Contribution by:  MARKET FORCES?     (04 March 2010)    Expand/Zoom Anger at plans to rebrand Northamptonshire as 'North Londonshire' is there any truth in the renaming of Boro to MDT? Mallon Disaster Town    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7362278/Anger-at-plans-to-rebrand-Northamptonshire-as-North-Londonshire.html

Contribution by:  fakes?     (03 March 2010)    Expand/Zoom Recession? What recession? Fake shopfronts built to cover up High St stores that have been closed down    WebLink:  www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255162/Fake-shopfronts-built-improve-look-recession-hit-high-streets.html

Contribution by:  cut cut cut     (01 March 2010)    Expand/Zoom At least 25,000 council jobs in England will be under threat in the next three to five years, a BBC survey suggests.    WebLink:  news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8528836.stm

Contribution by:  Bulldozer Britain     (22 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom Elijah Debnam is a plucky 89-year-old who served in the Royal Engineers in Gibraltar, Normandy and Germany during the war. He has lived in the same house in Derker, Oldham, since 1954. He loves his house, which was built in 1937 and which holds memories of his dead wife, Alice. The house has central heating and a garden where he can sit in the sun. Elijah would like to die in it. But now it looks as if that is not to be. Elijah used to drive bulldozers when he was in the army: now the bulldozers are coming for him. His home and the terrace of five houses like it are to be knocked down, even though all of them are in perfectly good condition. He is to be removed from his neighbourhood and the network of neighbours who look after him. It is unlikely to do him any good.    WebLink:  www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7035090.ece

Contribution by:  SG     (16 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom Please usr Expand & Zoom Death Knell The death knell has been sounded There will be no more Teesside steel They say it is being mothballed Who cared for the pain they feel The furnace will just crumble Turn into a heap of dust All that will be left now Is just a great heap of rust So Ta Ta to our steel works In other words goodbye All our industry is dying It’s enough to make you cry Where are the jobs in the future What will our youngsters do No mater how many qualifications The dole queue will have to do street poet    WebLink:  SG

Contribution by:  SG     (14 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom Please use wxpand to view The Ghost Town Welcome to the ghost town Where shops are closing down The credit crunch is here Hitting the centre of our town We lost all our heavy industry Retail and Service was the plan What they did not realise The countries going down the pan They smashed down lots of houses Great areas laid to waste Forced mass evacuation Just to suit a planner’s taste They said they had a vision But they could not see too far The credit crunch has hit them As if with an iron bar With spin and magic mirrors Out comes the whitewash pot To blot out all our memories They couldn’t give a jot Street Poet    WebLink:  SG

Contribution by:  empty - houses - shops - heads     (12 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom Welcome to boarded-up Britain: One in eight shops now stand empty as recession hits high streets could it happen in Middlesbrough? oh no it couldn't oh yes it could.. Middlesbrough Council worked this magic trick in reverse order.. empty all the houses n demolish em first then empty shops will follow.............. knock it down they will go......... MBC motto a take on the Costner film.......    WebLink:  www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250214/One-shops-stand-recession-hits-Britains-high-streets.html

Contribution by:  home - castle?     (11 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom Repossession can be 'best option' says housing minister keep taking the tablets or was that claiming expenses?    WebLink:  news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8510997.stm

Contribution by:  Einstein     (10 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom What to do when there are fewer new homes being built, making future shortages.... Answer - demolish existing homes to make the shortage even worse. Way to go Einstein    WebLink:  www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2010-02-08-House-building-to-hit-lowest-levels-since-1923-as-housing-waiting-lists-hit-record-high

Contribution by:  Wondering...     (08 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom I wonder if our Mayor will do the opposite? i.e. Labour MP MP Sion Simon quitting as MP to stand for Mayor of Birmingham - which is a city region and we are not!    WebLink:  www.regen.net/bulletins/Regen-Daily-Bulletin/News/981508/Birmingham-MP-quit-seat-bid-become-first-mayor/?DCMP=EMC-Regen%20Daily%20Bulletin

Contribution by:  CABE Critical     (06 February 2010)    Expand/Zoom CABE remains ‘concerned’ about a controversial Pathfinder housing scheme in South Sefton, Liverpool, despite a series of amendments In December, the watchdog said it was disappointed with ‘the deterioration’ in the design quality of the proposals for the NewHeartlands Housing Market Renewal (HMR) Initiative in the Bedford Road and Queen’s Road area of Liverpool, following the approval of initial plans in 2006. The commission was also worried by the decision of the scheme’s developer, Keepmoat, to stop working with local practice Halsall Lloyd Partnership.    WebLink:  www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/-cabe-still-critical-of-pathfinder-scheme-despite-latest-revisions/5213863.article?referrer=RSS

Contribution by:  Noddy     (28 January 2010)    Expand/Zoom After all these years of a Labour government the gap between the rich and poor is still there, the reason is percenage rises it just keeps on increasing this is far to hard for the brains department to work out.    WebLink:

Contribution by:  Dry Rot     (18 January 2010)    Expand/Zoom MPs’ expenses: Margaret Moran faces race discrimination case from former employees Margaret Moran, who claimed £22,500 on her parliamentary expenses for dry rot treatment at a house 100 miles from her constituency, faces allegations of race discrimination by three of her former employees.    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6951244/MPs-expenses-Margaret-Moran-faces-race-discrimination-case-from-former-employees.html

Contribution by:  Bankers     (18 January 2010)    Expand/Zoom Billy Bragg in protest against bankers He might not want to change the world, in the lyrics of one of his songs, but Billy Bragg is trying to make things a little tougher for bankers.    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7012775/Billy-Bragg-in-protest-against-bankers.html

Contribution by:  daylight robbery     (13 January 2010)    Expand/Zoom Immunity for MPs who repay expenses MPs who have admitted breaking expenses rules have been offered secret Parliamentary deals to repay the money without being identified, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6975806/Immunity-for-MPs-who-repay-expenses.html

Contribution by:  Rat Catcher     (05 January 2010)    Expand/Zoom I am sick of politicians telling me how to live my life. Especially when they are so incompetent at doing their own job. We need a national cull of politicans and beaucrats. Just as you would any other pest. That would help the environment and remove the waste they generate.    WebLink:

Contribution by:  Sir Stuart Bell     (03 January 2010)    Expand/Zoom please remind all what Sir Stuart Bell stated about MP's expenses.... List of MPs ordered to pay back over-claimed expenses tops 400    WebLink:  www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240196/List-MPs-ordered-pay-claimed-expenses-tops-400.html

Contribution by:  campus lifestyle     (23 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom campus lifestyle - lifestyle you don't want! ... from a student... apologies for the spelling... Campus lifestyle will promise to be the home from home, but instead its home from hell. The staff are rude and incompatant, never keeping to aranged times, unless its the dedline for them recieving your money that is. If you ask them to fix something which is covered in the contract they promise to mend it the next day and three weeks later your still waiting. And if you want an up to date gas certificate for your property then be prepared to threten leagle action. My advice is dont have anything to do with them. Unless you're a sucker for punisment and enjoy throwing your money away with no return.    WebLink:

Contribution by:  Merry Christmas.......NOT     (20 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Poole has axed its traditional £500 Norwegian fir amid fears it would fall over in high winds. Instead, it has a 33ft cone made from Astroturf and "designed according to the principles of health and safety" – at a cost of £14,000. The benefits, according to the town centre manager Richard Randall-Jones, are that "it has no trunk so it won't blow over, no branches to break off and land on someone's head, no pine needles to poke a passer-by in the eye and no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal." However, it took vandals just a few days to strip the fake tree of its green swatches, leaving the wire mesh cone framework exposed. It has since been removed – and replaced by a real Christmas tree.    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6843014/How-health-and-safety-is-killing-Christmas.html

Contribution by:  Fraud ? it's all in the game of public office     (20 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom does this remind people about the story of the works of art that went missing from Middlesbrough Town Hall? Documents slipped out quietly to coincide with parliament's Christmas recess reveal the full extent of reported criminal activity in government departments over the last three years. Fraud last year alone totalled more than £4.2 million with cases ranging from small-scale "opportunistic" thefts of mobile phones and laptops to large-scale "procurement" frauds, of which the biggest involved £428,300, The Treasury reported.    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6844979/Taxpayer-landed-with-12m-fraud-bill.html

Contribution by:  Quangos     (20 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom who are the king and queen of local quangos? how much tax payers money have they had? what local benefits did they create? Dame Deidre Hutton, recently appointed as chairwoman of the Civil Aviation Authority with a salary reported to be around £130,000. She was previously the chairwoman of Food Standards Agency, where she earned £108,400, and deputy chairwoman of the Financial Services Authority. In all she is reported to have enjoyed a lucrative living working for 10 different quangos during a 30-year career, earning herself the nickname 'Queen of the Quangos’.    WebLink:  www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6844745/The-public-service-chief-on-5000-a-day.html

Contribution by:  merry xmas     (19 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Al Gore the spin master's xmas message does rings Bells with MBC's housing message of too many too old too few    WebLink:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmPSUMBrJoI

Contribution by:  Spread Betting     (19 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Talking about myths – what is that old chestnut that attempts to justify the demolition of our homes – The danger of ‘Housing Market Failure’ or simply put Tim White's belief that there are too many terraced houses. So presumably they must be replaced by too many new flats! Actually we have too few dwellings in the UK full stop (see link) so there is little reason to replace more (1500 homes) with less (750 flats). Then we have our Mayor’s excuse – demolish to halt decline in population. So where will we house this new population attracted to Middlesbrough to occupy less overall dwellings - Way to go Einstein!    WebLink:  news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7403896.stm

Contribution by:  Spread Betting     (19 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Think there may be parallels with the Millennium Bug - We were led to believe that the worlds computer systems would come to a grinding halt on the stroke of midnight on 31st December 1999. What happened? Loads of money was spent to avoid the prophesized catastrophe, but in truth most of the money was probably spent on upgrading outdated software – ridding all the bugs of the old systems. In other words (hoax or not) money was channeled towards software development and pretty soon every manager seeking to acquire a budget was on to the big excuse of the day. What do we have now – an emerging Green Industry needing another Catastrophe theory in order to ensure money and spending is channeled their way. Kind of like the defense corporations needing a war to stimulate output. And the Oil Corporations needing to place to conduct a war that was in the Middle East. But hey hoax or not I would still rather money was channeled to new green industry in preference to the war machine or Chenney’s Oil buddies. You see if it was not one thing then it would be another - that is just our nature! I’d rather get behind the green channel as I’ve nothing to declare... war or bug.    WebLink:

Contribution by:  Vera Baird MP     (18 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom oh Vera what a mess - you appear to act just like the invisible MP Stuart Bell - do as I say not as I do - Solicitor-General Vera Baird embroiled in row after 'failing to pick up her dog's mess at railway station'    WebLink:  www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236839/Solicitor-General-Vera-Baird-embroiled-row-failing-pick-dogs-mess-railway-station.html

Contribution by:  Please Help - give give give     (18 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Instructions for eco warriors = There's Big Bucks to be made promoting the hoax. Take a look at this clipping from a "green" directory site: Great News!! We now have a 34 ACRE NURSERY SITE underway with at Longridge Wood and solar heated greenhouse for tree seedling production. This will enable us to grow out millions of seedlings for transplanting to deforested areas across Middlesbrough. If you would like to DIRECTLY OFFSET YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT there is a PAYPAL DONATION button at the bottom of this posing ANY AMOUNT will help further the CO2 Reduction project!! Thanks!! Instructions from MBC how to reduce your carbon footprint = Donate your home to us on the cheap We will demolish 1500 and rebuild up too 750 enabling you to rent off half your new home for value added income Posters Note: We have an even better offer: For every 10 ££’s you send us, we will hold our breath for one full minute before exhaling the CO2 into the atmosphere. This "carbon offset" will make you feel good about driving your 4 x 4 to the next Global Warming demonstration. ###################!!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~ = ice sheet melt --- please donate    WebLink:

Contribution by:  hoax or not?     (18 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom UK Parliament appears to believe the Al Gore film may well be political posturing read the link    WebLink:  scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

Contribution by:  good question     (18 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom spread betting your post sounds reasonable are there any figures available as to the number of people in Middlesbrough waiting for housing?    WebLink:

Contribution by:  Spread Betting     (18 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Hoax or not – Are we not wasteful in our consumption of nature’s bounty? Whether the planet warming is down to man or not, what’s wrong with being less wasteful... Being more considerate in our use of resources... for example renovating existing terraces rather than just demolishing them only to consume more building materials.    WebLink:

Contribution by:  Climategate     (18 December 2009)    Expand/Zoom Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax? read on at the link about the climategate scandal    WebLink:  www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html