Labour Stronghold Feels the Squeeze as Reform Neighbour Cashes In

Labour Run Hartlepool Borough Council left in a quandary as to how it intends to fund its poised Council Tax freeze for locals

Labour at War With Itself as Council Tax Freeze Plans Unravel and Funding Row Explodes

17th Feb 2026

A bitter internal dispute has erupted within Hartlepool’s Labour group after the political groups much-trailed council tax freeze descended into chaos, exposing the town to the prospect of sharp financial pain in the years ahead, triggering an extraordinary public rebuke of the party’s own government.

In a remarkable development that underlines the scale of the crisis, Labour councillors have now reportedly written directly to Local Government Secretary Steve Reed accusing his department of treating the town unfairly and favouring neighbouring Reform-controlled Durham.

Labours plans for a council tax freeze in Hartlepool look to be in tatters due to a six million pound overspend in the councils childrens services

The letter, dated Friday 13 February and signed by council leader Pamela Hargreaves (The Wife of Labour MP Jonathan Brash) and her Labour colleagues, lays bare the depth of alarm inside the ruling group. It warns that the funding settlement handed down by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government leaves Hartlepool in a position that is “neither practically nor financially sustainable”.

For a Labour administration that's repeatedly sought to present itself as financially responsible, the language, according to some amounts to a public admission that its current budget strategy is on the brink & that a council tax freeze for the borough is simply non-deliverable...

Freeze Today, Pain Tomorrow

The row's said to be rooted in the political decision to pursue a council tax freeze — a move the Labour Group claims is designed to offer immediate relief to hard-pressed households in one of the most heavily taxed towns in the country.

But the reality now confronting the Civic Centre is stark. With a £6 million overspend in children’s social care and one of the weakest council tax bases in the North East, the freeze risks creating a cliff-edge in the next financial year, when the failing local council may be forced into far steeper increases or deeper service cuts.

Behind the scenes, Labour councillors are said to be becoming increasingly divided over whether the policy was ever affordable in the first place. Some within the group believe the freeze was a short-term political gesture that's now left the council structurally exposed, while others fear the electoral consequences of abandoning it.

What's no longer in doubt now however, is that the numbers simply do not add up & Labour's left having to deliver upon an expensive promise, or risk a humiliating U-Turn that would almost certainly hand Hartlepool Council to Reform UK in May a source told the Teesside & Durham Post this week.

The Durham Comparison That Lit the Fuse

Its claimed Durham Council received £3.7 Million Pounds More than Hartlepool BC did in the Governments Finance Settlement, However councillors in Hartlepool failed to realise Durham Council covers a much larger geographic area than Hartlepool

The most explosive element of the leaked letter is the direct comparison with Durham County Council.

“Durham, controlled by Reform, has received an additional £3.7 million pounds from the government, enabling it to reduce a planned Council Tax increase from 3.1 per cent to just 1.9 per cent,” the Hartlepool Labour group writes.

“Hartlepool … received no comparable support after requesting £3 million to stabilise essential services.”

While the councillors insist they “do not begrudge any council the funding it receives”, they admit they're struggling to explain to residents why a Reform-run council has been given the flexibility to ease pressure on bills while a Labour authority facing acute demand is left contemplating further rises.

“The optics and the substance both raise serious questions about fairness,” the letter states, with that passage alone representing a stunning moment in local politics: Labour councillors openly questioning the fairness of a settlement delivered by a Labour government.

Children’s Services Crisis at the Heart of the Storm

Hartlepool BC is already seeing any increase in government funding wiped out by a six million pound overspend in the childrens services dept

At the core of the financial meltdown is said to be the spiralling cost of Hartlepool Borough Council looking after everybodys children.

Hartlepool's said to have en exceptionally high number of children in care, a pressure that continues to blow apart budget forecasts and consume an ever-greater share of the council’s resources.

Councillors argue the national funding formula fails to recognise “concentrated need” in towns like Hartlepool, leaving them trapped in a cycle where deprivation drives demand but funding fails to follow. Without what they describe as “targeted or transitional support”, they warn essential services cannot be protected. However critics claim the councils need to 'Look after everybodies children' is a problem of their own making & that cuts should fall here & not on essential services.

Political Stakes for Labour in Hartlepool have Never Been Higher

Keir Starmer almost quit as leader when Hartlepool shifted to the Conservatives in 2021

The timing of the dispute could hardly be more sensitive. Hartlepool's not just another local council for Labour. It's the town that symbolised the party’s collapse in its former Red Wall heartland when it lost the 2021 by-election to Conservatives Jill Mortimer — a defeat so severe Labours leader Keir Starmer reportedly considered resigning as leader.

The letter makes clear that local councillors see the current funding row as a direct threat to the fragile recovery since then.

“We rebuilt locally after the 2021 by-election through sustained effort on the ground,” they write. “That progress is now at risk.”

With Reform finishing a strong second in the 2024 general election, the comparison with Durham — now run by that party — will only intensify the political pressure come the local elections in May 2026, where reform is expected to take a vast number of Labour council seats in Hartlepool

A Party Deeply Divided

The most telling line in the entire document is not about funding, but about unity.

“The strength of feeling within our group is considerable,” councillors admit.

In the coded language of local government, it's an acknowledgement of a group deeply at odds with itself and increasingly unable to defend its own decisions on the doorstep.

Residents are now being asked to accept that the freeze heralded as financial relief may in fact simply be storing up far greater increases in the near future just as Labour was warned numerous times when it proposed the council tax freeze last year.

The Question Labour Cannot Answer

For Hartlepool voters, the issue is becoming brutally simple:

If a Labour council can't secure what it regards as a fair deal from a Labour government, what exactly has been the benefit of a Labour Council ?

And as the financial reality tightens, the freeze that was meant to ease the burden on households risks becoming the very policy that delivers the most severe blow.