One of the 7 key pledges in the Northumberland manifesto is to deliver genuine local decision making in relation to local services.

Prior to the creation of the Northumberland Unitary Authority – our county had local borough Councils delivering a range of local services. The Labour government, despite the wishes of local people in a referendum, abolished these Councils and created a single Council for Northumberland.

This has lead to increased distance between the decisions being made at the top and local residents. With large swathes of the county feeling neglected. Northumberland Conservatives plan to address these very real concerns by re-introducing more localism.

We will transform the current toothless talking shop Area Committees of Northumberland County Council into real decision making bodies with genuine budgets and responsibilities. In recognition of the increased role and responsibilities of these committees they will be repurposed as “Local Area Councils”.

We will intorduce 5 local Area Councils made up of County Councillors from those areas. The Areas will be the North, Castle Morpeth, Tynedale, Cramlington and Bedlingtonshire, and Ashington & Blyth.

Like the current Area committees these new committees will hold public meetings in their areas, in the evenings, so local people can attend, engage and see decisions being made.

We will also devolve back to these Area Councils the ability to make Planning decisions, and reverse the centralisation of the Labour Administration, with all applications being dealt with at County Hall by a central committee.

Our new Area Councils will not mean the creation of any more elected councillors or another layer of local government. Indeed we will reduce the total special responsibilities allowances paid to councillors by abolishing many of the current centralised committees created by the Administration.

For a return to genuine localism and accountability vote Conservative on May 4th.