Inside the giant poverty multibank with Gordon Brown
Plus: Stockton Council potentially sued by Thurrock Council
Welcome to the seventh edition of The Teesside Lead.
This week started with the news from Action Foundation, a North East charity which works with refugees and vulnerable migrants (who I ran the Great North Run for earlier this year), who said nearly two-thirds of refugees and asylum seekers in the region felt personally affected by the summer’s riots.
One woman who moved to the area from Afghanistan to ensure her daughter received an education stockpiled three weeks’ worth of food and was scared to leave the house. The BBC has the story, which you can read here, or you can read the full report from Action Foundation at this link.
Meanwhile, a Middlesbrough woman arrested in the US for smuggling an insane 43kg of cocaine, worth £3.5m, is due to appear in court later today. Kim Hall’s family say she was coerced into travelling with suitcases which she thought were filled with cash. A Darlington man was sentenced to six years in prison this week at Newcastle Crown Court for importing the drug to the UK in his luggage.
Tuesday saw the opening of the Tees Valley Multibank, a charity initiative co-founded by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown with Amazon. The Multibank aims to redistribute unsold goods to families in need.
After setting up multibanks elsewhere in the UK, the fifth, run by The Junction in Middlesbrough, features the largest warehouse in the project and aims to redistribute surplus goods to 75,000 families across the Tees Valley area.
I asked the former Prime Minister if Amazon could do more to support ventures like these. Speaking exclusively to The Teesside Lead, he asked local businesses to reach out to The Junction.
“There’s lots of businesses who can do more, they’ve got surplus goods and we know the people who need them. Give them to us, and we can give them out to people.
“What’s great about what’s happening in Teesside, and particularly here in Middlesbrough, is you know you have a high level of poverty, but you are doing something about it,” he said.
“This area has always worked together for the common good, and this coalition of compassion that’s assembled here, all working together, will make a huge difference.”
Four of the five of the Tees Valley’s local authorities have made financial commitments to the Tees Valley Multibank of £25,000, although their time commitment varies. Hartlepool will review their financial support after a year, while Stockton has committed £50,000 over two years.
Darlington are the only council in the area not to provide financial support to the project.
Their leader, Stephen Harker, told The Teesside Lead it was because of budget restraints.
“For more than a decade we have not been in a position to provide strategic grants to the voluntary sector, however we are committed to addressing inequalities and support a number of local initiatives helping those most in need,” he said.
“We are currently providing extensive support to help make Tees Valley Multibank a success, including building a network that includes Darlington-based charities to reach families in need and working with our corporate partners to help unlock additional resources. We are also exploring what additional support is available to ensure the ongoing success of this fantastic initiative so that people living in Darlington can more easily access resources.”
John Boumphrey, UK Country Manager for Amazon spoke at the launch about the importance of collaboration between the private sector and the public and charity sectors.
Given the cuts to local government funding and the strain on charity funding due to the cost of living crisis, I asked him if they were doing enough.
“I think this initiative is a great example of bringing the private sector together with local authorities and the charity sector. When I reflect on the last three years when we opened our first multibank, together we’ve already helped 500,000 families,” he said.
“We’re launching Tees Valley today, we’re going to launch another one in the West Midlands as well, and then when we’ve got all our multibanks together, we can sit back and reflect and think ‘how can we have even more impact?’.”
The scale of the warehouse and the amount of goods in it was absolutely staggering, but it’s depressing to think that despite the incredible work of the volunteers at The Junction, so many others will go without that help.
It’s easy to comprehend the idea of “heating vs eating”, but it’s harder to get your head around the small things which impact your quality of life when you’re that poor. It was difficult not to feel a little emotional at the amount of cleaning products on pallets ready to go to those who need them, and to see how poverty impacts a person’s ability to live somewhere clean, or to even wear clean clothes.
Some of the stock on the warehouse floor had quotes and messages of thanks from service users on them.
Having nappies, wet wipes and toilet rolls has been a lifesaver. I’ve been struggling and they are so expensive. I can’t thank you enough.
In an area where poverty affects as many as 67% of children in some wards, The Junction’s work is crucial in providing dignity to people in hardship. However, the nagging voice at the back of my head just can’t stop asking why this is another area of life that one of the world’s largest companies has to creep into.
While the multibank will effectively deal with the effects of poverty, the root causes are left unaddressed. Around 6,000 households in the Tees Valley region are affected by the two-child benefit cap, a limit on state benefits to the first two children in any family. The Child Action Poverty Group says over a million children’s lives will be improved in the UK if it were removed.
When I asked Gordon Brown about this he mentioned the current government review, saying, “we’ve got to give the government a chance to report and do the review,” however he hinted at his feelings towards the cap, adding: “Hopefully we’ll see some changes proposed in April.”
“It was the craziest game of football I’ve ever been involved in,” said manager Stephen Jackson after Yarm & Eaglescliffe FC completed potentially the greatest comeback in sporting history on Saturday, proving once and for all why you should never leave the football until the final whistle.
Playing away at Sunderland West End, they conceded in the 81st minute to go 5-2 down. Even a draw at this point would have been miraculous.
Two minutes into stoppage time they scored what they thought was a consolation goal, only to go on and score a further three times before the final whistle to win 5-6.
“We had every emotion throughout the 97 minutes,” added Jackson. “It shows the character of the group. An amazing set of lads who I’m proud to work with!”
The result took the team to the top of Division 2 of the Northern League - the tenth tier of English football.
Teesside stories you may have missed…
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🏕️ Barriers have been installed along the South Gare road to stop campervans
🎄 A campaign has been launched to move a town’s ‘hidden’ Christmas tree
Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council have been named as defendants in potential legal action to be taken by Thurrock Council, as the Essex authority tries to claw back money from its ill-fated investments into solar farms which have seen one businessman make over £130m from the taxpayer.
According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s long-running and comprehensive reporting, which brought the scandal to light, Thurrock had invested £655m into companies linked to Liam Kavanagh in what it says is “potentially the largest fraud ever perpetrated against a UK local authority.”
His companies were given money by Thurrock Council after what it alleges were inflated valuations of solar farms he owned, made by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE).
APSE is a non-profit owned by more than 250 local authorities which advises its members on how to improve public services. It says its valuations were based on false information provided by Kavanagh.
Thurrock has chosen to threaten action against a sample of 23 councils, including Stockton, although it argues all APSE member-owners are liable to pay, should it win.
Thurrock Council is thought to have lost around £200m in its investments in Kavanagh’s companies, and declared effective bankruptcy in December 2022 after running up a deficit of £500m.
Mo Baines, APSE’s chief executive, said Thurrock was “throwing good money after bad.”
“Thurrock [is] going after a non-profit organisation and other local authorities when everyone knows local government is in dire financial straits,” she said.
“Anyone worth their salt … would read this and say, ‘hang on a minute, where is the cost-benefit analysis of pursuing these councils?’
“If that gets to the high court, god knows what the cost would be. It’s throwing good money after bad.”
A spokesperson for Stockton Council told The Teesside Lead: “We’re aware of this issue and are considering our next steps.”
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Thanks as always for reading,
Leigh