EDA’s Chairman Paul Arnott went head-to-head with EDDC Councillor Ray Bloxham – the originator of the idea to curtail public speaking (and who took 27 minutes to explain it at the meeting where it was first discussed) and, let’s just say that this was not Councillor Bloxham’s finest day … here is the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022jt50
Use the slider bar to go to the section 1:08:34 minutes from the beginning of the show.
Oh dear, Councillor Bloxham – wasn’t your finest day was it!
East Devon Watch 
You can listen again to this programme for 7 days at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022jt50. The interview with Paul Arnott and Cllr Ray Bloxham starts at c. 1hr 8min into the show.
I will try to extract the interview and get the EDA to make it available for permanent download on this site.
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Just to clarify: this is not Paul Arnott blowing his own trumpet (though he would be justified on this morning’s performance!
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Correct – I am an entirely different Paul altogether!!
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We do need to know as voters, that everything is above reproach at our council level, instead of a presumption that those councilors have the god given right in every decision they make, with a public gag placed on any three minuet speaker.
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The council meeting was interesting…
1. Tory leadership said that any large contentious application (like Seaton Tescos or Ottery Sainsbury’s) would continue to get its own planning meeting and the public would be heard.
2. Tory leadership said that the vast majority of applications only have 1 or 2 speakers anyway – average of 1.5 speakers per application.
3. Some Tory councillors, most notably Cllrs Thomas and Allen, said that speaking restrictions were undemocratic, that the cause of long meetings was councillors debating not public speaking, and that public speaking restrictions would make practically no difference to the length of DMC meetings.
Then the vast majority of Tory’s voted in favour of the public speaking restrictions, and sadly Cllr Thomas’ earlier bravery deserted him when it came to the vote and he abstained.
Although the Council voted unanimously in favour of “democracy”, it is clear that most of them think that a single vote every four years provides them with the right to vote as they think fit without having to listen to the local public – so perhaps they really don’t understand the democracy is about the debate as much as the vote.
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P.S. Having listened to the interview on the link above, I would say that the EDA were definitely miles ahead on points.
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