REDCAR & Cleveland council is to splash the cash on a £150m “growth plan”.

Residents must think it rich that Labour’s spend, spend, spend announcement coincides with the delivery of inflation-busting council tax bills.

People in small east Cleveland villages, like Lingdale, Stanghow, Moorsholm, Boosbeck, Margrove Park and Charltons, feel particularly sick because, as usual, they will gain nothing from Labour’s urban-focused grand designs. There are a few crumbs for Guisborough, Loftus, Skelton and Saltburn but, when it comes to the facility-starved small settlements, its zilch.

Rural poverty and deprivation are at their most severe in isolated communities but, as usual, such places are forgotten. Four of our villages don’t even have a shop, let alone any council presence.

We’ve been starved and deprived for decades. Fair dos for the east Cleveland villages!

Cllr Steve Kay (Independent), Moorsholm