However I have been most interested in the election bumph being put through my letterbox.

By way a bit of light relief from the often critical leaflets, and because it falls within my executive portfolio area, I attended a recent planning and regulation committee (Monday, April 21).

On the agenda to be considered were applications regarding four schools in Blyth.

The plans are to build three brand new state of the art schools – Newsham, New Delaval and a replacement for the Morpeth Road School on the former Bates Colliery site – and to significantly refurbish the fourth at Croftsway.

As two of these fall within the Newsham area in which I live and have
represented for a number of years, I take particular pleasure.

These are being done as part of the ongoing Putting the Learner First (PLF) programme, with an earlier phase in Cramlington currently well underway.

The new complex at Hareside is said by those who have visited, to be "excellent, a sight to behold".

When completed, PLF in Blyth Valley alone will have realised in the region of £100,000,000 total spend.

And it was said by those doubters that "funding at this level would never be achieved".

I well remember in the early days of PLF, eminent national education expert Professor Tim Brighouse said that Northumberland County Council's proposals were "brave but necessary".

Alas these comments were lost on some who had actually previously supported the proposals, those who perhaps saw only political opportunity; indeed you may recall the Tories turned tail and fled, whilst the Liberal Democrats recruited at least five members of a leading single issue group to stand for office in the 2005 county council elections.

Contrary to opinion that there was huge groundswell of opposition to PLF, not a single one of those recruited aspired to win a council seat, whilst bucking the national trend Labour retained the administration of the county, albeit with a slightly reduced majority.

Another huge multi-million pound project embarked on by the current county council has been the Waste Private Finance Initiative, which again is well underway, and when all of the new and re-furbished waste transfer stations and home recycling plants are on stream in the not too distant future, Northumberland will be on track to be one of the cleanest/greenest places in England, putting them light-years ahead of many other local authorities.

The success of these projects should be measured alongside a council striving for, and achieving, four star status through the stringent Corporate Performance Assessment process, carried out by the Audit Commission; to become one of the growing groups of excellent councils here in the north east.

Particularly pleasing was the good score received for financial management, which reflected the authority's ability to set council taxes at the lowest level of any English county council for three consecutive years; no mean feat and one which the Leadership, the executive and the administration are justifiably proud of.

And of course it has to be said, hardly the achievements of the feckless, frivolous authority our detractors would have you believe.

There will always be difficult, sometimes unpopular decisions to be made as the government strives for more and more efficiency from local authorities, indeed they are never far away, but nonetheless I would challenge the new authority to at least match the finance and the commitment to ensure that the Putting the Learner First programme reaches, and benefits, every child in Northumberland. It can be done.

Finally may I take the opportunity to thank the residents of both Plessey and Newsham for their kind support over the years?

Many thanks. I'm off to do some weeding!


BILL BROOKS
Former Northumberland county councillor

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