Paper chase video

Filmed today as we shifted our supply of paper for the local elections into the office in Consett. A third of a tonne of paper!

Lib Dem Pint - the movie!

I filmed this at the Lib Dem Pint event in Felling, Gateshead, last night. Team Low Fell used the event as an opportunity to sort all their target mail!

Sorting the target mail

Our trip to the Lib Dem office in Consett today was not just to deliver paper for printing, It was also to sort the target mail for two wards - Whickham South and Sunniside, and Dunston Hill and Whickham East. The letters had been put into envelopes at an event on Sunday. Today was all about integrating the different letters and putting them into their delivery patches.

In addition, I printed a final batch of letters for Whickham North and for Lobley Hill and Bensham and part printed my next ward Focus.

We will have lots to deliver over the coming weeks!

Ready for local election printing

The Gateshead Lib Dem Land Rover fleet was in action today to move a third of a tonne of paper from Newcastle to the office in Consett. We are now stocked up for the local elections! At current rates of leaflet production however, I can foresee our having to restock by the end of April!

Lib Dem Pint in Felling

The Old Fox in Felling was the venue for Gateshead Lib Dem Pint last night. No Lib Dem event can be held without some work being done on literature. This event was no different. Team Low Fell turned up with over 1000 letters to sort and bundle up.





Meanwhile, the buffet catered for all tastes and diets.



And there were plenty of empty plates at the end of the evening.

A uniform pollution charge won't work

I attended Gateshead Council Cabinet his morning. There was only one item on the agenda: proposals for a clean air zone in central Gateshead and Newcastle. One of the options is to charge all vehicles to cross the Redheugh, Swing and Tyne Bridges, other than a few ultra low emission cars. All other cars will be charged the same amount, regardless of their emissions. I am not convinced this will work.

Pollution charges are all about getting people to change their activities from dirty to clean. A pollution charge should, ultimately, collect no revenue as people shift to cleaner activities. This will simply not happen on the bridges over the Tyne. Everyone who has invested in low emission vehicles will pay the same as people driving the most polluting cars. There is no incentive to go green.

Indeed, the plans could be counter-productive. To avoid the charge, people are likely to drive west to get to the Scotswood or Blaydon Bridges, causing further congestion there and leading to longer journeys and therefore more pollution.

I put these points to cabinet and, interestingly, my comments were supported by Cllr Mick McNestry. Nevertheless, it looks like this flawed, counter-productive scheme will go ahead.

Arson at the Staiths

A few days ago, the Dunston Staiths, the biggest wooden structure in Europe, was damaged by fire. It is highly likely that this was deliberate arson and it is not the first time the historic structure has suffered in this way. Quite what drives people to carry out this sort of mindless destruction is beyond me.

I decided to have a look myself at the damage earlier today. I took a walk along the riverside cycle way which gave me  clear view of the Staiths and the damage. Hopefully, repairs will be possible.

Don't put up the bunting yet

News is breaking that Labour are to back a referendum on the Brexit deal. Hooray! But don't forget, this is the Corbyn Labour Party we are talking about. Corbyn is a Brexiter and he has been dragged kicking and screaming and at a snail's pace to the point we have now reached. At this point however, we don't know what Labour's referendum will be about. Will it be about Labour's pie-in-the-sky Brexit versus what? No deal? Remain? At this point all we can do is to keep our fingers crossed that Corbyn will propose a referendum between May's deal and remain. But don't count on it. Corbyn is a weasel who will do anything to get out of Labour's commitment to a referendum.

But if Labour are now to support a referendum of the current deal versus remain, this will be a game changer. Be ready to put up the bunting...but not yet!

Half a million visits!

A milestone has been passed. Recently, this blog recorded its half millionth visit! Hooray! The challenge now is to see it I ever get to one million viewings. I am likely to be seriously elderly by then!

Councillor Diary 24th February 2019 - the envelope stuffing party

I filmed this at our envelope stuffing party in the Lib Dem office in Consett today. While putting letters into envelopes is something of a dull task, put a bunch of people together to do the job and somehow it becomes quite fun!

More envelope stuffing!

Another Sunday and another day of putting letters into envelopes. A group of Lib Dems from Gateshead ventured to the office in Consett and sorted the letters for three wards: Whickham South and Sunniside, Dunston Hill and Whickham East and Low Fell. We got through more than we expected so we've had to stand down (for the moment) the people waiting to do the remaining envelopes.

All we have to do now is deliver the letters!

Lobley Hill Action Day - the movie!

Video filmed at our action day today in Lobley Hill.

We need visitor infrastructure in Gateshead

On Wednesday I spoke in support of a planning application to extend the Woodmans pub on Fellside Road, Whickham. Gateshead's planning committee considered the plans for the creation of a function room at the pub. This was a rare event for me - supporting a development in the greenbelt. But I believe there are sound and exceptional circumstances for this development to go ahead. The tourism industry in the Derwent Valley needs more infrastructure and we need small businesses to step up to the plate to provide it. But the planning system greenbelt restrictions can act as a brake on necessary and carefully planned developments.

So, above is a video of my presentation to the planning committee and the thorough grilling I got afterwards, and below is my speech:

I want to give you three reasons to support this application.

1)we don’t have enough high quality function rooms in Gateshead.

2)the plan complements the council’s rural economic strategy.

3)we currently have inadequate infrastructure for the growing no. of visitors to the Derwent Valley.

Gateshead has major visitor attractions, such as the Sage, Baltic and Gibside.

But we need smaller scale facilities as part of our visitor economy such as small hotels, restaurants and, as in this case, function room facilities.

Co Durham, Northumberland and Newcastle have many high quality function room facilities similar to what is proposed here.

This proposal helps address that shortage in Gateshead.

It will generate 15 jobs and more business rates for Gateshead.

The Woodmans is in the greenbelt but the greenbelt was never established to pickle what is there.

Businesses in the greenbelt should be able to grow within the confines of the planning system.

As a business that has recently won national awards, it is putting Gateshead on the visitor map.

We want more of that and this development will deliver this.

Finally, the Land of Oak and Iron is a unique project.

Infrastructure is urgently needed if the project is going to give our area a long term boost.

To ensure increasing visitor numbers are catered for, we need small businesses to step up to the plate and invest in the visitor economy.

Most of the Land of Oak and Iron project area is in greenbelt.

If Oak and Iron is to be a success, some limited development is needed in the greenbelt.

Without that investment and careful development, the visitor economy in the Derwent Valley will not cope and visitor numbers could fall away.

Oak and Iron is only one of three Heritage Lottery funded landscape projects.

It conserves both the natural and industrial landscape of the area.

This application has the backing of Mick Wilkes, director of National Trust Gibside, who phoned me yesterday and asked me to put his views to the committee today.

He shares my belief that additional facilities are needed if the Derwent Valley and Land of Oak and Iron are to have a sustainable visitor economy.

Fellside Road is not without recent greenbelt development.

East Byermoor Guesthouse was given permission to build a storage shed thereby helping the business expand.

Birdhill house across the road has recently undergone a major rebuild.

Whickham Golf Club is now enjoying new facilities, opened by the mayor two years ago.

The Woodman’s application is a modest extension at the rear of the building which does not affect the openness of the greenbelt.

So, this application gives Gateshead an opportunity to compete with neighbouring areas, complements the council’s rural economic strategy and contributes towards the growing visitor economy in the Derwent Valley.

We need infrastructure in place to ensure the project’s long term success.

That is the exceptional circumstance why the greenbelt restrictions need to be relaxed in this instance and this application approved.

Lobley Hill delivered

I'm pleased to report that our Lib Dem action day in Lobley Hill was a success today. We had a street stall (actually my land rover covered with posters) from 10am to 11am from which we I dished out our Lobley Hill Focuses to members who came along to help. All patches were allocated and delivered! So 2000 homes got our message.

Some of us then headed to Dunston Hill to do a survey. We also had an action day in Felling and Pelaw and Heworth wards. Reports from there are positive!



Above, Nick Seaborn (Lib Dem candidate in Lobley Hill and Bensham) and Vicky Anderson (Lib Dem candidate in Dunston Hill and Whickham East) chat to a voter before delivering a significant quantity of Focuses)



Me and my land rover which had the role of street stall for the morning.

Gateshead Lib Dem Members' email newsletter

The latest edition of Gateshead Lib Dem members' email newsletter was published last night. It features the action days we are having in Lobley Hill and Bensham, Dunston Hill and Whickham East, Felling and Pelaw and Heworth wards tomorow, Saturday 23rd February. Also featured is our tabloid and our "Six to Fix" local manifesto.

You can see the newsletter on this link.

Focus on Lobley Hill

We will be in Lobley Hill tomorrow helping our council candidate for Lobley Hill and Bensham, Nick Seaborn, deliver 2000 Focus newsletters. They are all sitting in my sitting room at the moment but they will be heading down to Lobley Hill tomorrow morning when we will also be holding a street stall.

A decade ago we came within about 50 votes of winning the ward bit it slipped back into being strong Labour. We have every intention of turning that around with the aim of winning it in the near future.

The office envelope stuffing party

We had a gathering in the Lib Dem office in Consett on Sunday to put nearly 5000 letters into envelopes, print more letters, print the Lobley Hill and Bensham Focus and eat sandwiches! A successful day though it became a bit surreal when the talk around the envelope stuffing table turned to memories of the 1908s!

More Dunston deliveries

I was in Dunston on Saturday to deliver more Focuses. Key story in this edition was the air pollution levels on the nearby A1. While the government are requiring Gateshead Council to deal with illegal levels of emissions in central Gateshead, ministers are yet to put forward any proposals for reducing emissions on the A1, a road for which the government is responsible. Now is't that odd!

Labour's split - initial thoughts

Labour's split today has formalised something that has been gradually underway for months. But how does it affect matters up here in the North East?

My main concern is about whether or not the Labour party will back a referendum on the Brexit deal. I suspect the departure of the 7 MPs won't change Corbyn's position - he is a Leaver and has done everything he can to resist a further referendum. I'm not expecting any defections from Labour in the North East. They are too tribal here.

Is there a prospect of cooperation between the Lib Dems and Independents? Possibly, though quite how it will function is difficult to see.

It's early days and, like Brexit, no one can see the way forward through the fog of confusion.

Tabloid hits the doormats of Gateshead

Our Lib Dem tabloid has started to hit the doormats of Gateshead. Bensham (part of Lobley Hill and Bensham ward, which we will be targeting in future elections) and Saltwell started to receive their copies this morning. Delivery will be rolled out over the next few weeks over other areas of Gateshead.

The lead story is the £700,000 spent on building a car park by Labour-run Gateshead that hardly anyone uses. We also have features on our "Six to Fix" (our local manifesto), on Labour waste and the need to build houses in the right places on the huge brownfield sites in Gateshead, rather than on former greenbelt which is Labour's favoured option.

So look out for Gateshead News coming through your letterbox shortly.