Northumberland County Council has agreed to take action on nuisance calls after Conservative Cllr Richard Dodd called for cross party support to gather evidence of the harm that these calls are doing to residents and to formally ask our four local MPs to lobby the Government to take action to outlaw this practice.

In a passionate speech, Cllr Dodd spoke of his personal experiences of the constant cold calls which he receives by telephone, text and email. He produced evidence of the harm that these calls could do particularly to the vulnerable and the elderly citing the example of one gentleman suffering from dementia who had been duped to hand over £35,000 from his savings by charity cold callers.

Cllr Dodd said, “The number of nuisance calls to all of us is going up dramatically. Every day many residents are being pestered by all kinds of organisations constantly ringing. This is bad enough for the majority to have to put up with but there are those who are elderly and vulnerable who are suffering from real harm.

Something must be done. So I am pleased that the Council has agreed to take some action as a first step to tackling this issue. We need to gather evidence of harm, to have our MPs on board and to be serious about asking for a change in the law surrounding these nuisance calls.”