User:Davetaylor1980/sandbox

"Hartlepool Borough Council Exposed" is a group published on the social medial platform Facebook, predominately focused on the operations & activities of the Local Authority Hartlepool Borough Council based in Hartlepool North East of England.

The page owner, James Barker, a previous political candidate for Hartlepool who stood as an Independent in the Local Council Elections for 2018 created the group after submitting a Freedom of Information Request to the Local Authority to determine how much the Local Authority had in savings held from the Tax Payer & to stablish why the council was continually increasing Council Taxes to residents who couldn't afford to pay.

It was determined that Hartlepool Borough Council held over £52,000,000 of reserves (as of February 2018), which prompted James Barker to create the page "Hartlepool Borough Council Exposed" in order to make the public aware of what information the council was seemingly reluctant to put into the Public Domain particularly around savings which the Local Authority had accrued.

James Barkers freedom of Information Request attracted the attention of the Local Press onto which the Local Newspaper The Hartlepool Mail, ran a story, highlighting the public's anger at the amount of savings the council had accrued, particularly whilst the council was claiming Austerity measures from Westminster were harming the councils ability to operate.

The group "exposes" the Labour Majority councils activities of "wasteful spending" & councillors who have seemingly used their positions as elected members to obtain grants or other sources of funding from the Local Authority for personal projects, whilst cutting the likes of Council Tax Support to residents who are considered vulnerable.

The page currently has over 1000 likes & attracts over 1200 followers & rising every day.

Data suggests that the page continues to grow continued support with at least 60 new visitors per day to the site.

Controversy

"Hartlepool Borough Council Exposed" attracted notable controversy when it was created in February of 2018, most notably by the Hartlepool Labour Party, who considered the page to be "extremely anti labour" & littered with "fake news", (however no such fake news has ever been reported to the page administrators or to the Social Media moderators & all reports the group publishes are backed by reputable sources).

The group "Hartlepool Borough Council Exposed" also drew the attention of the National Labour Party who quickly expelled James Barker from the Labour Party when it was discovered that Mr Barker was the actual founder of the group.

It has also been alleged that "HBC Exposed" as it is known for short, was in part responsible for the Hartlepool Labour Party's action to call a "vote of no confidence" in its leader due to successful notoriety that HBC Exposed is enjoying & that the group has significantly damaged the Labour Party's chances at election in the upcoming Local Council Elections scheduled to be held in May 2019.