WORK SHY JOURNALISTS

Whilst the Shields Gazette has in the recent past produced some pretty good articles relating to South Tyneside Council and it’s elected members, recently it has been rather lax it’s critique of the goings on at the Town Hall. A good example is the recent coverage of South Tyneside Homes, an “arms length” company (or ALMO in Blair speak) set up by the Council to look after it’s housing stock. With a pathetic 1 star rating from the audit commission and the loss of a £167 million grant, the Gazette merely rehashed a Council press release that sadly failed to mention that the company had based a whole years work on acquiring this grant. If this were a government department, a public enquiry would have been demanded. As it was a local issue, it slipped through the press net, with nobody at the paper possessing an ounce of foresight to see ramifications of the failure.

Yesterdays Gazette however, had an opportunity to return to the issue but missed by a mile. A report covering the most recent East Shield’s Community Area Forum meeting highlighted how external repairs for housing stock in this area had been put on hold due to the failure to draw down the £167m grant. Instead of securing a well overdue proportion of this award, the area would only receive £277000 out of a borough wide amount of only £1.9 million, a staggering 1% of projected expenditure with the grant included. An un-named resident on the “Wedge” estate covered by the Forum outlined how their houses had been built in 1930, but had only since that date been improved with the provision of 2000 kitchen extensions; only one street had received PVC windows since the days when Ramsay MacDonald was PM!

To the Gazette’s discredit and journalistic failure, the article failed once again to ask who was responsible for the Council’s failure to obtain an award above the meagre 1 star, but what is even more galling is that Councillor Rob Dix was equally apathetic in his attitude to the Council. Despite having Graham Woodford present, a reasonably high up hombre from South Tyneside Homes, no challenge was levelled as to why the “arms length management organisation” had woefully failed to get a grade two Audit star. Equally dreadful was his failure to demand why his constituents had to wait another year for external and internal upgrades. Even that well known work shy Labour fop MacDonald would be ashamed!

Two years ago the Gazette was emerging as constant foil to the private club that is South Tyneside Council. Whilst I still value the paper as a propagator of community issues and concerns, it seems to have lost its zest to challenge the norm. Perhaps like many Labour and opposition councillor’s, it’s relationship with the ruling elite has become to cosy. If this is the case, then it is left to likes of myself and other more well-known and established South Tyneside bloggers to become the opposition to the Labour hegemony that dominates this Borough.