5 new Councils for Northumberland? and the HQ LIE in the LIBCON

Conservative Manifesto claims that IF they win they plan to introduce 5 new Area based Councils which will have devolved powers and budgets. Does this sound like the OLD districts??

So that will be 5 NEW sets of Councillors - 5 NEW sets of OFFICERS - 5 NEW HQ sites in each areas.........you could go on and on.

Not sure if they are aware but the Conservative Government has REMOVED £200million from the Current Councils budget so where would you get the money from to run 5 new ones. Legal are also of the opinion that the County Council doesn't even have the POWER to set up 5 NEW AUTHORITIES.

Maybe they should focus on getting funding for Adult Social Care like Surrey in a special deal rather than creating 5 new costly Councils.

Maybe the agreement between the Libdems and Tories should be relooked at. I doubt Libdem voters will be happy about them jumping back in to bed with the Northumberland Tories.

We then move on to another point within their Manifesto which unfortunately is a LIE and should be described only as one.

They have used the following figures for the County Hall move which returns jobs and services to Market Towns.

Lies to date:

1) on a number of occasions it has been described as £40million

2) it was then recently described as £70million

3) it then peaked at £75 million

4) and now they claim £80 million

Question must be when will the lies stop???? How High will they go to Mislead People.

Truth to date:

1) County Hall is an invest to SAVE scheme saving £16million pounds to put back in to Council services: FACT

2) The Chief Executive of Northumberland County Council who is an employee and not a political person has requested on several occasions that the UNTRUTHS about costs are stopped. On 3 seperate occasions a Full Council meeting needed to be stopped to ask the Conservative Leader to STOP misleading the public.

3) The Contract for the HQ which is smaller and more efficient is FIXED at £32million and has already been awarded to a contractor and building is underway. This capital cost has already been covered by the sale of EMPTY BUILDINGS across Northumberland.

4) The new County Hall is a service centre and will act as a multipurpose facility and generate income for the Council Services.

5) ALL the Market Towns - Bedlington, Berwick, Amble, Morpeth, Prudhoe, Hexham, Cramlington, Blyth and Ashington benefit from this move.