Jacksons Landing/Council Meeting

[admin]

The next meeting of the full council is scheduled for Thursday, 8th September at 7pm in the Civic Centre


Agenda and Reports


https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/3548/council

[DRiddle]

Lots of eyes on this site after tonight's meeting. Nobody saying anything yet though. I wonder if there'll be one more councillor on my side of the chamber next month.

[steveL]

Who could give such a political car crash any real justice with mere words.....?

[SRMoore]

Maybe this more accurately describes tonight more than any amount of words can.

[steveL]

You have to have been following these things for a while to fully appreciate the direction of travel but Shane's picture sums it up quite nicely.

It's all Riddles fault, of course. You can extrapolate the timeline backwards till it reaches the point in time when Riddle, as a mere mortal then, dared to raise the issue of Manor Residents.

Interesting times but CAB's attempt to blame the Charity Commission for those famously dodgy accounts was probably the high point (or low point, depending on your point of view). As a result, CAB is looking pretty stupid these days after a 8 out of 11 guilty plea by his former labour colleague and still firm favourite Facebook friend.

A few random comments on tonight:

* Dave Hunter, who I understand owns Bishop Auckland Tour Guides,  easily won the vomit inducer of the night award while Lindridge was obviously this month's winner of the Committee Room B competition to be the next to read one of Christopher's hand-written scripts.

* Rob Cook's timer has a RED button as well as the standard button and runs at different rates depending on which button is pressed.

* The decision to demolish Jacksons Landing was made sometime in May prior to any official council meetings - they would come after the decision was made. HBC has now recruited consultants tasked with producing drawings and written documentation detailing why CAB made the decision to demolish back in May. Apparently, Christopher has his own plans which may suggest that Stephen's mother has not settled in her brand new bungalow and may be looking for a waterside residence.

* HBC is heading towards doing away with public questions completely. This was strongly hinted at by Devlin who told everyone that not all councils have public questions - expect that one to be in next year's constitution review. It looks like the tac to be taken is to say that the 'Have Your Say' process of consultation is the appropriate substitute for public questions.

* Wells complained about going 'light headed' several times during the meeting. Personally, I think his trousers were too tight; with his pink tie and waistcoat, he looked like he had just got back from the 'Strictly' studios.

* Obviously stung by criticism, UKIP put forward no fewer than 3 proposals. Going by the outcome tonight and the audience laughter as they witnessed events, it's probably best guys if you don't attempt to do this again for a while. At the very least, do a few rehearsals, Also, it would probably be better for everyone if you all told George the wrong date for the next meeting.

* Ged Hall has had enough of Christopher and has thrown the towel in but he won't cross the floor until Christopher pushes him out.

[Lord Elpus]

I can't wait to see the video

[DRiddle]

There were some very interesting/funny/embarrassing/cringe worthy moments.

A few personal favourites of mine were Dave Hunters speech about Jacksons Landing which developed into a full on 'pride in Hartlepool' speech. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but I can't of been the only sat in the room who thought he was going to burst into tears. For those of you that weren't there if you remember gwyneth paltrow's oscar speech from 1999 you're not too far wide of the mark.

Then on course there was UKIPs contribution. There are basically now two different ukips in Hartlepool council. 40% of UKIP are now awake and contributing, while others continue to sleep hoping to challenge the record set for continuous slumber by Rip Van Winkle.

One other that possibly slipped under the radar was the content of the letter Cranney read out about jacksons landing. Slipped into the waffle about why it needs to be knocked down he also gave the game away as to the short term plan while we wait praying for a buyer. . . . It'll become a picnic area.

An interesting choice of use for what will essentially be a car park in a partially abandoned retail park. Especially at a cost spiralling upwards of £1.5 million quid.

Still, this is HBC under Akers-Belcher. The man who spent £500,000 on a coffee bar in a cemetery, £200,000 on a couple of dilapidated street houses that used to be a bakery and sanctioned a £7000 sponsors donation to go to straight into the bank account of Joey Essex from TOWIE as families queue at foodbank.

Call me a cynic, but I don't see this ending well.

[Lord Elpus]

bread and circuses

[Hartlepudlion]

Steven. Can't agree with your assessment of UKIP.

For inexperienced Cllrs unaware of the pitfalls of the Council chamber I thought they put up a credible performance. They weren't helped by the bullying, taunting antics of the supposedly "independent" Chair person. Instead of helping them by advising them of the correct terminology he constantly tried belittling and over talking them but Shane and John stuck to their guns and got their points across.

With experience they will get better and could help  make their side of chamber present a proper opposition to the excesses and dictatorial antics of the Labour leadership.

Unfortunately, if the opposition becomes too good the constitution will be re-written to banish them.

[fred c]

RIP Local Democracy in Hartlepool........

It really is going that way, the umpteenth re-hash of the  councils constitution to suit the needs of the LabTorMob is nothing short of disgraceful, I got the distinct impression that they are laughing at not only opposition councillors, but the Hartlepool electorate.

The next move wil be to restrict members of the public from attending meetings, various comments & laughter could be heard from quite a few members of the public throughout the meeting, it was obvious that is p***ed off the Chairman / Ceremonial Mayor.

What needs to be remembered however, is that if, as a ruling group you choose to restrict the democratic process, you are as a consequence bound to increase public concern & anger pro rata.

As to the meeting content, it became crystal clear that The Big Tin Shed saga was orchestrated months ago.

Cranney managed to read out a letter from some expert or other & managed to mangle the english language into a form most of us didn't recognise.

A bloke from Bishop Auckland inadvertently let the cat out of the bag by claiming 70 hotel jobs & 250 construction jobs would be created on the site, amazing really he even managed to challenge for a BAFTA for his delivery performance.

The on cue applause by the non speaking members of the mob went exactly as rehearsed in committee room B

Barclay spoke, but nothing came of it apart from the distinct whiff of dog fart.

Thompson had to go from the chamber to the 1 life for treatment for banging his head against a wall.

Riddle manage to annoy the odious 1 into boasting about his property developing skills & his million pound chip shop money that he is still spending.

Shane & Tennant made a reasonable start as councillors their efforts weren't helped by a less than unbiased Chairman, who spoke over them & belittled himself by showing that obvious bias........ Mr Speaker.... he isn't

[steveL]

No, can't agree with that. Tennant is inexperienced, that's unavoidable, but has the potential to get there in the end and Shane knows the ropes but we've had a couple of years now of the Springer/Hind double act and it's not going to change. I think Shane and Tennant need to lock things down a lot more than they did last night. You can't have people dithering in public like they did last night.

One more thing they need to do is to insist on more space. They were huddled together last night like a witches coven making themselves look comical. If you noticed, the 5 UKIPPER tables extended much closer to the public gallery than the Labour side; it made them look like an an appendage to the main event.

I suspect this is deliberate in how Labour have the tables are arranged. When Ged moves across, the 'Opposition'  should insist on a re-arrangement of the opposition desks to match the layout of the Labour side.

[DRiddle]

One other amusing moment was when Barclay stood up to apparently to pay homage to Peter Jackson's time as a councillor. I'm not entirely sure as to how or WHY Barclay then started to talk about the size of his own majority.

As someone who teaches Psychology, I might have a conversation with Barclay about Sigmund Freud's musings on men who feel the need to boast about the size of things.

Barclay's an ex-squaddie who presumably spent a fair bit of time being around tanks, rocket launchers and running around with guns. The fact that he publicly felt the need to boast about the size of something suggests to me he might well be overcompensating for shortcomings in another area. 

[jeffh]

Well I attended my first full meeting of HBC last night and to use a well coined phrase - "You couldn't make it up"
With the LabTor alliance doing no more than putting their hands up on cue.  On the Labour side all we had were a group of people, the majority of which, didn't really seem to know what was going on but fortunately Paul Thompson had been positioned so far away from them that they couldn't find out even if they wanted to. 
I too thought the Chair was intimidating, which isn't very helpful for new Councillors, but I guess is very helpful for the LabTors.
If there are any Labour councillors reading this could I implore you to look at what the people who you represent want and stop voting blindly to satisfy the egos of some of your colleagues.
If Paul Thompson hadn't been there we would of all been home by 8 o'clock - keep it up Paul and remember "Nil Carburundum Non Illigitimum"
Can't wait for the next installment of The Adventures of Paul Thompson and HBC

[steveL]

My understanding is that Barclay worked in the stores; describing him as a squaddie might be over-doing it a bit - more of a shelf-stacker in a beret.

I forgot to mention the interesting quote that Thompson gave us from an unnamed Labour Councillor who had said that 'the council chamber is not the proper place for debate.' When you're up against that kind of logic you realise just how bad things are.

Incidentally, if you're out and about today, be careful that you don't run into Cllr Hunter and his camera. I understand he's currently engaged in some sort of Hartlepool Familiarisation programme.

[jeffh]

Another interesting comment from Paul Thompson was when proposing the motion to hold off the demolition of Jackson's Landing until a full and proper enquiry had been carried out - he hoped that those Labour Councillors who signed the On Line Petition would also support the motion - they didn't - or maybe they just put up their hands at the wrong time