torm over election f Tyneside chairman
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4 storm has broken out on Tyneside wing the first meeting of the local Paser Transport Authority on Monday. At the ting Ald. Andrew Cunningham, of OurCounty Council, was elected chairman of \uthority by 11 votes to six, and will have ary of £1,500 per year.
d. Cunningham, regional secretary of the iral and Municipal Workers Union, was rled to have been nominated to the PTA the Minister of Transport, who also inated Mr. George Arnold, Tyne divisional nizer of the Amalgamated Union of leering and Foundry Workers. (These inations have now been confirmed.) )eaking to CM after what was reported to noisy meeting, Cllr. Neville Trotter, chairof the Newcastle upon Tyne highways, c and transport committee, said: "The meeting of the Tyneside PTA on Monday ved that the Labour majority intended to lthless in the application of its majority." sub-committee was set up to short list icants for the vital post of director-generle said, and the Labour majority forced agh a composition of six Labour and two ;ervative members for their sub-commitilthough the Conservatives have seven of I 7 elected members of the new Authority. PTA then voted in such a way that no iber of the Newcastle council, which has members on the Authority, had any ibers on the sub-committee. "This ex:dinary start to the PTA is an ill omen for iture," said ale Trotter.
special meeting of the Newcastle City Council has been called for next Monday, when the Tory majority is expected to criticize the appointment of Mr. Andrew Cunningham as chairman and to request the Minister of Transport not to confirm this appointment, Cllr. Trotter stated: "The Newcastle members of the PTA feel that it was quite wrong for the Minister in the first place to appoint as his nominee to the Authority a member of a Labour-controlled council who already had appointed their nominee on the PTA. Mr. Cunningham is, of course, a member of the Labour Party national executive and the whole pattern of developments shows that, the Labour members are determined to run the PTA as a political body."
Ald. Cunningham was "unavailable for comment" on Tuesday, but local reports stated that he shrugged off the attack by Cllr. Trotter and the decision to ask Mr. Marsh to intervene. He is reported to have said: "I will just wait and see what happens. The Tories are behaving in an absolutely infantile manner and that's all I want to say."
It is most unfortunate that the Tyneside PTA has got off to such a bad start (writes Derek Moses). The duties of the PTAs and their executives should be removed from the political arena for the sake of all concerned. What is particularly disturbing is that the body responsible for the £3m, 350-vehicle bus fleet which will form the largest nucleus of the new transport undertaking on Tyneside will have no say whatsoever in the appointment of the director-general, the key man on the PTE.