Councillor Ahmed Khan, the Independent Councillor from South Tyneside Council’s Beacon & Bents ward will be holding his next surgery for local people this Saturday (31st July). Local residents who want to speak to Councillor Khan about any concerns they have can meet him at South Shields Town Hall (use the Beach Road entrance) from 11am to 12noon. [...]

The Independent councillors from South Tyneside Council’s Westoe ward will be holding their next surgery for local people on Saturday 31st July when at least one of the Westoe councillors, Jane Branley or Allen Branley will be on hand to speak to local residents about any problems or concerns they have. If you would like to speak with your councillors [...]

Councillor Gordon Finch, the Independent councillor representing the Horsley Hill ward on South Tyneside Council will be holding his next advice surgery for local residents on Wednesday 28th July. 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 to [...]

Councillor John Hodgson, the Independent councillor representing the Monkton ward on South Tyneside Council, will be holding a surgery for local people on Wednesday 28th July. He will be available to speak to local residents about any problems or concerns they may have at the Community House on Lukes Lane Estate from 6pm to 7pm. Anyone [...]

The General Election resulted in a hung Parliament with no party winning enough seats to form a majority government. However, what the people of Britain did decide is that they have had enough of Labour and wanted change. Britain now has a coalition government made up of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and it [...]

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 [...]

Thursday’s meeting of the Council to set the budget for the coming year saw the Independent Alliance present an amendment to the budget which would have meant no increase in the Council Tax for this year. The reduction in costs that it proposed centred around such things as reducing the cost of consultants, removing special responsibility [...]

At yesterday’s annual meeting of the Full Council, Cllr Tom Piggott (Labour) was appointed the Mayor of South Tyneside for the coming year. The Mayoress will be Tom’s wife Alma. The meeting also appointed Cllr Jim Sewell (Labour) as the deputy Mayor. Whilst the Independent Alliance would like to congratulate Cllrs Piggott and Sewell we [...]

Stephen Hepburn, the Labour MP for Jarrow will not be supporting David Miliband for the Labour leadership. Mr Hepburn, the former deputy leader of South Tyneside Council believesthat the best man to lead the Labour party is Ed Balls despite the fact that front runner David Miliband’s South Shields constituency borders his own Jarrow constituency. Locally it is common [...]

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 [...]

An independent commission, set up to shape the future of car parking in South Tyneside appears to have largely ignored the views of the vast majority of people in the Borough particularly in relation to residents parking permits. The commission’s report will be presented to the council’s decision making cabinet (made up solely of Labour councillor’s) on Wednesday 17th [...]

It seems that the Independent Alliance are not the only ones that believe the increased General Election turnout played a pivotal role in the council election results! Maggie Sullivan, Head of the Independent Group at the Local Government Association (LGA) sent the following e-mail on behalf of Councillor Keith Ross OBE, leader of the Independent Group. The LGA has four political groups; Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat [...]

Shortly after the Westoe ward by-election the Shields Gazette reported on a postcard which was allegedly distributed in the Westoe ward during the by-election campaign.  The Labour Party have now repeated the allegations in a newsletter and stated that the Police were investigating its distribution. Let’s consider the allegations in a bit more depth.  The [...]

On 4th November 2009 Cllr Ahmed Khan, deputy leader of the Independent Alliance, was cleared by a District Judge of assault. The trial scheduled for two days ended in just three hours. The entire case was based on video evidence. A distinguished judge took one look at the clip which the prosecution centred their entire case on [...]