Poor Old Teesside

Tees Valley Metro Mayor!

Other than a majority of us not recognising "Tees Valley" not many people where consulted about the prospect of having a "Mayor" yet here we are, 3 weeks before going to polls and people are asking who should they vote for, if their going to vote. It is clear that the public have no great knowledge of what their voting for and many are not going to bother to vote at all.

I stood outside Stockton Town House on the High Street to demonstrate my anger that our council leaders signed the Devolution Contract a week before going to the vote. Labour and Conservative working in perfect harmony. Elected members had no choice but to go along with this plan to create another level of democracy and one that is going to be expensive and as history has proven, not much gets done when local authorities "work" together.

Then there is the money available in Devolution, £450m - Sounds great but this is by far the lowest amount to any region, Peterborough and Cambridgeshire the closest with £600m to spend. Manchester, Liverpool and West of England all get £900m and the West Midlands is to get £1.1bn

Poor old Teesside is to remain, poor old Teesside.

Comments

Darlington Library

So Darlington Council have to make huge savings and doing so it seems their first target is the Crown Street Library. The plan is to sell the building and relocate services to the Dolphin Centre on a much reduced scale. This is to come at the cost of 25 jobs within Library Services and I am appalled that when the going gets tough, the council's get cutting. Instead of reducing the costs to the upper hierarchy of said council, it is the front line staff that are being sent packing. In my opinion services such as libraries should be the last thing to be hit when making cuts. Libraries have an environment that encourages thinking, reading and writing and allows imagination to run wild. Darlington Council will make their decision this Wednesday in a Special Cabinet meeting and I hope for the sake of learning and culture, they see fit to save this building and better still save the creative environment that comes with libraries.

Social Media

For those that don't know I have been blocked by Facebook, this has happened 3 times in as many days. Facebook says that is due to being reported and in my opinion I most probably know who by. But never the less, I will continue to inform people of what I do and what I think by other means. Twitter and Blogger are to become my main source of communication and to be truthful Facebook was beginning to get on my nerves anyway. Fake news at its finest. So from now on I will get family members and friends to post the links up to this blog and if you are on twitter you can follow me at @LukeJohnFrost where you can also send me private messages if you so wish to do so. I know there was a lot of people who relied on this on Facebook. But not to worry, if you are not on Twitter you can still request my email or catch me as some do in the Town Centre or Library.

Putting The Record Straight

Just to make something clear, I am not against investment in our area, far from it. I have signed many support comments for developments such as Aldi, Parade of Shops on the Industrial Estate and even supported the Hotel proposal and the Student apartments on Mandale Triangle. Saying that I have also objected to a few, such as the Mcdonalds on the centre and recently the two takeaways that where planned for Lanehouse Road, along with the proposal for 150 homes at the Barrage. In fact I am still the only objector on the Stockton Council Planning portal. I believe investment is great, when it is in the right area and with the right amount of demand, access and need. Over the years we have had a bombardment of planning applications go through Stockton Borough Council for south of the Tees developments that has seen the population swell and the infrastructure buckle under the weight of bad management and developers who constantly cut corners to make a quick pound or two. In the pas...

Luke John Frost

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