That’s how much is to be spent in Hartlepool strangely enough there is a G.E. pending some time this year, must be as our MP is in the photo. The owners of the Wesley must be rubbing their hands together, a real freeby similarly the owners of Middleton Grange Shopping Centre. I hope the way way in which the funding is spent is monitored very closely.

https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/p ... ts-4517129

Tell you what, if they said they weren’t spending the money you’d be rubbing your hands then complaining.
I wonder who you’ll be voting for…doh.

Wrong end of the stick again Snowy, you do have a bad habit of digging me up more so when you get out of bed, you become a grumpy old man, lighten up, have a coffee or tea before you hit the keyboard.

My comment relates to £60 million seems to be a load of money to spend on a couple of projects, where else are they going to spend the rest after refurbishing the shopping centre and the Wesley.

Is it a coincidence the money is coming in an election year, I would say it was otherwise why hasn’t it been allocated before, the Wesley has been in bits for years and the shopping centre has deteriorated year on year with loads of shuttered shops. There are other loads of grot spots in the town mainly abandoned nightclubs

Who will I be voting for, certainly not the party who have been in power in the last 14 years and a short term PM who wreaked havoc on peoples finances, savings, mortgages etc.

can understand anyone being wary of where free money is given to any town and wanting to know where and how its being spent. once its gone its gone and hope not a penny is spent on a single vanity project.

Grumpy old man…. if me pointing out your sustained campaigning for the Labour Party over the years defines me as grumpy well you crack on.
It’s so blatant it’s comical.
Starmer will win, if he’s there in a couple of years time’s another thing. He’s a front man and doesn’t know it.
The Tories aren’t Tories and Labour definitely isn’t Labour……..Monster Raving Looney Party is looking credible.

Spot on.

since the invention of new labour and the cameron co elision with the lib dems there has only been a few tories who are tories on the back bench and the same with labour. its so bad that if i lived in rochdale there would be three alternatives for me, abstain, vote reform or george galloway to probebly wast my vote doing it.

People actually voted for Boris, Need i say more.
Public don,t give a flying, Most of them.

If I was part of Hartlepool Town Council receiving £60 million, I would say thank you and then urge my fellow councillors to work together to make sure every penny is spent well. That's what the councillors are there for, so, just for once, leave party politics out of it.
It is generally known that there is a general election looming and some people will try to use this Forum to ram their particular preference down everyone else's throat. I think I can safely say that scenario is fairly obvious. What perhaps is not so obvious but will soon become so is that the debate, if there is one, will be civil and zero tolerance of abuse and disrespect to fellow Poolies will be practised.
I'll resurrect my old slogan.
WON'T BE CIVIL??? WON'T BE HEARD.

[quote="derwent"]If I was part of Hartlepool Town Council receiving £60 million, I would say thank you and then urge my fellow councillors to work together to make sure every penny is spent well. That's what the councillors are there for, so, just for once, leave party politics out of it.
if only that would happen it might be fine. do not know what happens in the council chamber but in others gaza seems more important than bin collections and other local issues. feel giving any councils money is like letting kids into a sweet shop and telling them to do their best. if only they could ask the residents who they represent for their views on how the money should be spent before they think up low traffic neighbourhoods and more anti car measures that seem popular in other places. must be many failing leisure places they can also keep away from where nobody is interested in using them anymore.

So the tories get the blame for interest rates and energy prices going up worldwide but when the shit hit the fan under the last labour government it was somebody else's fault!
Using the left wing train of thought, surely the tories have been the party of rock bottom mortgages for the last decade......

I am sure careful note of how this so called levelling up money is spent if or when more money becomes available. I agree Councils seem to be lacking when it comes to prioritising but Labour have said they want to give more autonomy to councils, which would only increase the problems you describe. Also it wouldn't need mystic meg to work out where most of the extra money would be wasted.

voters need to remember which party brought in the welsh and scottish parliaments sorting out their affairs. these countries would not have to suffer the likes of sturgeon or drakeford if they had not existed. giving more power to local councils along with the money are more likely to create more problems for the non woke majority than any good that will come out of it. like a lot of things it sounds better in theory than in practise. could also help the brown envelope manufacturer more than anything else. really do not trust a single one of them where at the best they say they are trying but fighting a losing battle or there is a maximum they can do after the promises they give you.

Snowy, your normally one of the first to post on the Bunker in the morning prior to you taking the dogs out, some one always gets the wrath of your anger if you disagree with their views.

Can you show a post where I ever said vote Labour, bearing in mind they can’t ne no worse than the current incumbents.

So who was responsible for the current high interest rates, Liz Truss with her horrendous budget, she wiped out peoples investments overnight. The low interest rates were wiped out overnight by Truss and there is no sign of them coming back down in the near future.
The low interest rates encouraged builders to raise new build house prices as people could afford to pay more like the Help to Buy Scheme did, now with interest rates over 4 times what they were people will struggle, wages haven’t kept pace with inflation.
Nationwide have just increased their mortgage rates again not reduced them.

It’s government money it will be thrown about like confetti like The TDC money was with millions being unaccounted for.

£59 million will be spent on revamping Church Street.

£60 million is nowt these days. Scratch the surface.

People are slowly starting to wake up to the fact ALL politicians are actors on the World stage.

Yes I do get up early, done it all my life 5am ….Hands to stations for leaving harbour, Seas duty men close up.etc.
I have a breakfast of Iron Ore and Brimstone, sacrifice a few dissenters, wait till the dogs have devoured their remains and then turn my rage on the bunker…..
Ooops, never realised there was a specified time to come on the board, oh the embarrassment.

Can I ever show a post where you said ‘vote Labour’. Oh me ribs.?
You declare anyone using media outlets that are not the BBC/ Channel 4 type as extreme right wing outlets whose politics are just to the right of Genghis khan.
Of course you never commit yourself to declaring your political allegiance because you wish to portray yourself as that good old middle of the road voter with no axe to grind giving a neutral opinion …..providing they aren’t to the right of Mary Poppins.
Seriously…..

That was under Labour with the Akers Belchers who did Stockton Street too before the Labour Party thankfully waved them bye bye as they joined Arthur Scargills obscure political party and sank without trace

Its only a promise.
If you have noticed for at least the past 5 years many things have been promised but little has actually happened.All those £25 millions which is peanuts.
These amounts are not new money its just routine capital expenditure for regions badged as something new.
Dont believe a word of it.

Time will tell.
I voted Blair in for one reason, Mandelson had his ear and was our MP. Payback time, a nice government department in Hartlepool, decent jobs….but our votes were so secure they could bank on our votes and safely ignore us.
The final straw was when the Imperial War Museum of the North was relocated to fecking Manchester and Mandy wrung his hands.
Even Darlo profited jobs wise, but MP wise they were wise and swung both ways. Whereas Hartlepool went tickle belly and rolled over every time.
If these promises aren’t kept they’ll get my wrath.
But, even Hartley got 10 games off me .

https://www.reuters.com/markets/global- ... 022-12-23/

Worldwide, not just us.


https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/mon ... rs-2901894

Seems like Nationwide are cutting their own throats. The mortgage advisor I use says rates are falling and will continue to. Best shop round eh!

The upcoming election is truly difficult.

I cannot and will not vote for Sunak. He’s a backstabbing snake.
Starmer = Blair lite. No thanks
Reform. I’m naturally inclined that way but under first past the post do they have a hope?
Liberal soddomists. No ta.
Greens. Stick it up your arse!


So I’m pretty homeless. I’ll probably vote for Reform more in desperate hope than expectation.

I’m in the same boat.

Just like when they spent loads of money pedestrianising the bottom end of Church Street - for it to be NOT pedestrianised- still find that hard to fathom- someone was clearly taking the piss whilst being handsomely paid to do a job that they didn't actually do!

As somebody posted above- 60 mil is not a lot of cash - given that Michelle Mone pocketed MORE along with many other VIP lane PPE providers, who didn't previously make PPE. or the hundreds of millions wasted on a piss poor, not fit for purpose, track and trace system.

IF the town is given that token 'Vote for Us' money (which is a drop in the ocean compared to what a lot of other places have received over the last 14 years)- surely it would be better spent upgrading the existing General Hospital and bring back A&E services to the town and surrounding areas. That would benefit more people. Every time I visit town- I always without fail pass at least one flashing blue light ambulance going in the opposite direction to the Hell Hole that is North Tees Hospital. I hate that god forsaken place and suffered a very close bereavement due to the negligence of the staff there. This took place within a month of A&E in Hartlepool being closed back in 2011.

The town deserves better and even though I've lived away a long time now- I still regard it as home - as I'm sure a lot of exiles do.

Ignore these announcements they are lies.

If only some money was thrown at a viable alternative away from the main two parties.

a third of voters don't bother voting as they see the same from Labour and Conservative.

Green, reform, Lib Dem, whatever.. Someone somewhere is missing a trick and with a bit of marketing and money, things can be different and we might finally break FPTP.

All parties have the same pot of money, they just distribute it I different ways, the average voter doesn’t actually notice a difference, they give it one hand and take away in the other.
Inflation is down to 4%, it was 10% last year, in my calculations that means costs have gone up 14% in the last 2 years ?

Ah the hospital, my battle for the past 15 years.
Why did Labour lose Hartlepool after the last Labour MP resigned in disgrace?
Because Keir Starmer overrode the local Labour Party and installed the candidate himself, that candidate being the very man who sat on the group who shut down most services at the General in the first place and had the brass neck to pop up…he was humiliated at the ballot box because Starmer …should have listened to the local Labour Party….never saw local Party members canvassing, students from outside brought in and Starmer based his campaign in Durham City….Mandy would have put him right.

there will not be much left after the diversity, inclusion and equality lot get there hands on it. there will be bound to be so the green issues they can splash the cash on leaving a few million to dig up church street again and build a statue of the illegal immegrant to replace the art deco clock at seaton bus station.

The consultants take their cut first with out a ‘brick being laid’ therefore that reduces the £60 million substantially, the work should be a quote/fixed price not an estimate, theoretically quotes are fixed prices, private contractors run rings round councils.

As we are now in recession it may mean they will cancel the £60m they knew they would never spend.

Aye, gone up in smoke, in just over 24 hours
Sure said money will be channelled into fixing potholes in Tunbridge Wells
Rich SoonOut loves redirecting money from deliberately run down areas to more affluent ones in the south east- spent a long time on changing those formula's

As all the things in the article are in exvistence, how are they not gonna happen…..by the way they’ve started excavating for the leisure centre when zI turned up this morning….how dare they.

The Leisure Centre isn’t part of the £60 million, the budget for the project has increased by £9million from £25.65m originally when the Highlight was developed in 2019/20, bringing the estimated cost to be in the region of £34.65m.
The revised funding strategy comprises a mix of additional grant from Sport England, money released following a review of the Council's Capital Programme, capital contingency funds held by the authority and borrowing.

I never said it was , do pay attention and I certainly don’t need an extended history of it either...… I’ve followed it since it started off back in the early 2,000’s. I got collared onto the committee and no I’m not a Councillor either.

Your statement gave the impression part of the £60 million was for the funding for the new Leisure Centre. The extended history is for all to see and not directed at upyou Snowy.

As i have said before the "new" leisure centre looks like a U boat pen.
No doubt built by slave labour.

It's getting tighter than my arse down here..it's not only a Northern thing,councils are strapped all over.

You do it an injustice, it looks like two shoe boxes having sex….a monstrosity.
The alleged architects gave some spiel about it recognising the site at one time being covered in pit prop wagons…..really?

No it was separate from the original.. sentence.

It’s been announced that a 7 figure sum of money that’s between 1 million to a £1 under £10 million is needed for repairs on the Shopping Centre. Is this money well spent albeit some might be for safety issues, what can anyone one do to make the Shopping Centre a retail success due to the retail parks where parking is free and there is a great variety of retail outlets, wouldn’t it be cheaper to demolish it ?
How many times has Church Street been revamped, the last one was an artists impression of turning it into a cafe culture area, yeh sitting outside whilst the wind is blowing off the north seas up Church Street, another waste of money.

town centre shopping in dying and will continue to die. councils love new bus stations and revamped railway stations but neither are any good if they are not served by any. give em a plan like church street their collective brains go out of the window if things look nice but totally unpractable. same in most towns of the country.

Yes that architect must be on some strong shit!

Derelict buildings should be be repurposed or demolished. Putting everything on life support is unsustainable.
The authorities need to stop spreading the jam so thinly and should spend it on key projects which will have a long term future and be sustainable.

Well the docks are busy….must be the Freeport.
That landfill site up near the power station is very busy new concrete roads being laid and top soil landscaping taking place, wonder why?

Did that work start after the fire?
I wonder if its connected?

The work is going ahead at a busy pace and started after the fire as I’m at North Gare every other day for the two
dogs sniffer training and only noticed it last week.
As far as I can recall the whole place was supposed to be landscaped after tipping ended but there’s been no activity there for a long time and I pass it on both sides as in Tees Rd or Brenda Rd.
Maybe the time has arrived to finish the job. Who knows?

Someone complained about the site when it first started and I must admit I have my doubts, but the excuse they gave me was that with the height of it it would block the view….I thought ….block the view of the petro chemical sites on Seal Sands