the Corporate Resources Scrutiny Committee at 3pm. The agenda will be published shortly but there was one issue in particular that caught my attention. More about that once the agenda is in the public domain. The time of the meeting was not ideal for me however. I was filming a video today about pickling quail eggs (our quails produce nearly 400 eggs a month). The wonders of the editing suite will remove all trace of the gap in filming caused by having to head over the meeting.

3.5 million YouTube viewings

Hot on the heels of my Flickr stats, I am pleased to report that another viewings milestone has been reached. My videos on YouTube have now been watched 3.5 million times. There are 884 videos on my channel with a long queue of more waiting to be edited and uploaded. The most viewed video continues to be the one I filmed in a former Soviet submarine base deep inside a mountain in the Crimean town of Balaklava with 266,000 viewings.

In recent times however the most viewed video is one of my self-sufficiency ones, how to dry tomatoes, which typically gets about 4-5,000 viewings a month.

My next targets are to reach 4 million viewings and have 1000 videos uploaded to my channel. You can visit the channel on this link.

1.5 million viewings on Flickr

There is a Labour member in Gateshead who loves to sneer at my use of social media. Actually, there are lots of Labour members who sneer at everything I do, but one in particular springs to mind. So, especially for him, I'd like to announce another milestone reached. On Flickr, I have just clocked up 1.5 million viewings of my photos. My Flickr site is used nowadays mainly as a place to show my self-sufficiency photos though I also add local campaign photos in Blaydon constituency and travel picture to it. But it is the self-sufficiency pics that attract the most viewings. Typically, within a few days of posting them to the site, they have each had hundreds of viewings.

Anyway, if anyone (including the Sneering Socialist) really feels the need to look at my photos of hens, quail houses, goats and jam making, click on this link and enjoy!

Our next email newsletter

The latest edition of eFocus, our email newsletter to residents in the Whickham area of Blaydon Constituency was written on Thursday and published yesterday. It leads with the possible appeal by UK Coal against Co Durham's rejection of plans for opencast mining near Marley Hill. There are also articles about Planting Up Whickham, Whickham Front Street School rebuilding plans, Marley Hill community cafe and other issues. You can read the newsletter on this link.

Food swapping event

For some months now I have been working with the Green Branch of the Workers' Educational Association in Newcastle to set up a food swapping event. The aim is to encourage as much local food production as possible and give people the opportunity to swap their surpluses. The first such event went ahead on Sunday at the Station Masters Garden at Whitley Bay Metro Station and by all accounts was a success.

You don't turn up with a cash wallet. Instead, your "money" consists of food you have grown or produced. My wallet consisted on 2 boxes of jams and and a basket containing 15 dozen quail eggs. The eggs had gone within the first hour and we traded about two-thirds of our jam.



An exchange takes place - jam buys 3 pepper plants!



After an hour or so, we had "bought" quite a few vegetables, soft fruit, rhubarb, bread, cake, even other people's jam!



Back home and this was the final tally. There is probably going to be another event in September in Newcastle. I'll be there with my eggs and jam!

Pizza at the High Spen Hop Garden

The Hop Garden is a community allotment in High Spen in Gateshead. Volunteers run it and I have got to know some of them over the past year through my efforts to build up a food swapping network. Yesterday they had a pizza evening, complete with pizzas made in front of their pizza oven. Locally grown ingredients were included.

We were invited so we headed over at 4pm. The Hop Garden is a great project and a valuable way of involving schools and residents in growing food. Hopefully others will be inspired to follow their lead.

Expect the unexpected

Plans for opencast mining at Marley Hill are back on hold after a decision yesterday by Co Durham's planning committee to reject the application by UK Coal to extract one million tonnes of coal from a site south of the village. The situation is very complicated however as Gateshead Council has granted planning permission. The site is mainly in Gateshead but part of it crosses the border into Co Durham, hence the need for the application to be considered by both councils.

UK Coal now face three options: appeal, bring in a revised application or withdraw. As the person who led the campaign against the application, clearly my preference is for a withdrawal. I am not counting my chickens on that. A revised application could take another two years to get through the system if the recently rejected plan is anything to go by. My expectation therefore is that the company will lodge an appeal.

The rejection now puts the spotlight back on those Labour councillors in Gateshead who voted for this application. Eileen McMaster, who represents Lobley Hill and Bensham voted for the application. Were it to go ahead, 61 heavy lorries a day would pass through Lobley Hill. Gary Haley, who often likes to parade his green credentials, voted for it as well. It's time for them to answer for their actions.

Back to the Durham decision - I have to confess it came as something of a surprise. After Gateshead's decision and the recommendation by Durham planning officers to approve it, I was resigned to the application being given approval. After 27 years as a councillor in Gateshead, I need to learn to expect the unexpected.

The sight that greeted me!

I went to Marley Hill Community Centre on Thursday evening last week and was greeted by this sight when I arrived. Quite how this car managed to flip over so completely is not known by me. The police cleared the road within half an hour. By the time I left the community centre to deliver my Focus newsletters around the village, the car was gone and a workman from the council was sweeping up the last bit of debris.

eFocus for the Whickham area, number 88

Our latest edition of our email newsletter eFocus was produced and distributed last week. It led with the Marley Hill opencast story but also covered a number of other issues, including the Coalition's improvements to the A1 in Gateshead.

You can read eFocus on this link.

Focus on Sunniside

My latest village Focus has now been written, printed and delivered. Focus on Sunniside, Streetgate, Marley Hill and Byermoor was written after Gateshead's planning committee agreed plans for opencast mining at Marley Hill. We held this edition back to be able to report the news to residents.

I was planning to deliver my patches on Wednesday but I was in a planning appeal that day for much longer than I expected. I thought I would be there for about an hour to give my evidence. I was actually there from 10am to 5pm. As a result, my patches were delivered yesterday and took longer than anticipated as there were lots of people wanting to talk about the opencast decision.

Discovery Museum 80th birthday

I am a member of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM) Joint Committee (something of a mouthful but as an historian it's one of my favourite committees). Within TWAM is the Discovery Museum which over the weekend celebrated its 80th birthday.



There was a birthday cake cutting ceremony at midday though I was not there long enough to enjoy a slice. I had to head off as I had people to see and allotments to visit.



I did however stay for Cllr Ged Bell's speech. (He is chair of TWAM). He's the one on the right! He made a valiant effort to compete with the Transformers. It was a bit of a losing battle as most of the audience was below the age of 10!

A1 upgrade exhibition

I headed down to Dunston Activity Centre on Friday evening to go to the Highways Agency's exhibition about the A1 improvements from the south of the Team Valley to the Metrocentre. This stretch of road, now one of the most congested in the UK, is to be upgraded to have 3 lanes in both directions. A separate slip road from the A692 at Lobley Hill to Askew Road (A184) will also be built within the curtilage of the existing A1 highway.

The total investment is nearly £100 million. This rather undermines the absurb Labour allegation that the Coalition is spending next to nothing on transport in the North East. Labour claim that the vast majority of transport money is being spent in London. They fail to mention that their figures are based on spending decisions made by Labour ministers when they were in government to back Crossrail.

The improvement to the A1 had been promised for years by the last Labour government but they somehow just never got round to delivering it. Work starts next month and continues until 2016.

Photo above: Cllr Peter Maughan, me and Kevin McClurey at the A1 exhibition on Friday.

Flogging It

I had not previously seen BBC's Flog It programme but last year the programme makers contacted me and asked me to do an interview for them about the Angel of the North statue. So I dusted down my suit (which doesn't get worn as often as it used to), ironed my shirt, and headed over to Gateshead to do the interview. I then forgot about it until I was told by a Labour Councillor yesterday that she had seen me on the programme.

So if you really need to watch me, I'm about 19 minutes into the programme on this link.

Council meets at Gibside

Gateshead Council abandoned the Civic Centre today to meet instead at Gibside, the National Trust property in my ward which was once the home of the Bowes-Lyon family. Gibside is now a major visitor attraction in the North East. Though Gibside Hall is a shell, the early Georgian gardens are still there. The walled garden in particular is worth visiting. It had, until last year, been used as a visitor car park. Now it has been restored.



Whilst there I had a useful discussion with Mick Wilkes, manager of the estate, with both my local councillor and local food producer hats on. We talked about rural economic strategies, local food, honey production and farmers markets. I will be arranging to go back to continue the discussion soon.



As for the meeting itself, we had one incident in which there were general murmurings of content from Labour members about claims that somehow, a Labour victory at the general election next year will mean there won't be cuts. This was followed minutes later by an announcement by the Labour Council Leader Mick Henry that under Labour (according to Hilary Benn at the LGA conference) there would be cuts to local government, but that Labour's cuts would be "fairer". More murmurings of content from Labour broke out, even though this seemed to contradict the claim made moments earlier of no cuts. I don't know what Hilary Benn said, but it sounds like a statement that was designed to please everyone. And when a statement like that pleases everyone, it normally means it is too meaningless to please anyone once implemented.

Defeated on opencast plans

Sadly, I have to report that last night, Gateshead Council's planning committee approved UK Coal's application to opencast a site to the south of Marley Hill, in my ward of Whickham South and Sunniside. I have been battling this application for over two years and last night I spoke on behalf of residents opposed to the plans. I was joined by former Labour Councillor Pitch Wilson (speaking on behalf of the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England) and two residents. Speaking in favour of the application was a representative of Tanfield Railway. UK Coal spoke to support their plans as well.

There is one more hurdle UK Coal have to cross before they can go ahead. Part of the site is in Co Durham so the County Council needs to grant approval. This will take place later this month.

Much was made by UK Coal of their offer to clear up contaminated land on the site. The area also includes the site of the former Marley Hill Colliery which closed in 1984. The contamination comes from a chemical plant that operated in the 1920s. The area of contamination however is just one and a half percent of the land area of the application. Most of the site is countryside. The area of the demolished colliery has regenerated itself naturally. Much of it is now covered with trees which will now be lost. The level of contamination was also questioned. It has never been closed off to the public and no warning signs were ever placed there to tell people to stay away. And whilst removal of contamination is welcome, it has to be balanced against the loss of woodland and agricultural land across a much larger area. Furthermore, UK Coal have made a virtue out of a necessity - they need to remove the contaminated soil anyway to get access to the coal.

If UK Coal successfully navigate the final hurdle of Durham's planning committee, they will work the site for four and a half years. One million tonnes of coal and 100,000 tonnes of fireclay will be sent down the A692 through local villages to the A1, at the same time as the improvements to the A1 will be taking place.

Attention now switches to Durham County Council but I'm not holding my breath - the key battle was always going to be fought in Gateshead where most of the site lies.

Self-Sufficient in Suburbia

I stopped working for the Lib Dems five years ago. When I left Cowley Street, my aim was to become self-sufficient, to grow my own food and live off the small bits of land that we have. Since then we have gradually built up our food growing infrastructure. I filmed this video last month to show people where we are now. As you can see, we have lots of hens, ducks, bees and weeds!

Opencast, new schools and quail feed

Today I am attending an allotment bbq (raising funds for cancer research), then going to a meeting about council reorganisation, after that it's a meeting about designs for the new Front Street Primary School in Whickham, and at 6pm I will be representing residents at Gateshead Council's Planning Committee to oppose opencast plans in my ward. At some point I need to fit in a trip to Boldon in South Tyneside to buy feed for my quails and ducklings. And I need to write my speech for the planning meeting! All in a day's work.

Opencast D-Day tomorrow

Tomorrow, Wednesday 16th July, Gateshead's planning committee will be taking its long awaited decision on the Marley Hill opencast application. UK Coal want to extract one million tonnes of coal from a site to the south of Marley Hill which they want to work for four and a half years. The application was submitted two years ago. Since then I have led the campaign to have the application rejected. 1000 signatures on our petition have been handed in (see photo above).

Sadly, we learnt last week that planning officers are recommending approval, though the final decision rests with the councilors on the planning committee. Tomorrow I will be representing residents opposed to the application when I speak at the committee. Fingers crossed that the decision will go the right way.

Whickham Community Festival - the photos

I am a member of a group called Lighting Up Whickham which raises funds for the Christmas lights for Whickham. We organised our third community festival on Saturday and this year we chose the Great War as the theme, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. I was there selling my preserves and eggs and promoting the community cafe we run at Marley Hill Community Centre.

A special request from the group was made to me to bring my ducks to put next to the hook a (plastic) duck game. I also brought our 10 day old ducklings which were on my stall - and which proved very popular.





As a member of the organising group, taking part in the zumba was compulsory!

The full set of photos from the Festival can be seen on this link.

We are already considering plans for a Christmas market in St Mary's Green. And we will need to decide the theme for the 2015 festival as well. I have some ideas but will run them past the organising group first.

Putting up the bunting

On Tuesday, at the meeting of the Lighting Up Whickham Group - the group has organised the Whickham Community Festival which is being held tomorrow - it was decided that I would do the job of putting up the bunting. This hardly came as a surprise. This is the third annual festival we have held and at the previous two, somehow I got the job of climbing lamp posts and trees to put up the bunting. The job was done this morning. We had less than I expected so we got through it quicker than expected.





Events kick off at 11am and go on until 4pm. I will have a stall promoting the local food swapping network I am setting up. The organising group also asked me to bring some of my ducks along for the hook-a-duck competition. (Hook a plastic duck, not a real one!) They were a big hit at last year's festival when the theme was medieval Whickham. The "village duck pond" was set up (sadly without a ducking stool) so as a duck pond needs ducks, I brought some of mine along. This time I'll bring my rare breed Welsh Harlequin ducks, plus some 10 day old khaki campbell ducklings (the ducklings will be in a box on my stall).

The theme of this year's festival is the commemoration of the outbreak of the Great War, 100 years ago. I'm digging out some suitable clothes to wear. Given the age of some of my clothes, they could be counted almost as the genuine World War One costume!

My next email newsletter, eFocus no. 87

Just published so it's hot off the laptop, my latest email newsletter to residents across the central part of Blaydon constituency. The circulation list for the Whickham edition of eFocus is now about 1800. The finishing touches were made this morning when I took the final set of photos - putting out the bunting for the Whickham Community Festival.

Issues covered include the Festival, Marley Hill opencast application, the local Air Cadets and Coalition investment in the Tyne and Wear Metro. Your can view eFocus on this link.

Kevin's thank you party

In the May local elections in Gateshead, Labour's campaign was little short of a car crash. At council meetings earlier this year, Labour had publicly promised to reduce our numbers on Gateshead. The election results wiped the smug grins off their self-righteous faces. Labour went down to defeat in the three seats they thought they could win from us. (We were defending 4 - my ward of Whickham South and Sunniside was the only one not on their hit list as Labour had trashed and burned their chances of winning there a decade ago after a disastrous performance by their candidate at the time.) This May, all our Councillors were returned with increased majorities.

Indeed, it was the Labour Party that came closest to having their numbers reduced. We were within 78 votes of winning Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward from them. Our candidate, Kevin McClurey, held a thank you BBQ on Saturday evening for those who helped in the campaign. About 20 people were there, and more unable to attend sent their apologies.

The campaign for next year has already begun. The Dunston Hill Thank You Focus has already been printed and delivered.

Long distance swarm recovery

Typical! The moment I go away an email arrives asking if I could recover a bee swarm that had formed up in a garden in Marley Hill, the next village up the road from Sunniside where I live. On Thursday last week I arrived at Newcastle Central Station and whilst waiting for my train to London to arrive, the email reached me. Fortunately, a person living near the garden is a former beekeeper and knew how to catch the swarm. David was not joining me on my trip so I called him to ask if he could collect the swarm. In the early hours of Friday morning, he collected the swarm which was in a skep which he then wrapped in a sheet and took to one of our apiaries where he had already set up a hive. I was on my way to Stansted airport when David's photo of the new hive arrived.

A day later and I was in Copenhagen. Another message arrived, this time from Hexham Beekeepers Association to local members. A bee swarm had formed up at Burnopfield. Could anyone collect it? I sent David a message about it but the reply came back that we had now run out of hive equipment. We don't know if anyone managed to collect the swarm.

Last week, before I went away, I had 3 visits to constituents to advise them on bumble bees in their garden. I anticipate there will be more calls from residents after I get back later today especially as I will be including an article about bees in gardens in the forthcoming eFocus.

From shipping containers to CAB

I was contacted recently by Gateshead CAB who were seeking my advice on possible locations for an advice terminal they want to install in Sunniside. I suggested the Social Club could be a possible location but I also wanted to see what the terminal could do. On Friday, between attending the Gateshead Carers' Association allotment launch and annual council, I paid Gateshead CAB a visit to look at one of the terminals in action. It is quite comprehensive, covering everything from legal advice, tax, housing, health, money etc. There was even a link to DEFRA (useful for us hen, goat and beekeepers). I was also surprised at how small the terminal was. I've put the CAB in touch with the chairman of the club so hopefully some kind of arrangement will be made.

This was my first visit to the new CAB building since they moved from Regent Terrace. I was given a guided tour and was rather pleased to learn that the building was constructed from recycled shipping containers. An interesting and sustainable use of someone else's waste. That certainly gets a gold star in my book.

The wet look

Somehow the weather has not been a fan of the Whickham Chase Park Fayre in the last two years. Last year the Fayre was cancelled at the last moment because the ground was waterlogged from the rain. This year the rain held off long enough to allow the Fayre to go ahead, and then it started raining. My colleague, Cllr Peter Craig, took this photo of me at the Fayre last week. The wet look seems to be back in!

Out and about: Winlaton Mill Community Centre Fayre

I had a short break from beekeeping and vegetable planting today to go to Winlaton Mill Community Centre Fayre. And as soon as I arrived, I saw the table selling plants. An opportunity to stock up on lettuces for transplanting cannot be ignored. Two trays of plants later, and a check around the other stalls and I was ready to go back home - I had news of another bee swarm I had to collect so staying for a cup of tea was out of the question.

More news from the annual Gateshead Labour group meeting

Gateshead's annual council meeting was held this afternoon. I had previously reported on the diminished fortunes of Paul Foy-The-Flop and Gary Haley, both responsible for the car crash style Labour campaigns in the local elections in Whickham. We had been reliably informed by sources within Labour's ranks that both had met with a big thumbs down when internal elections were held for positions on the Council. What I didn't know was the position each had stood for. Well, today we were able to fill in more of the picture. It turns out that Mr Haley stood for 4 or 5 senior positions and was knocked back on every single one of them. It seems he is as popular in his own group as he was with the voters in Whickham when he was rejected 5 times by them. He certainly has a knack of keeping up the losing streak.

Annual Council appoints the mayor for the year and this year it is to be Neil Weatherley, a tax collector. That shouldn't be held against him! We also discovered who the deputy mayor is  - Alex Geddes who easily beat Allison Chatto and Lee Holmes for the post when Labour cast their votes at their annual meeting recently. I couldn't quite pin down the actual voting figures but sources suggest Alex got over 30 votes, Cllr Allison Former-Debt-Collector-Chatto got about 10 and Lee Holmes got about 7.

Prize for the worst speech today goes to Foy-The-Flop. He nominated Cllr Weatherley for the post of Mayor but he stumbled through his speech, misread words, hesitated constantly and shook constantly. He did not exactly inspire his colleagues as someone able to fill a future leadership role within the Labour group.

One of the oddest things today was the inability of Labour to complete their nominations for their committee places. They have had three weeks to do this but Labour Leader Mick Henry announced that the final nominations were not yet settled. Just what Labour have been up to over the past three weeks is not clear.

Wearing a suit to the allotment

Gone are the days when I wore a suit to the office. Indeed, gone have the days when I went to an office! Suit wearing for me is now a rare event. Most of the time I'm dressed in baggy trousers and a t-shirt to hangout down on the allotment and muck out the goats. Today however I was back in the suit to visit an allotment. Not my allotment of course. This morning I went instead to the official opening of the Gateshead Carers' Association allotment in Bensham. The official opening was done by Ian Mearns MP. A modest number of people there knew who I was - the "gardening councillor" and the "bloke with the quail eggs" seemed to be the most popular descriptions. A BBQ was held there as well though I could only stay for a couple of sausages before heading off to Gateshead for my next meeting.

Promoting the food network at Saltwell Park

One of my life missions is to inspire people to grow more of the food they consume. For me, it's not just about talking about it. It's about doing it as well. That's one of the reasons I opted to take redundancy 5 years ago, so that I could concentrate on the good life here in Sunniside, growing my own food and keeping hens, ducks, quail, goats,bees and so on. We soon discovered that you cannot produce everything yourself but there are others out there who can produce what we can't and are happy to swap their surplus for ours. That's what the food trading network I am building up is all about.

On Wednesday, Gateshead Carers' Association held a fayre in Saltwell Park so I took a stall there to promote the network. It is based at Marley Hill Community Centre and on the last Sunday of each month, we hold a cafe and food swapping event. People can bring in their surplus fruit and veg and swap it for our eggs, preserves, tamworth pork and honey. Some of the produce is used in the cafe. If you don't have anything to trade, we take that old-fashioned thing called money instead.

So far we have traded for pheasant, wild duck and rabbits, venison, plants, beef, homemade soap, lamb, trays of apples, sacks of potatoes, frozen veg and so on.

On Wednesday, I took some of our recently hatched chicks to Saltwell Park. They are always guaranteed to attract people to my stall. Wednesday was no different!

Back to the Future at Beamish

The recent news that Beamish Museum is to be awarded £600,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to complete the bid for a further £10 million towards the cost of the next phase of the Museum's development was celebrated tonight at an event for business people. If all goes to plan, Beamish will recreate a 1950s town centre. The former Airey prefabricated homes carefully dismantled and moved from Kibblesworth will be rebuilt as part of the development. The other part of the bid is the completion of the 1820s section of the museum, including a coaching inn and windmill.

I went along to the event at the museum tonight. A 1950s caravan had been placed in the town and the front room of one of the terrace houses had been restored to what it would have been like in the 1950s, complete with a television showing the coronation. This all reminded me of one of my favourite films, "Back to the Future" in which Michael J Fox goes back to 1954 (admittedly a year after the coronation).

Assuming the museum is successful in its final bid for the HLF grant, the 1950s town should be completed later this decade.

Another bee rescue

I had another call today about bees in a constituent's garden. This time however it wasn't bumble bees. As soon as my constituent said there was a large cluster of them on a tree, I knew it was a honeybee swarm. I was around in minutes, complete with my smock, gloves and swarm box. Alas, this swarm decided it was not going to be straightforward capturing it. I shook it from the tree into the box but when I returned a couple of hours later, I found that the swarm had left the box and was sitting on the lawn as a perfect circle. I had never seen bees do this before.



I had to put my gloves back on and scoop the bees up and drop them back into the box. This time, fortunately, it worked. At 9pm tonight I returned, found the whole of the swarm still in the box and took it to one of my apiaries where I had already set up a hive for it. By 9.30pm, the swarm was in its new home.

The constituent said that she had phoned the council before she phoned me. They charged her £76 for the privilege of planning to call out in a few days' time. I suggested she cancel the visit as the council does not deal with honeybee swarms (they would simply advise her, once they had seen the swarm, to call a local beekeeper who could possibly have been me anyway) and ask for her money back. I understand that was what she did. She was happy to save the money, the council was saved a wasted journey and I was happy to have recovered a swarm which hopefully will produce me some honey.

Self-Sufficient in Suburbia

Outside of politics I grow my own food and make webcasts about our activities. Our latest webcast, from February, is now on YouTube.

Foy the Flop and the joys of the secret ballot

An interesting piece of information came my way today. Following the results of the local elections in Gateshead, the Labour Leader of Gateshead Council, Mick Henry, appears to have been able to hold back the tide of those on his own side who wish to see their own promotion and the retirement of Mick and his mates. And the instrument of his success? Well, for most of us the secret ballot is something of a traditional part of the democratic process. In UK elections, it's been around since 1872. The Labour group, in an attempt to catch up with the modern world, decided to run their internal elections on the revolutionary basis of letting people cast their votes in secret. I understand from a reliable source that Mick Henry himself was the one who pushed for this great democratic innovation.

I had already heard the murmurings of discontent about the botched Labour campaigns in Ryton and Whickham North wards, both of which were being defended by Lib Dems. Ryton had been won by Labour in 2011 and 2012 with substantial majorities. The last Lib Dem seat in the ward was the prize on offer. Labour's campaign flopped and the Lib Dems held on. Topping Labour's target list however was the Lib Dem held seat of Whickham North where we were defending a majority of only 90. Labour poured in everything including the kitchen sink (though interestingly, we understand that those who were more interested in keeping things as they are in the Labour group made no appearances in the ward.) We held the seat last month - our majority went up to 300 and Labour's vote fell through the floor.

Labour agent and organiser for wards in Blaydon constituency was Paul Foy, "head" of office for Dave Anderson MP, a point he regularly makes at council meetings. Mr Foy therefore appears to be an influential and powerful figure in Labour ranks in Gateshead. He chairs the Labour group, his wife is a cabinet member, he runs Labour election campaigns, he's the boss in Mr Anderson's office. We are reliably informed that many on his own side do not wish to cross swords with him.

Cllr Foy's sidekick is Gary Haley, councillor for Dunston and Teams and a man with an unenviable record for running disastrous local election campaigns. I still look back with amusement on his three attempts to win my ward. He eventually moved on to Dunston Hill and Whickham East where the good citizens of the ward were equally unimpressed. Two failed attempts to get himself elected resulted in his jumping ship, this time to the strongly Labour ward of Dunston and Teams where a string of by-elections meant Labour were approaching the bottom of the barrel of candidates and were polishing up the scraper.

Cllr Haley was one of the key Labour campaigners in Whickham North in last month's election. Indeed, Lib Dem Cllr, Peter Craig, who was defending the seat, bumped into him on the day before polling day and said to him that he was spending a great deal of time in the ward. "Yes," Cllr Haley replied, "more time than I am in my own ward." (Cllr Haley may not wish to take his ward for granted in such a way in future - Dunston and Teams saw one of the biggest falls in the Labour vote in Gateshead, down 26%.)

Anyway, back to the Labour group meeting last week. It seems, according to our source, that the revolutionary principle of the secret ballot may have helped defeat the promotion prospects of Councillors Haley and Foy. We have not been informed of the positions to which either aspired (if anyone on the inside can tell me, please feel free to do so), but we are reliably informed that Cllr Haley in particular went down to a spectacular defeat.

So the Council Leader, Mick Henry, has survived for another year, thanks in part to the successful Lib Dem victories in all the wards we were defending which prevented the election of new Labour members who could have swung the balance within the Labour group. That, and the secret ballot. Nevertheless, he is by no means safe. He got a battering from some members of his group just before the budget. He could fall prey to another. The Labour group could provide us therefore with some interesting blood sports over the year ahead.

Fiona Hall's retirement party

In between visiting constituents today about bee colonies, I went to the Baltic Art Gallery on the Gateshead Quays for Fiona Hall's retirement party. Fiona was elected very much against the odds in 2004 as the Lib Dem MEP for the North East and just as equally against the odds was re-elected in 2009. After 10 years in the post she decided to step down from the role at the European elections last month.



Among the speakers today was Angelika Schneider who, sadly, wasn't elected as our MEP last month. Lib Dems from across the region attended the event. At 5pm I had to leave as I had constituents to visit.



Whilst the event was taking place, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge was raised. This is a sight worth seeing in its own right.

eFocus 86

My latest email newsletter to residents of the Whickham area was sent out on Friday evening. It contained reports on the local election results (2 holds for us in Whickham and a near gain from Labour), the Chase Park Fayre, Beamish Museum, the Derwent Valley Land of Oak and Iron project and other issues.

You can see the newsletter on this link.

Bee-ing busy

Ever since I rescued three feral honey bee colonies from Sun Hill, the aged person's unit in Sunniside which is being demolished (the new building next door is now occupied by the Sun Hill residents), I have had calls from residents wanting to buy honey and asking for advice on bumble bee colonies in their gardens. Today, for example, I am visiting three different houses in the Whickham/Sunniside area to take a look at bumble bee colonies. Previously we have visited properties in Blaydon and Dunston. I am also getting messages from people via Facebook.

Many people have put up bird nest boxes only to find that instead of the birds moving in, it has been occupied by bees instead. My advice generally is to leave them alone. They will die out by the autumn. Typically, the bees will not bother you as long as you don't bother them.

Pollinators generally have suffered sharp declines in numbers over the past few decades and particularly in recent years, though last year saw a reverse in the decline. Numbers of bumble bees increased and the very mild winter meant that many more bumble bee queens have survived to set up nests this year.

Photo above - me last month with some of the honeycomb from one of the feral bee colonies I rescued at Sun Hill.

Getting a drenching

Whickham Chase Park Fayre went ahead yesterday in the hope that the rain would hold off until after the event was over. Alas, it was not to be. As the opening announcement was made at midday, so the clouds opened up. It started as a light drizzle but then stopped for a bit. At about 2pm, the clouds decided to let rip. It was tipping down and there was no way the fayre could continue, despite the amazing efforts of the children's dance groups on the stage, entertaining the people huddled in the marquees and under umbrellas. (Fortunately the stage was covered).

During the period when there was no rain, my table saw brisk interest in our food swapping network and our 7-day-old chicks which we brought along. But as the weather worsened, I had to pack up the stall and head home to dry out.

Photo above: a selfie of me and the 7 day old chicks I took to the fayre.

Setting up the Chase Park Fayre

Tomorrow is the Whickham Chase Park Fayre so today I gave a hand to set up the tents, marquees, five-a-side football field and so on. I finished late this afternoon feeling as if I caught the sun. The weather forecast for tomorrow is not so good. Hopefully the rain will hold off until 4pm when we finish. Meanwhile, I am back home now preparing literature to go on the stall I will be running tomorrow to promote the community cafe and the garden and beekeeping  projects and local food trading network at Marley Hill Community Centre.

And I've also just finished the next edition of my email newsletter to residents, which will go out shortly. It features, among other things, tomorrow's fayre.

Police cadets' attestation

I got off the train from London yesterday afternoon, got home and had enough time to feed my livestock before having to change back into the suit to go to the attestation ceremony for the Gateshead police cadets. I was determined not to miss this simply because the cadets had given me a helping hand to plant some fruit trees I was given earlier this year for a community orchard we have started in Sunniside, my home village.

The police cadets in the Northumbria force first got underway in 2010. It is still early days for the project but it does seem to be going well.

Royal Garden Party

I got back from a short visit to London this afternoon. I was down in the capital to sort out a number of tasks and to take up an invite to go to a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace yesterday. The invite was in recognition of my 27 years as a councillor in Gateshead. I was allowed to bring one other person so David came with me, though he came down to London and returned home on the same day - he had to get back to feed our livestock and get the poultry put away before the foxes treated them to their very own garden party. The train fares cost me an arm and a leg!

To get in to the Palace, we joined a long queue of people sporting mayoral chains, big hats and fascinators. No cameras were allowed in and phones had to be turned off. The national anthem at 4pm heralded the arrival of the queen, and the rain (which lasted about 20 minutes). Afterwards we were able to have a walk around the gardens. I did bump into two people I know - Mark Hunter MP and Don Foster MP. I think Don was there in some kind of official Whips' Office capacity though I didn't ask him what his role was (he seemed to be part of a group guiding Prince Philip through the crowds.)

And then it was time to leave. Everyone seemed to be getting out their phones to take pictures before leaving through the gates. So we snapped the above photo. It is my first ever selfie. David was suffering from a number of bee stings which he got on Sunday when doing a check on some of our hives. He was stung around the face, hence the slightly swollen eyelid.

If I were to achieve another 27 years on Gateshead Council, I shall be 77 when I reach that milestone. I wonder if that will result in a second invite!?

Cakes and casework

Sunniside Methodist Chapel's annual fayre sale took place on Saturday. I always visit it to buy plants for the garden and I'm always made to feel welcome. The cake stall is often a draw for me. The event however always results in my leaving the building with a bigger casework load than I had when entering it. Saturday was no different. As well as cakes and plants, I took home with me a list of issues about blocked drains and inconsiderately parked cars.

The cakes have now been eaten, the plants are now transplanted and the casework emails have been done. My job now is to sort out the big pile of petitions opposing opencast mining in the area that have arrived by post over the past couple of weeks.

Ryton Hirings

Last weekend we had no break from the election battle. On Saturday I had agreed to run a stall at the Ryton Hirings to promote the Marley Hill Community Cafe and the local food trading network I am gradually building up. The idea with the network is that people who have grown food in their garden or allotment and have produced more than they need can swap it for other people's surplus. We swap our preserves and eggs for other people's vegetables, fruit, game, fish, even homemade soap. Some of these are used in the Community Cafe. Running the stall meant I had no chance to look around the fair. However, our recently hatched chicks proved a hit with visitors. A steady stream of people wanted photos taken and there was quite a bit of interest in how we hatch and raise them.

On Sunday we then had the cafe itself to run. No rest for the wicked....

Station refurbishment - awaiting East Coast sale

I had to pop over to Newcastle this morning, after a meeting at Gateshead Civic Centre, to pick up some rail tickets. For the first time I was able to go into the redesigned portico at the front of Newcastle Central Station. Once the taxi rank and drop off and pick up point for passengers (I am no longer having to do that every week to go to London thankfully), the portico is now enclosed and is a ticketing area. Network Rail have done a good job.



The final improvement will come with the transfer of East Coast Trains to an owner committed to running a good, competitive service. Hopefully, the ghost of National Express and their botched handling of the line will be laid to rest. In my 10 years of travelling to and from London from 2000-09, I rate GNER the best. The service was well run, I rarely encountered problems and the tickets were reasonably priced. National Express were as disaster. Trains were cancelled on a regular basis. The service went down hill. East Coast Trains, the present operator, run a good service but prices of unregulated fares have risen considerably.

We await the decision on who the new operator will be - we will find out early next year.

How the projection and reality compare

As I have previously written, Whickham North ward in Gateshead was one of the Labour Party's top target council seats in the North East in the local elections last week. Despite a campaign that soaked up nearly every available Labour resource, including taking people from at least one ward which they were expecting to win but lost on the day, the Lib Dem defending councillor, Peter Craig, held on with an increased majority of 300.

It is fair to say that at 9pm on Thursday evening, we had a few jitters. We had the polling station turnout figures and in a raw state, we started to think that an increased turnout was taking place in the two districts where Labour's vote is more concentrated. We ran the figures by Connect and compared them to the other polling districts and the postal voter numbers. The two districts where we are stronger were performing much better but that was no different to the last elections. Those two districts always have higher turnouts. Was the small increase in the two Labour-leaning districts in this marginal ward meaning that Labour had succeeded in getting out their vote? After all, their entire campaign was all about energising their supporters to turn out. Had they succeeded enough just to slip ahead of us? The answer turned out to be No.

By the end of the verification the next morning I had enough presumptions and figures, including the actual turnouts in each district, and the total of returned postal votes, to work out a projected result. There was a gap of about an hour before the actual counts were due to begin so everyone shifted over to the cafe where we were able to work out the figures. My projected result is below (the actual results are in the first brackets, the results from 2012 are in the 2nd):

• Lib Dem 1221 (1264) (1282)
• Labour 904 (963) (1188)
• UKIP 545 (445) (-)
• Con 135 (144) (164)

Whilst generally, the projection is sound, the bit that was noticeably different to the actual result was the UKIP vote. We have some conclusions on this but we aren't going to share them with political opponents by publishing them here, other than to say that UKIP were able to make modest inroads in this election into layers of Labour vote which Labour should be concerned about being vulnerable, but they were not able to attract other groups of voters to the same degree. Hence the reason for detecting increased turnout in Labour areas but a lower Labour vote.

The conclusions we have drawn can only be taken as a small jigsaw piece in a bigger picture. Whickham North is a ward that used to be safely Labour but went Lib Dem first in 1992 and has remained Lib Dem ever since, sometimes comfortably so, sometimes as a marginal. It has been thoroughly worked by the Lib Dems for a generation and for the last few months by Labour. The ward therefore does not count as representative of the bigger picture, but is simply a part of what is an overall complicated political landscape.

One conclusion however that I am happy to share with Lib Dems and opponents alike is that where we have continued to work a ward, we have a much better opportunity of weathering whatever political storms the national situation throws at us. It doesn't always save us, but it not half helps!

Anyway, last Friday in the cafe we were able to relax a little after I finished working out the projected result. We could see the Labour people a couple of tables away. Their body language said they knew they had lost. A couple of hours later they knew for real.

Labour's thrashing in Whickham North and Ryton

Put aside party differences for a moment. Standing in an election in which you have a good expectation of winning but then coming second is not good for raising spirits. Months, for some people years, have been dedicated to the cause. Shoes were worn out on the streets, knuckles were chewed by aggressive letter boxes, life has been put on hold for ages only to come in as runner-up in a contest in which there is no prize for second place. I've been there myself (Hexham 1992).

So, my sympathies go to Labour's Chris McHugh in Whickham North here in Gateshead. He fought Labour's cause hard. He canvassed and delivered his election leaflets. He had all the resources his election team could put into his campaign. Labour MPs visited and announced the Lib Dems were going to lose there. Euro candidates came storming in to back the campaign. Certain Labour councillors seemed to have taken up temporary residence in the ward, such was the frequency of their appearances. The regional Labour party was taking an active interest. The ward was swamped on polling day with Labour members from Northumberland. This was a big operation for Labour - but sadly for Mr McHugh (though happily for us), it went horribly wrong. Far from seeing himself overturn a Lib Dem majority of just 90 from 2012, he was defeated by defending Lib Dem Councillor Peter Craig by 300 votes.

For Mr McHugh, this must have felt something like deja vu. In 2012 he was Labour candidate in the neighbouring Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward. We had lost two seats in the ward to Labour in 2010 and 2011. In the latter year, the Labour majority was 666. Labour expected to walk it. They were gutted by the sight of Lib Dem Cllr Peter Maughan being re-elected by a majority of 200. Alas, our own candidate this year, Kevin McClurey, was unable to follow up the win in 2012. Labour's defending Councillor held on by the skin of her teeth - at the count today her majority was only 78.

Politics in many ways is a brutal business. Once every four years we as councillors have, in effect, to reapply for our post and the interviewing committee consists of thousands of people. Sometimes, a person can be dumped from that post through no fault of their own (though sometimes the fault is very much their own). At the end of the day, that's democracy.

In Gateshead, I have now heard grumblings within Labour ranks about the extent to which the Labour Whickham North campaign soaked up resources at the expense of Ryton ward, another target for Labour. The ward had been won comfortably from the Lib Dems in 2011 and 2012. Labour were expecting the final seat to drop into their lap. Ryton Councillor Liz Twist was sighted many times in Whickham North. Whilst she was away from her ward, we were working it thoroughly. From being a long way behind in 2012, our defending Councillor, Christine McHatton, won with a majority of over 100 this time. Labour miscalculated badly on this, not that I'm complaining! Well done to the Labour campaign organiser who helped achieved this spectacular turn around in local political fortunes for the Lib Dems.

eFocus 85

Tonight's job was to write and send out edition number 85 of our email newsletter. It went to about 1700 addresses. You can read it on this link.

Washingwell history project

I had quite a merry morning yesterday - a site visit to Washingwell Woods and Fugar Bar, most of which is in my ward. I have been wanting to get off the ground a history project about the area for some years. My first plan was to restore the ancient orchard that was once part of the medieval Fugar House (which was demolished in the early 1950s. The old orchard has clung to life, overgrown and largely neglected. The project however has grown into one that draws out the history of the area, starting with the Roman fort at Washingwell, through the medieval Fugar period, the Tudor culvert and wooden waggonways and the Tanfield Railway, the world's longest running steam rail system.

Sunniside History Society has agreed to be the body that leads on the project. The site visit yesterday was accompanied by council officers who are considering a funding bid of £1000 to the Local Community Fund. If this goes ahead, it will open the doors to a Heritage Lottery Fund bid of £29,000 that will allow us to draw out the history of the area.

The site visit went well. The sunny weather helped. Trudging about in the rain would not have been good!

Riverside Academy bee rescue

A couple of weeks ago I rescued 3 feral honey bee colonies from Sun Hill in Sunniside. The building is being demolished and the bees faced extermination or rescue by me. News has got around of the rescue and as a result, I was contacted by Riverside Academy, down the road in Dunston. The school had a bird nest box on the wall next to a door onto the school yard. A bumblebee colony was living in it and one child had already suffered a sting. I paid the school a visit last week to have a look and found that the bees could be rescued quite easily and moved to a new site.

Last night I made the return visit to do my bee-Thunderbirds rescue. The work had to be done late as bumblebees continue working much later in the day than honeybees. So we were at the school at 9pm, taped up the entrance to the nest box, unscrewed it from the wall, placed it carefully in our swarm box and put it in the car to take to its new location. By 10.30pm we had it in place on another wall near my house in Sunniside.

I checked on the colony this morning and saw bees flying in and out. (See above photo). Job done. Just waiting for the next bee rescue call. Thunderbees are go!

When in uniform, be careful what you do

There has been some degree of amusement in the Lib Dem camp here in Gateshead about a leaflet the Labour party has put out in Whickham North ward. This Lib Dem held marginal ward (our majority is only 4%) has attracted a Labour candidate who spectacularly lost neighbouring Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward in the last local elections. In 2012 he was defending a Labour majority of 600 from the previous year though we were defending our one seat in the ward. Lib Dem Councillor Peter Maughan came out the winner, turning round the 600 deficit into a 200 vote majority.

I think I have only met the Labour candidate, Chris McHugh, once - when he tried to gatecrash the councillors' section of the Remembrance Day parade in November 2011, feebly assisted by Yvonne McNichol, one of the two Labour councillors for Dunston Hill and Whickham East. When I brought to Mrs McNichol's attention the potential problems of turning Remembrance Day into a political stunt, she sent Mr McHugh packing.

Anyway, back to the current election. The leaflet delivered this weekend contains photos of three people, each with Mr McHugh (one of the pictures reminds me of Laurel and Hardy!). Presumably these people are purporting to be ordinary local residents. Except.....

Jim Hewson was Labour candidate in the ward in 2004. Billy Wigham is a Labour activist. And Nora Earl is the wife of Frank, who was himself Labour candidate in Whickham North a few years ago and who worked for the Labour MP here (David Call-Me-Dave Anderson). Furthermore, Nora Earl doesn't even live in the ward. So unlike Mr Hewson, Nora Earl is unable to say she is voting for Mr McHugh. Instead she is "endorsing" him.

And there lies a problem. Nora Earl is a school crossing patrol person - a lollipop lady. And in the photo she is in uniform, issued by Gateshead Council, along with her crossing patrol sign (the "lollipop"). Now then, endorsing a political party as a private individual is one thing, even if you do have to be imported into the ward as Labour aren't able to persuade anyone there to back Mr McHugh publicly). Endorsing a party political candidate whilst in one's official council capacity is something else. I understand on the grapevine that at least one complaint may be crossing the road right now on its way to the Council's chief executive.

Oooops.

Watergate Sandals

Lovely heat and sun yesterday soaked up on yet another leaflet delivery session, this time in the Watergate Estate in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward, where Labour Councillor and former debt collector Allison Chatto is defending. The debt collector bit is not mentioned in her election leaflet. Instead, she claims that, "Most of my working life has been spent working for trade union law firms." Anyway, I had nearly 200 letters to deliver to supporters and people who had signed previous petitions on opencast mining.

Large parts of the Watergate Estate consist of terraces which front onto large greens. It is a large patch to deliver but relatively easy to do. And with the sun out yesterday, lots of people were taking the opportunity to enjoy the weather. The deck chairs were out in force. Though is not my ward, I was recognised. A large group of young people were having what could be described as a party on the green. The householder, from the comfort of his deckchair, said, "Here come the Liberal Democrats," as I approach. It was one of those situations in which I wasn't sure if I was going to get a slamming for being in government or be the recipient of kindly remarks from someone who likes us. I am pleased to report it was the latter. Alas, I was unable to stay for his party. I had to finish the delivery run and get home to feed my goats!

The greens on the Estate can get very wet when it rains and this patch is normally done wearing boots. Yesterday, I was in sandals (well deck shoes actually) such was the weather.

Creating community gardens and allotments

I had a meeting today with Groundwork North East at Marley Hill Community Centre where we are hoping to take over the unused land beside the building to turn into community gardens and allotments. The purpose of the meeting was to consider how we can use the site and kick start the process of carrying out a feasibility study, a must-have for future grant funding. Groundwork will carry out the study which also involves consultation with residents and possible future users about how the site could be used.

I have never known this land be used before. As long as I can remember, it has simply been there, occasionally getting the grass cut by the council. My guess is that it was used for allotments during WW2 but I have no evidence for that. I will however be asking older residents to delve into their memories and I'll be contacting the Sunniside History Society to ask them to take a lead on preparing a short history of the site.

Once the feasibility study has been carried out (and assuming it concludes that it is possible to go ahead with my ideas for gardens and allotments) work will begin. And so will the process of applying for funds to pay for it all.

Swapping at the Spen

As previously reported, I visited the Hop Garden in High Spen on Sunday to swap some of my hen, duck and quail eggs for plants. I used the opportunity to film the site as well. It's a volunteer gardening scheme that took over a derelict garden and turned it into a community food growing space.

One million photo viewings

My Flickr site has just reached a milestone. My photos have now been viewed one million times. I have a total of 6000 pictures on the site. Most nowadays are of my horticultural activities but my travel photos, and those I take for local campaigning, are added to the site as well.

So, if you really have nothing else to do and want to see pictures of my hens, beekeeping activities, stuffed marrows, Icelandic geysers and Lib Dem street stalls, click on this link.

Visiting the Hop Garden

It is now nearly 5 years since I gave up my PAYE existence to spend my time growing my own food and being self-sufficient. I'm always on the outlook for events near to where I live which can help keep us self-sufficient.

The Hop Garden is a community project in High Spen, a village in western Gateshead and only a few km from where I live. Yesterday they hosted a seed and plant swap event. I did not have time to sort seeds for swapping so I took some of our eggs instead - duck, hen and quail. In the world of self-sufficiency, eggs are like currency. Forget pounds, euros and dollars. My wallet was an egg box!



The end result was I got a load of tomato plants, some herbs and rhubarb. I also discovered they have a brick, outdoor oven. I am due to speak at a local history society in October on medieval foods. I'm hoping to use the oven therefore for some medieval bread and baking sessions.



A few shots around the Hop Garden:





I didn't get to use it but here is the compost toilet:



So, well worth a visit and I hope to be doing some more bartering there in the months ahead.

May edition of eFocus

Edition number 84 of our email newsletter eFocus has just been produced. It goes to 1600 households in the Whickham area of Gateshead. This edition features the return of the iconic butterfly beds to Whickham, an update on proposals for opencast mining, my rescue of 3 feral honeybee colonies from a building being demolished in Sunniside, improvements to Cross Lane Meadows in Swalwell and lots of other stories. You can see eFocus here.

Writing to opencast petitioners

9 years ago I lead the battle to defeat proposals for opencast mining at Skons Park near Whickham. The site overlooked the historic Gibside Estate and was on a prominent location in the Derwent Valley. The campaign was a success. The plans were rejected by Gateshead Council's planning committee and the applicant was all set to mount an appeal but withdrew at the last moment. Thousands of people signed the petition I wrote. That included nearly 2000 of my constituents in Whickham South and Sunniside - a quarter of the electorate. Across the other two Whickham wards, over 1000 signed. Thousands more signatures were collected by the National Trust, owners of Gibside. Signatures were also collected in Burnopfield, just across the boundary in County Durham.

I warned at the time that, despite winning the battle, we had to remain vigilant. The countryside here is peppered with small seams of coal near the surface. The only way to mine them is through opencasting. Sure enough, we are now getting new opencast applications. We have just defeated one, at Birklands, just outside my ward. A second, at Marley Hill, in my ward, is due to be decided soon.

If this application goes ahead, it will affect the whole area as the coal will need to be transported through local villages and along heavily congested roads. The Lib Dems have taken the lead in campaigning against this application (though Cllr Chris Ord and Cllr John McClurey are not taking part in the campaign or discussions about it as they are members of the planning committee.) What has been noticeable is that Labour are happily fence sitting on this. Indeed, their election leaflet in Whickham South and Sunniside and in Dunston Hill and Whickham East talk about the advantages if the plans go ahead. I've not seen their Whickham North election leaflet yet but my guess is that it will say the same thing. Labour sit on the fence and leave key local issues to the Lib Dems to tackle - that in itself is becoming quite an election issue across all three of the Whickham wards and in Lobley Hill and Bensham.

To ensure people are kept up to date with what's happening, I am in the middle of preparing a letter to go to those who signed the Skon's Park petition in 2005/6 who are still on the electoral register. Across the three wards, this still amounts to a substantial number of people. The letters for Whickham North and Dunston Hill and Whickham East wards are now ready. The ones for my ward are currently at the mailmerge stage.

Given that certain local Labour members are avid readers of this blog, my message to you is get off the fence, follow our lead and join us in defeating this opencast plan.

Dodging the rain

It started well, a day dedicated to deliveries. I started in the morning and delivered letters and leaflets to my own constituents in Sunniside and then moved on to Marley Hill. After a quick call on Dad's allotment there, I went home. The sun was still shining, sort of, at that point. Lunch back home and then I headed down to the Watergate Estate. In between bursts of heavy rain, I managed to deliver a couple of hundred letters and leaflets. Alas, the outer layer of leaflets in the bundle I was carrying got a thorough soaking and ended up looking like a Labour policy commitment - wet, mushy and falling apart on one's hands. Fortunately, those underneath were dry and deliverable (the latter is not a word I would associate with Labour policy).

Meanwhile, the Labour leaflet in my ward has arrived but no sight yet of the local UKIP or Conservative leaflets (we haven't had a Conservative local election leaflet delivered here for 24 years.) We also have a 5th party standing in my ward - "Trade Unionists and Socialists Against the Cuts". By my reckoning, this is the first time ever in my ward that a socialist has ever stood.

Less than 2 weeks to go now until it's all over.

UKIP cockup: now there are 17 leaflets with illegal imprints

UKIP's attempts to storm to success in the local elections in Newcastle and Gateshead seem to be floundering. I reported last week that Ukippers had circulated a local election leaflet in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward with a totally inadequate and illegal imprint. Now, I hear that a total of 17 UKIP leaflets in Gateshead and Newcastle are suffering from the same problem. I also believe that the problem has been drawn to the attention of the UKIP agent. I have no intelligence as to what has happened to any offending (offensive?) leaflets not yet circulated but it is noticeable that the equivalent local election leaflets have not yet appeared in mine or the neighbouring ward of Whickham North, though the national leaflets have been delivered (courtesy of Royal Mail). I am presuming that the paper recycling industry is now dealing with an unexpected supply of raw materials.

Fulsome praise of me from a Labour councillor!

It's not every day that I get an email from a Labour councillor containing fulsome praise of me. Well, recently I did. It followed a planning committee meeting in Gateshead that rejected an application to opencast a site at Birklands in Lamesley ward, which neighbours my own ward of Whickham South and Sunniside. I had fought the application since it was first submitted in 2011. I had delivered leaflets about it in villages such as Lamesley and Kibblesworth, as well as in my own ward. At the planning committee meeting last month, I represented residents opposed to the plans.

Some time afterwards, Christine Bradley, Labour councillor for Lamesley, emailed me to say, "Congratulations on the fact that your efforts and objection speech won the day and the application was refused.”

I have now included this quote in Focuses and letters now being delivered in various wards in Gateshead as part of the current election campaigns. I did email Cllr Bradley to ask if she had any more nice quotes I could use but alas, she is yet to reply.

In her original email, she took issue with me about the level of interest in the campaign shown by Labour councillors. She cited the fact she had met objectors a whole week before the planning committee as evidence of her commitment to the cause. I, on the other hand, first met the residents (her constituents) to campaign against the application, nearly 3 years ago. I have no reason to doubt her commitment to the defeat of the opencast plans but what I was never able to see was active Labour involvement in the campaign itself.

She finished her email, sadly in my view, with what could be regarded as a bit of an insulting remark. Given that she sent her email to me using her council email address, I am left wondering if this is an appropriate use of council facilities. Indeed, this is a question I put to her in an email. I am awaiting a reply!

There is another opencast application, this time at Marley Hill, in my ward. I am leading the campaign against this. One area that would be affected by the lorries from the site if given the go ahead is Lobley Hill/Dunston Hill. Our campaign is being well received there. Lots of people have signed our petition opposing the application. A decision on it is expected soon.

 

27 years ago today

27 years ago today, I was first elected to Gateshead Council. My ward then was larger than it is now but had a shorter name. Then it was Whickham South. Now it is Whickham South and Sunniside. My most endearing memory of polling day in 1987 was turning up for the count. In those days each ward was counted separately in its own ward. My count was at the Parochial School. All three main parties were confident of winning though why Labour thought they were coasting to victory was beyond me - all the indications in the ward were that their vote was going down. (Perhaps there are lessons for Labour here - they are behaving now as if victory is assured in certain wards in Gateshead. They made the same mistake in 2012 - and in other years as well. They don't learn quickly.)

The ward itself had been strongly though not safely Conservative. 1986 had been a bad year for the Conservatives in the local elections. That had helped us to win the seat from the Conservatives that year. We won with 47% of the vote, over 700 ahead of Labour who moved into 2nd place, and 1000 ahead of the Conservatives.

As we have elections by thirds, all I had to do was repeat the result when I was standing in the ward in 1987. The national political climate however had changed significantly. The Conservatives were on the up, Labour had lost a large amount of the support they had gained over the previous year. Those who believe that the national swing can on its own be the deciding factor on our patch need to learn the lesson we learnt decades ago - national swings help but if the work on the ground isn't done, victory is harder to achieve.

The Conservative councillor due for re-election in 1987 had decided to retire. The Conservatives chose the same candidate who had lost in the previous year. He was a retired teacher. I was a 23-year-old university student at the time. We had had one confrontation with each other during the campaign. Whilst out canvassing we bumped into each other in a street. He was accompanied by someone who could only be described as "Mr Angry". The Conservative candidate ordered me out of the street. I suggested that he could not order me around at which point Mr Angry sneered at me: "Mr Stokoe [the candidate] is a respected member of the community and he is not going to be spoken to by some kid like you."

"We shall see what the voters think of that," I replied. I had no desire to knock on doors of people who had just been disturbed by the Conservatives so I said I was going into the next street to canvass and politely suggested they refrain from going there that evening.

When I arrived at my count, the first person who spoke to me was the last remaining Conservative councillor in the ward. Indeed, he actually hunted me out, walking across the room to me to say, "Hello, I wish you a good second position." "I wish you the same," was my reply though whether or not he heard it I wasn't sure as he walked away as soon as he finished his well-prepared and very short greeting.

The final result was that I got 49% of the vote and a majority of 856 over the Conservatives. Labour slipped back into 3rd place. The look of astonishment on the faces of all our opponents was incredible!

We won the final Conservative seat in 1988 when we were in the middle of the SDP/Liberal merger and the opinion polls made our current poll ratings look dizzyingly high. The Conservatives again slipped back into 3rd place and have been there ever since though for a number of years they had a residual support that could give them quite a few hundred votes in local elections in the ward. That had shrunk to a typical 200 or so votes in the late 90s. There has been no election leaflet from the Conservatives since 1990. On our patch, they have all but disappeared.

Labour have eyed the ward before but only once put in a concerted attempt to take it from me. It was however so cack handed that Labour's vote suffered a significant collapse and they have never recovered from their disastrous campaign.

Bee rescue job - the video

Yesterday was another early start for me as we needed to be in the old Sun Hill in Sunniside at 7.30am to move the three hives we had set up last week containing the feral bee colonies I had rescued from the roof space of the building. We have moved the hives temporarily to one of my apiaries but their eventual location will be the land next to Marley Hill Community Centre. Our aim is to take over this land to turn it into community gardens and allotments. At the management committee meeting yesterday, we agreed that the hives will be part of a community beekeeping project and future honey sales will support the Community Centre.

The video above was filmed over the past week - from when I first checked out the colonies, through cutting them from the roof to put into hives, to taking them to my apiary. The last filming was done yesterday morning. I had the video edited in time to give it a premiere viewing at the monthly Sunniside Local History Society meeting last night. It was well received.

And the winner is.....Crispy Duck!

These are my rare breed Welsh Harlequin ducklings. I hatched them in mid April and when they were just a few days old, we took them to Marley Hill Community Centre for people to see at the craft market we ran on Easter Monday. We had a free competition (mainly for kids though a few parental contributions were received) to come up with the best name for a duckling.

I'm pleased to announced that Ashleigh of Marley Hill was the winner (the prize was a chocolate Easter egg). The suggestion of "Crispy" as the name rather amused us!

We are hoping to have some chicks to take to the next craft market at Marley Hill on 25th May. We have the eggs in the incubator now and they are due to hatch a week tomorrow. However, our area had a major power cut on Friday. The electricity was down for nearly two and a half hours. I wrapped the eggs in a blanket with a bottle of hot water but I'm not sure they survived. We will persevere with them in the hope they survived but as a back up measure, we will put more eggs in another incubator - this is a much bigger one which a resident of Marley Hill has lent to us. These new eggs won't have hatched in time for the craft market but they will be ready for the May Fayre at Whickham's Chase Park which this year is in June!

Shoe leather destruction process

On Friday night I delivered 120 Focuses on the Rectory Estate in Whickham North, on Saturday I delivered 370 on the Watergate Estate in Dunston Hill and Whickham East and 200 in my own ward of Whickham South and Sunniside. Today, I delivered 300 in my own ward again. That leaves me 10 short of my target of 1000. Looks like I will have to have another go at the record.

Some photos from the inside of Sun Hill

Demolition of Sun Hill Aged Person's Home is progressing well. I was in the building this morning before 8am to rescue 3 feral honey bee colonies. It gave me the opportunity to snap a handful of photos of the building before it is gone forever.





Sun Hill is being demolished because a new Sun Hill has been built on neighbouring land. This new Sun Hill rather exposes the lie of the Labour party that the Coalition is denying our area any money (claims which are normally tied up with Lib-Dems-eat-your-babies-for-breakfast allegations by the so-called "socialists" of the Labour party in Gateshead). The new building was paid for with government cash.



Meanwhile, I can report that the rescue of the bee colonies appears to be successful. They will be the start of the community beekeeping project I am setting up.

My latest email newsletter for residents

I forgot to post this link in April so here it is. It's my latest eFocus to residents of the Whickham area. The email newsletter goes directly to about 1500 households and about 100 businesses. We are aware that many people forward it on to others as well. I call it the ripple effect.