North Allerdale Action Group

a short history

 

In January 1999 a small group of concerned citizens from a small town called Wigton (in Cumbria) gathered to discuss the closure of our local council offices and a proposed move to spread all the services into smaller units around the town. The consensus of opinion was that this was just one more nail in the town's coffin and was part of a social exclusion policy being carried out by our borough council. We already have experience of a dramatic imbalance in funding, which has never been fully explained by the relevant officers, and the group, as a whole, decided that enough was enough and we would fight the proposed changes by demonstrating and drawing some powerful support from MP's, MEP's and other 'worthies' from the area.

We also stood for the town council under the NAAG banner- non political, just an action group that wanted to better their areas prospects. It too proved to be a success as all our candidates were elected at the expense of some long-standing ex-councillors. This success encouraged councilors and local residents from the surrounding parishes to come onboard and join the group which then decided to get a formal constitution to formalise and drive forward the groups enthusiasm and wish to succeed. This constitution was developed with the help of numerous professional bodies (Voluntary Action Cumbria, Solway Rural Initiative, Carlisle Law Centre and others) and covered our aims and ambitions.

Most of the group were already aware of the 'Golden Triangle' that exists in Allerdale - an area that the majority of the group on the council live in or represent. Because of the majority they hold, they allocate most if not all regeneration money to their pet projects in these areas, to the detrement of North Allerdale. We made a point of highlighting this at mass demonstrations, newspaper articles and meetings with the surrounding affected Parish and Town councils. This proved a very successful tactic and soon we were confident that we could speak for most, but not all of the area regarding regeneration and the maintenance of existing services. Unfortunately this went down very badly with the borough council who tried to label us as an anti Allerdale group. We were perceived by them as a threat, as we were more community based than any other organisation (SRI) than they could come up with, even though at every opportune moment we stressed that we wanted to work with them (or anyone) to get funding into the area.

In order to formally present ourselves as a reputable funding group we applied to the Aspatria and District Neighbourhood forum of Cumbria County Council ( a local funding organisation ) for a 'pump priming' grant which was allowed to go forward, suggesting that our constitution was acceptable to outside bodies. The grant was approved. Once it became public knowledge that we had applied to the forum, senior Allerdale officials objected to our grant and raised doubts about the legality of how the grant was obtained. As obliged to do so, the County Council suspended the grant while it investigated the claims. After a cursory examination they agreed with Allerdale that we were a political group and as such could not be eligible for funding. This could be disastrous for all our future projects and does in fact reduce us to a talking shop (like many other Allerdale sponsored funding groups) should we not be able to fund our projects - a position that was unacceptable to us.

Even though we had a face to face meeting with Allerdale officials, where our concept and aims were explained (and we assured them that we were not political) they cynically waited until the first chance they had to shut us up and stop all criticism of themselves by implementing an unjustified claim against us to the County Council. Their sponsored regeneration group (SRI) does a magnificent job at environmental regeneration but is floundering with an economic strategy and we think they fear we will show up SRI's unsuitability to represent the grass roots requirements.

We think that this is using the power of a local council to socially exclude us from regeneration programmes. They deny us our basic human rights to form organisations and receive a fair and equitable response from our local councils. All we wan to do is generate sustainable jobs and worth in our community and it seems that all the local councils want is to stop us. This cannot be right. If all else fails, we should take this wrong to the ombudsman, or better still, the court of European Rights as we feel that any other appeals will only fall on deaf ears and would be politically influenced. Various bodies have offered to help fund a legal challenge against both County and Allerdale but our intention is to try and resolve this impasse quickly and without too much fuss and get on with what we want to do - regenerate !

This is just a short resume of what is going on in our area and already we have asked the Ombudsman to investigate other wrongs carried out by the borough council ( although again they, like all other official bodies, do not like to tread on toes and have been noncommittal ). A copy of this letter is going to our local MP, MEP, the ombudsman, Liberty and the 'Individual Rights in Europe' Law centre as well as the Registrar to the European Court of Human Rights to see if they can help us. We intend sending both Allerdale and County Council a copy of this letter also for their response.

We may be a small organisation and they might think they are omnipotent but truth and fairness will win in the end and this shabby act will be seen for what it is (Legalised censorship). They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Neither County Council nor Allerdale Council should have anything to feel pleased about as all they will succeed in doing is deny and wear down a group of motivated and enthusiastic citizens who want nothing more than to regenerate and enhance their areas, lives and standards.

This letter could appear in the press as part of our campaign to win fairness.

Yours, Dennis Graham

Town and Parish Liaison Officer for NAAG