Councillor Ahmed Khan, the South Tyneside Independent Councillor for South Tyneside Council’s Beacon & Bents ward will be holding his next weekly advice surgery on Saturday 14th May 2011 at South Shields Central Library, Prince Georg Square. Residents who want to speak to Councillor Khan about any concerns they have can meet him at South Shields Library (in the training room) from 11am to 12noon. Anyone [...]

The South Tyneside Independent councillors from South Tyneside Council’s Westoe ward will be holding their regualr weekly advice surgery at South Shields Central Library, Prince Georg Square ((in the training room) on Saturday 14th May (11am – noon) when at least one of them will be on hand to deal with any queries or concerns residents may have.  Anyone who cannot attend [...]

Councillor Gordon Finch, the South Tyneside Independent councillor representing the Horsley Hill ward on South Tyneside Council will be holding his next advice surgery for local residents on Wednesday 11th May 2011. He will be available to meet local people from 5pm to 6pm at Sea View Primary School, Horsley Hill Community Campus and will be happy [...]

Cllr John Hodgson, the South Tyneside Independent representative for the Monkton ward on South Tyneside Council, holds frequent advice surgeries for local people where he is available to speak to local residents about any problems or concerns they may have. Surgery dates, times and venues vary but details can usually be found in the Shields Gazette and on the Council’s website. Anyone who cannot attend Councillor [...]

Councillor Geraldine White  The South Tyneside Independent representative for the Fellgate, Hedworth and Calf Close ward on South Tyneside Council, Councillor Geraldine White holds regular advice surgeries for local people where she is available to meet and discuss their concerns. Details of Councillor White’s programme of advice surgeries for the period May 2011 – April 2012 will be announced shortly but in the meantime if [...]

As a result of a number of resolutions and questions put to the Council from the Independent Alliance on how the Council meetings are conducted a commission (working party) was set up. For 15 months Cllr Khan and Cllr Jane Branley attended these meetings contributing to every one.  Recently the final report was presented to [...]

In the past 18 months Cllr Khan has received a number of complaints from residents who have bought their maisonettes from the council. The complaints concern the excessive charges residents are being forced to pay for repairs to communal areas and the ever increasing administration fee (management fee) which the council claim is necessary to [...]

Parents, staff, supporters and pupils are celebrating after their outstanding school was saved from closure by The Schools Adjudicator.   Epinay Business and Enterprise School in Jarrow was one of several Special Education Needs (SEN) schools earmarked for closure as part of South Tyneside Council’s controversial review of its SEN schools.  South Tyneside’s Labour controlled council [...]

This is the first in a series of articles about council housing in South Tyneside. These articles will provide local people with advice on council housing and to help them understand what can often be an over complicated and bureaucratic system.  In 2005 South Tyneside Council set up an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) called South [...]

The work that South Tyneside Independents campaign does includes knocking on doors throughout the borough twice a week and discussing the issues that the people of the area are concerned about and one thing that is high on the agenda where ever we go is irresponsible dog owners. People are infuriated by the piles of dog muck that festoon [...]

Ever since the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) was placed on the statute books, central government agencies such as transport, law and order, health, security and defence, have all received hundreds of thousands of enquiries for information.  Neither has local government escaped the demand for the truth; one political journalist joked that when the [...]

Recently we have been looking at the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), particularly how councils have been trying to move the issue forward and be more transparent with how it conducts its affairs.  How then, does South Tyneside Council compare to other areas when it comes to direct accountability?  At first glance, the picture looks [...]

It is obvious that the South Tyneside Independents are seen as the biggest (and only) threat to the Labour Party here in South Tyneside we are determined to explain were we came from, how we are organised exactly what we believe in. We intend to do this by publishing a series of articles on our website.   In May 2004 [...]

In the helicon days that followed the results of the May general election, many news items slipped under the media radar, condemned to irrelevance by the scenario of Clegg and his “will he or won’t he” dithering.   Once such gem was a report by Big Brother Watch cataloguing the ways in which local authorities [...]