The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today announced 100 new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea and carbon capture schemes. He claimed that these risky bets on fossil fuel extraction and unproven carbon capture technologies were justified in the name of energy resilience. The gas and oil extracted from any new North Sea … Read More
Proposed changes to our railways will see many ticket offices closed and reduced staffing at stations. The proposals include closing the ticket offices at Hexham meaning that (with the additional planned closure of Carlisle booking office) the only staffed ticket office on the Tyne Valley Line will be at Newcastle. Train operators have outlined that … Read More
Jonathan Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, responding to Jaguar Land Rover’s Gigafactory announcement, said: Labour welcomes any investment in British jobs and industry and decisions like these vindicate Labour’s advocacy of an industrial strategy in place of scattergun announcements. In spite of the Government’s cack-handed approach to industry and our economy this shows the … Read More
Free trade deals with Australia and New Zealand were trumpeted by the Conservative Government and the then PM Boris Johnson as victories for post-Brexit Britain. These trade deals came into force a couple of days ago with our current PM Rishi Sunak saying that: ‘These landmark deals squarely deliver on my priorities to drive economic … Read More
The Tories’ 13 years in power have seen bus services across the country suffer. In Northumberland alone it has been calculated that over 3 million miles of bus journeys have been lost since 2016 in a sustained decline. In a betrayal of the government’s ‘levelling up promises’ almost one in ten of Britain’s rural bus … Read More
Labour has today pledged ‘a bright future’ for British industry under a Labour Government ahead of Keir Starmer’s speech to the British Chambers of Commerce on Wednesday. New analysis shows Labour’s plans to part-finance eight gigafactories will boost jobs in the automotive sector by 50%, creating 80,000 jobs and powering nearly two million electric vehicles. … Read More
Your Conservative MP Guy Opperman claims to be tough on crime and anti-social behaviour. The truth is that over the Tories’ thirteen years of failure Northumbria Police has taken the biggest financial hit of all the police forces in England and Wales. Our local police forces have been starved of funds and resources to the … Read More
Northumberland has the third highest number of potholes of any county in the country. Over 51,000 potholes were recorded in the year 2021/22 according to reported recently in the Northumberland Gazette. Potholes are caused by damage and erosion to road surfaces by heavy traffic, inclement weather and also by sub-standard repairs caused when utilities and … Read More
Northumberland County Council has decided, without consulting local residents, to reduce the opening hours of Prudhoe Household Waste Recovery Centre from seven days a week to only four (Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon). Prudhoe Town Councillor Paddy O’Kelly (for West Wylam), with Angie Scott, also a Town Councillor and County Councillor for Prudhoe North, launched … Read More
As previously reported, Northumberland County Council has decided, without local consultation, that the Recycling Centre in Prudhoe should only be open Friday to Monday. This is to save money, caused at least in part by a decline in funding to the County Council from the Tory Westminster Government. Many local residents believe that the midweek … Read More
This evening the Conservative Hexham MP Guy Opperman has voted to support the PM’s amendment to Labour’s Jim McMahon’s (Shadow Secretary for the Environment) Water Quality (Sewage Discharge) Bill. This Bill would have cracked down on the polluting water companies flooding our rivers and beaches with sewage but has been rendered toothless by Tory actions. … Read More
The Cost of Living Crisis has led to 90% of foodbanks seeing an increase in demand this year. As the cost of food and energy has increased more and more vulnerable families are using these community facilities that provide a vital and much needed lifeline to those struggling with the costs of living. When the … Read More
Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party has pledged to scrap zero-hours contracts if the party wins the next General Election. According to Statista there are over a million workers in the UK on zero-hours contracts. This is a fourfold increase since 2010 when the Conservatives came to power and includes 47,000 workers in … Read More
Labour pledges to revitalise our high streets. Thousands of pubs, shops and bank branches have shut under the last thirteen years of Tory economic mismanagement. In our own towns in the Hexham Constituency and Northumberland we can see evidence of this first hand with shops closing or closed in Hexham, Prudhoe, Haltwhistle, and elsewhere. … Read More
With a General Election on the horizon political strategists are eyeing the North of England as one of the key battlegrounds that will determine the shape and size of the next Labour government and its majority. Labour came within a whisker of winning Hexham in 1997 but since then the seat has been seen unwinnable, … Read More
Research by the Top of the Poops shows that our rivers were polluted with sewage on 431,850 separate occasions in 2021. These sewage discharges into the rivers we love lasted a staggering 3.2 million hours! The Hexham Constituency saw 2864 discharges into our rivers. These lasted 22,670 hours with 95 different locations polluted by water … Read More