Forum rejects 'super-council' committees proposal

Aug 5 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal

A PLAN to create three large area committees to help run Northumberland’s new super-council has been rejected by an influential group of councillors as “too centralised”.

The new Liberal Democrat administration at County Hall tabled proposals to create the three area committees, each with responsibility for delivering local planning and licensing functions for their communities.

One would take in Berwick, Alnwick and Morpeth; the second would include Haltwhistle, Hexham, Ponteland and Prudhoe, with the third covering Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth and Cramlington.

Now the proposal has been rejected by the county’s Joint Transition Forum, a collection of county and district councillors helping oversee the switch to unitary local government in April.

Instead, the forum is calling for the creation of five separate area committees based on the boundaries of the existing six district councils, with Alnwick and Berwick being amalgamated to form a single area.

It has also called for the committees to be responsible for grass cutting, street cleaning, roads maintenance, outdoor recreation, community safety, refuse collection and other functions – as well as planning and licensing.

Now the issue will be decided at the next full meeting of the county council, when the minority Lib Dem administration could see its plans thrown out.

Yesterday county council Conservative group leader, Peter Jackson, who is also leader of Castle Morpeth Borough Council, said some rural parts of the three area committees would be 60 miles across and could not be described as local. He said: “I cannot imagine a more centralising proposal.

“There will be a huge gap in local provision for our communities next year when the existing district councils disappear, and the Liberal administration’s proposals were for absolutely everything apart from planning to be run from County Hall in Morpeth. This is not acceptable and seems to contradict their promises to the electorate just a few months ago.

“The Conservative, Labour and Independent groups are united in the view that there must be much more local control so that, as a council, we can respond much more effectively to local needs and priorities.”

Lib Dem county council leader, Jeff Reid, said there would be insufficient councillors on the new authority to service five area committees, and three committees would provide a more strategic view of local planning issues.

“They (the JTF) are talking about re-creating five of the six existing districts, and this is about Peter Jackson wanting to hang on to his personal fiefdom.

“The whole point of local government reorganisation was to break down barriers between the six districts and get a better service from a unitary authority. To try to re-create what the Government has told us quite bluntly that we have to get rid of, is a nonsense.”