Too close to the M5? Not a problem! (Just don’t open your windows or sit in the garden perhaps? Bet the “affordables” – if they ever happen – are closest!).
Coalescence between West Dorset and East Devon continues (see Uplyme link) but, oddly, no coalescence between the Blackdown Hills and South Somerset.
Following a Freedom of Information request in November 2012 for the full minutes of various ‘relocation working parties’ on Knowle and for the full, unredacted reports from the Project Manager, Sidmouth resident Jeremy Woodward was told by EDDC officials that if he wanted these publishing, he would have to go to the Information Commissioner – which is what he duly did. And last month, they ordered EDDC to release the full reports on the plans to relocate from Knowle
See: http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/office_relocation_freedom_of_information_battle
EDDC have now appealed, and the case (number EA/2014/0072) is now before an Information Rights Tribunal – and will probably be heard in early August.
See: https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/tribunals/information-rights/current-cases/register-cases.pdf
EDDC have meanwhile submitted further documentation – and they are absolutely determined that the reports on the relocation project should not be published.
In the original ‘decision notice’ where the Information Commissioner tells EDDC to publish the reports, they make it clear that the Project Manager of the firm appointed as consultants produced documentation for EDDC as a third party – and being from an outside consultancy, Davis Langdon, they should be made available to the public. EDDC will be making the case that the Project Manager was producing material which is commercially confidential and that he worked as an ‘insider’ – so his reports should be treated in the same way at the minutes of the ‘relocation working parties’, which the Information Commissioner has said should not be published.
See: http://ico.org.uk/~/media/documents/decisionnotices/2014/fs_50498100.pdf
In the meantime, there have been new, separate Freedom of Information requests made for the full minutes of these working parties – now that EDDC, a year and a half on since the original request, have clearly made the decision to leave Knowle and relocate to Skypark.
See: http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/knowle-relocation-project-further-foi.html
With this Tribunal, together with the further delays over Rights of Way and the Village Green application at Knowle, EDDC will have their hands full as they try to prevent anything from derailing their ‘relocation project’.
Exeter Science Park is close to the Skypark development and also part of the “East Devon Growth Point” as is Skypark. Here is an article on progress of the site about progress so far and how proud they are to have recieved a £1m grant to provide “infrastructure” to the site which seems to mean that it is for faster broadband facilities.
and here is an interesting paragraph in that article:
Exeter Science Park is part of the £2 billion Exeter and East Devon Growth Point development programme, where a number of strategic projects are set to deliver over 20,000 new homes and over 25,000 jobs by 2026.
A date for your 2026 diary perhaps. And where will all the homes be by then? Will any of them have been “affordable”?
Somehow you know when something is a puff job rather than a fact and here the giveaway is that it is not boasting of tenants to come but of having received a £1 million grant.
Which begs the question: how much will a similar connection to Skypark cost – bearing in mind all the work that officers are going to do out of their offices at “touch down” places in the area because residents cannot get to Skypark with any ease (unless they live in Exeter or Cranbrook).
Is this yet another cost that residents will have to bear if no grant is forthcoming?
Demand and need are two very different things:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/21/no-housing-crisis-just-very-british-sickness
It is not often that common-sense prevails at EDDC so we should celebrate it when it does. Last week EDDC withdrew their planning application for all year round siting of beach huts on Budleigh beach. This may seem a rather parochial matter and had the cabinet listened to ward councillors and common-sense prevailed from the start, EDDC would not have suffered a series of damaging blows to its reputation for competence and there would be no story to tell. But it didn’t and there is plenty to tell.
Ever since beach huts replaced bathing machines in Budleigh they have been overwintered in storage to preserve them from the elements. Last year, however, following a cabinet decision, EDDC wrote to beach hut owners saying they could leave them in place all year round. The claim was that ten hut owners had made a request to do so but, since owners weren’t consulted (see below), many think it was just an excuse to hike up the annual rent by around 50%, netting a mere £20K.
The Town Council, aware of the winter storms that have periodically scoured the beach under the beach hut sites, opposed the idea. The really bad storms of 1950, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1982, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 2000 are well recorded in photos, videos and newspaper cuttings from the Journal and have passed into local folklore. The question of planning permission was also raised. Council members recalled that EDDC had required a fisherman to make a full planning application to replace his fishing hut but was apparently giving a free pass to bathing hut owners.
Natural England pointed out that since the site was an SSSI, EDDC could not claim permitted delegated authority to allow the change and planning permission or permissions would be needed.
For over a year EDDC allowed this “planning anomaly” to run, leases to be issued, and the beach huts to stand until six weeks ago when a planning application was submitted for all year siting for 61 EDDC and 94 privately owned huts.
EDDC commissioned a flood risk assessment from consultants which contained the following disclaimer:
“This report gives estimates of likely flood depth, but does not attempt to quantify risk from waves or storm surges. Flooding from the sea is analysed solely on modelled extreme water levels which are assumed as calm.”
However, the assessment concluded that the permanent retention of beach huts was acceptable.
WHAT NO WAVES OR STORMS ON A BEACH!!!!!
This flood risk assessment was dated January. In the first week of February the waves from a combination of spring tides, a deep depression and SSE gale force winds overturned and smashed many of the huts at the western bathing station. A small turn of the compass and the gabions underlying the eastern bathing station would have been ripped open as they last were in the storms of both 1989 and 1990.
Despite this, EDDC continued preparing the planning application which it submitted at the end of March (including specifying a maximum size of beach hut smaller than those redeployed from Exmouth a few years ago!).
The Environment Agency (EA) made its formal comment with the benefit of hindsight in May:
“It is clear that to site beach huts permanently on the beach will significantly increase the likelihood that they will be damaged in winter storms. Given that; a) sea levels are rising and are predicted to rise at an increasing rate; b) that such storms are predicted to increase both in terms of wind speed and wave height (NPPF, Table 5) we recommend that this proposal be refused on the grounds that is not safe, sustainable and puts people and property increasingly and unnecessarily at risk.”
No doubt the EA don’t want to pick up the bill for more irresponsible EDDC decisions, see the article posted here on May 23 entitled: “Environment Agency picks up the tab for EDDC blunder”.
The views of the majority of beach hut owners, especially the local ones, are summed up by the following letter of objection by Ray and Judith Franklin, published on the planning web site:
“……We were dismayed that there was no consultation whatsoever regarding this move. We now understand that a planning application is needed. Surely this will result in additional costs to the council tax payers?
The rent has increased by £242.40 per annum (excl VAT) but we have enjoyed no additional benefit. In fact, ourselves and several of our neighbours were unable to gain access to the huts due to swelling of the timbers and rusting of the locks. Some of our neighbours forced open the doors but then found they were unable to close them. We appreciate that it was a particularly wet winter but these problems would happen during any winter.
………..Speaking with other beach hut owners and renters we have found only one or two who are in support of this ill-thought out and undemocratic move.”
Could this be Ray Franklin one time deputy leader to Sarah Randall Johnson? If so, then we can all think of many more examples of ill-thought out and undemocratic decisions made by him and cabinet members against the wishes of the people of East Devon. Case of the pot and the kettle?
We will file this as an example of an omnishambles.
Well, it tells us that, on the right, there are 14,475 people in our district who preferred to vote UKIP to Tory.
It also says that there were 11,683 preferring to vote (in rough political terms) to the left of them.
That means 26,158 who don’t want to vote for the current majority party and 13,647 who do.
Rather worrying if you are a majority party member.
CON Ashley Fox
CON Julie Girling
GRN Molly Scott Cato
LAB Clare Moody
UKIP William Dartmouth
UKIP Julia Reid
2 UKIP, 2 Tory, 1 Labour, 1 Green
East Devon results:
UKIP – 14475
Tories – 13647
Green – 4975
Labour – 3623
Lib Dems – 3085
[square brackets and BOLD are our comments]
Transforming the council
Relocation is a central part of our plans to transform this Council into an organisation that meets the needs of its residents and businesses in an accessible, cost effective and joined up way [oh, no, the dreaded jargon joined up!]. So that we can keep abreast of customer demand and rising customer expectations, East Devon is working hard to transform and modernise the way staff go about their work and the ways in which customers can do business with the council. Key to these new ways of working are a number of projects which include the following:
Mobile device policy rollout – this will ensure that officers will have the right IT equipment to allow them to work from home, flexibly (between home and office) or in a mobile way. [Er, does this mean an iPad for every worker perhaps and no-one ever needing to actually work at Skypark?]
Creating a fully ICT equipped mobile workforce will help us improve efficiency and customer service.
Open for business – web channel – this project will see us totally revamp our website using the principles already established by the successful gov.uk website. As well as fresh content which is easier to find, this project will deliver 230 additional on-line services for our customers [230 more online services – can you imagine it – well, if you don’t have a computer you can’t]. We know from the feedback in from our Viewpoint Survey that 72% of our customers are satisfied with our services [anyone see the survey? It would be ripped to shreds by any professional survey organisation!] but we want to improve this figure by offering our services where and when our customers want them [er, I think you will find they want them in Sidmouth, or possibly Honiton but certainly not Skypark!].
In addition to this East Devon is currently reviewing facilities across the district to understand what existing space we can use for mobile officers to ‘touch down’ across the district so that they will not need to make unnecessary journeys back to the office [a new phrase! we are not having “hubs” any more – they are “touch downs”!]. We are also drawing up proposals to firm up what service provision will be available for customers across the district following relocation [translation: we have no idea what we are going to do].
Public and stakeholder engagement and consultation
[Isn’t this interesting: the headline shows that EDDC doesn’t consider the public to be stakeholders!]
We will be carrying out consultation with our equality partners and from a Best Value perspective to help us understand what service provision customers, key stakeholders and partners would like to see around the district following relocation. [Anyone like to try to translate what seems to be like meaningless jargon again?]
Communication
We continue to update staff on progress and following this report further staff sessions will be arranged. Additionally, we continue to communicate externally and our communications strategy is constantly under review. The stakeholder meetings, East Devon Extras and engagement with all media channels regarding office accommodation have been helpful in getting our messages out there. These will continue. [groan, groan: sounds like the staff are going to be brainwashed and the media is going to continue to be blasted with pro-move propaganda]
Agenda HERE
Extract:
Business Space Review – As part of the redevelopment of the Council’s Heathpark site, the East Devon Business Centre will be vacated. In preparation for this, Cabinet agreed in April to review.
Its approach to the provision of business space and support across the district.
Lead members for business and officers have carried out a tender exercise and interviewed four different consultancies. The chosen company, Carter Jonas, will begin their work shortly, gathering evidence over the next few months and report back their findings and recommendations by September 2014 at the latest.
From the same Council agenda of 4 June 2014:
Heathpark Supermarket Development – Feb 2014 Cabinet and Council reports agreed the selection of Terrace Hill as preferred developer for EDDC’s former SITA depot site on Honiton Heathpark and authorised officers to enter into a conditional contract with Terrace Hill.
Officers have been in further negotiation with the developer involving the Project manager and Council Legal team. Following agreement of Heads of Terms, we are now agreeing t contract terms. This will enable the developer to begin the process of preparing their planning application for a supermarket development. We anticipate that an application will be made later this calendar year.
Funny that we seem to get lots of press releases about puff jobs for the council but very little about hard facts stuff like this.
Same agenda as post below
Extract:
Rights of Way
Another approach to attempt to restrict the Council’s development plans for parts of the Knowle has been Right of Way (RoW) applications.
These applications were originally rejected by Devon County Council but on appeal against that decision the Inspector directed the County to make Orders in respect of two routes (one of which itself splits into two routes). The County made the Orders in March and the Council (and others) have lodged objections to the Order.
The Planning Inspectorate will now deal with the matter. It is anticipated that the appeals will be heard (method yet to be decided) in the Autumn. The Council may well choose to withdraw its objections, which may shorten the process slightly, but it will still be determined by the Inspectorate due to other objections (unless they too are withdrawn). It is probable that a final outcome (so either a dismissed appeal or confirmed Order) is likely to take until early winter.
As was made clear in the Feb 2014 Cabinet report there are a number of ways that objections may be mounted toward the Council’s relocation plans. Project costings have reflected the potential impact of delay and the costs that such objections may result in for the Council.
Cabinet agenda HERE
Extract from page 55:
Town and Village Green (TVG)
Using the vehicle of a TVG application, a group of objectors, under the banner of Knowle Residents Association (KRA), are attempting to inhibit EDDC’s ability to develop part of the areas of Knowle designated within the draft Local Plan for residential use.
A TVG application was made after the rejection of the Knowle outline planning application in 2013. Should the application be wholly successful it would prevent development of Knowle outside the immediate boundary of the current offices. Evidence was submitted by both parties to Devon County Council as the determining authority and EDDC has been pressing for a resolution since the autumn. A one day inquiry was held in the Council Chamber on 10 April 2014 for a barrister appointed by Devon County Council to hear legal argument.
Whilst prospective developers can accommodate a degree of risk when calculating a value to offer for a development (Judicial Review for example) a TVG is a potentially draconian restriction. The Knowle Residents’ Association original application included Knowle car parks, depot and the external space around the offices including the terrace : sites identified by EDDC for residential development in the Draft Local Plan.
The KRA has subsequently retreated from trying to designate the Knowle Depot site but continues through the remainder of its TVG application to try and prevent development of the upper carparks and immediate surrounds of the office buildings.
At the time of writing this report, we await the inspector’s report to County on his view of the TVG application. Pending clarity on the next steps we have paused the marketing exercise for Knowle and Manstone. The TVG application has added time and cost to the Council’s relocation planning.
The sheer variety and volume of writing inspired by our local area is behind the idea for a new book, Literature and Landscape in East Devon, to be published later this year.
As announced at last Friday’s hugely entertaining East Devon Writing event, original, relevant, high quality photographs are now being sought for inclusion in the book. Please see PHOTO COMPETITION on the EDA Home page, for precise information.
For a flavour of the forthcoming book, see the following list compiled by Mike Temple of Sidmouth (N.B. only some examples from the list will be included!) the-literature-of-east-devon-by-location . Another ‘taster’ is Robert Crick’s sharply humorous view on the Napoli shipwreck, Cargoes
Although not an East Devon Alliance event, many members attended Michael Temple’s fascinating evening on the literature of our district last Friday in Ottery St Mary.
Many great writers have been inspired by our area: Coleridge, Conan Doyle, Defoe, Tennyson, C Day Lewis, Wells, Raleigh and Patricia Beer. In an hour and a half of readings, we heard from all of them, and from living local authors too.
Beautifully narrated by Michael, this ninety minute feast reminded us that our part of the world – from Exmouth to Axmouth – has as distinct an identity and a place in literature as any other part of the country.
Thanks were given to all who helped, including local libraries, bookshops and newspapers. Prizes were generously funded by the Sidmouth/ Ottery Herald. The prizewinners were warmly applauded. They were Philip Smith, for Beer Beach in January: ; and budding author Libby Dean (aged 12), for A Scene from Sidmouth Folk Festival .
(Please note that contrary to an earlier report,Harry Guest did not win a prize in the writing competition – his excellent poem, the Boyhood of Raleigh,pointing to things today which would be unfamiliar to a child of that time, was published back in 1997).
Organiser Michael Temple has added: “I should like to warmly thanks all the readers and living authors who read the extracts and poems so well. (I was the link-man.)”
Page 55 of agenda for EDDC Cabinet merting of 4 June 2014:
Marketing of Knowle/Manstone
It was our aim to carry out a marketing exercise in time to report to July 2014 Cabinet and Council on developer interest. Land agents have been interviewed and, in discussion with the Relocation Executive Group, it is recommended the Council employs Savills, an experienced property agency, to manage a marketing exercise for Knowle and Manstone. The tendering exercise for the section of consultants has been completed, and marketing could commence. However, whilst all agents regard the sites as an attractive development proposition of significant value, their advice has been to hold off commencing marketing until there is clarity regarding the outstanding Town and Village Green application for parts of the Knowle.
https://susiebond.wordpress.com/
Once again local communities are left to fund their own objections to unsustainable developments passed by EDDC – as happened with the Seaton/Colyton green wedge and Feniton where local people raised funds and overturned the decisions.
Cabinet Agenda 4 June 2014
Click to access cabinet_040614__-public_version.pdf
Page 53
4.
To approve next phase of project funding.
East Devon Watch 