Hartlepool Borough Council Exposed

Personal Council Tax unrecoverable debts appear to be increasing to levels where if no action is taken soon, Hartlepool will soon top the charts for personal insolvencies.

A well known Hartlepool Businessman has had yet another Business Rates debt written off to the tune of £21,000 courtesy of the council after the company went into liquidation following the companies strike off from Companies House for non compliance back in 2017 leaving his business rates debt to be picked up by the tax payer.

Further to the Hartlepool Mails publication of Hartlepool Borough Council writing off over £250,000 of business rates unrecoverable debt, HBC Exposed publishes the list of businesses that owed the council money & the total amounts owed.

HBC Bosses approach the Finance & Policy Committee to approve the allocation of £245,000 worth of repairs to the Christchurch Building in Church Street after surveyors find significant damage to the masonry potentially causing a hazard to passers by should any more of the structure begin to fall off.

In 2013, HBC pondered over an application to demolish the former King Oswy Public House which stood empty since around 2010 for the building of a retail unit, this was eventually shelved when in 2015 another housing developer proposed to build 12 semi detached houses on the former pub grounds despite public concerns over traffic levels & the effect on the local infrastructure, 2 years after that, a developer decided to build bungalows, but the work soon ground to a halt after the developers failed to sell a single dwelling & the one question HBC failed to ask the developers before granting permission to build on the now mothballed site was............ Can you actually afford to complete this project ?

Claims have been made on social media that the Independent Union coalition has moved to block three key reforms proposed by the Hartlepool Labour Party that would have opened the door to the council putting in more stringent checks against councillors involved in charitable or community organisations who apply for grant funding from the local authority.

HBC Exposed finds that Hartlepool Borough Council recruited an Interim Director of Public Health through an employment agency which in turn ended up costing the council DOUBLE in agency fees & meaning that the total amount spent on just one employee actually ended up costing the Tax Payer MORE that the basic salary of the Chief Executive.

Conservative Councillor Mike Young has narrowly avoided having his business Hartlepool Regeneration Group Ltd struck off the Companies House Register after failing to submit accounts for the companies operations for the business he set up at an address in London in 2018.
After applying to have the strike out shelved, the company was allowed to remain on the register after providing adequate reasons for the non compliance however further non compliance will likely see the business automatically stuck out & possible sanctions made against its directors.

Charities Commission responds to HBC Exposed's complaint into Healthwatch Hartlepool's persistent lateness in submitting accounts, & whilst they have now put our complaint against the charity on file, they have stated they need more people to come forward with information before they can open a full investigation.

The new chair of Cleveland fire authority has today been announced as Stockton on Tees Labour councillor Paul Kirton.
Hartlepool is to be represented by three councillors who will sit on the Cleveland Fire Authority Board panel and they are......
Councillors
... Marjorie James (socialist labour) Tim Flemming (independent union) Stephen Thomas (labour party)
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Work begins on what appears to be the closure of the Hillcarter Hotel in Church Street following the attendance of County Court Bailiffs just days before.
In 2016 its then Owner Brian Morton had almost £500,000 worth of Business Rates debts extinguished by HBC following the collapse of his substantial failed business portfolio.
How much business rates has been lost here again & could there be another £500,000 to be written off ?

One month after the Discretionary Housing Payments fiasco emerged, it has been revealed that HBC has not implemented one single recommendation the Local Government Ombudsman put to the council putting increasing pressure on the Chief Executive to stand up & show some accountability for the goofs the council has made under her leadership or leave !
https://www.change.org/p/hartlepool-borou gh-council-petitio…

HBC Exposed writes out to the Charities Commission to look into concerns as to why Healthwatch Hartlepool is persistently late in submitting accounts despite substantial tax payers money being spent on the organisation that produces what looks like a newsletter every so often & netting one or two serving councillors a little fortune every year.

HBC Exposed appeals the decision by the council not to reveal the actual costs for the removal of the Middleton Cabins from their site, the cost of the security & the Clean-Up Bill on which the council cited "commercial interests" for the refusal to hand over the information.

The impending By-Election in the Hart ward will likely be a judge of whether the public's support of the Independent Union has collapsed following their coalition with the conservatives & their open support for the Chair of Regeneration Christopher Ackers Belcher.
Labour will likely be banking on Aileen Kendon to stand once again who recently lost out to James Brewer in May 2019 by 618 votes in what many have seen was the public's protest votes against the then labour leadership.
With that leadership now gone, could the public support the Labour Candidate once again ?.......

Independent Councillor & Former Labour Party Councillor for the Hart Ward Jean Robinson has formally resigned as from Hartlepool Borough Council sparking yet another By Election in the Hart Ward. Details of this By Election will be released in due course from the council including candidates who are to stand.

Hartlepool Borough Council is coming under increasing pressure to strip Healthwatch Hartlepool of its responsibilities after the "charity" again fails to submit any accounts despite receiving around £120k per year from the Hartlepool Tax Payer, sparking concerns over financial mismanagement occurring.

Hartlepool Borough Councils financial report for 2019-20 reveals that HBC Chief Executive Gill Alexander wage now far exceeds the salary of the Prime Minister with a senior salary bill for the whole of the HBC Management structure at nearly £1.0 Million Pounds