The latest outbreak of foot in mouth disease to hit the EDDC – turmoil surrounding the absence of a Local Plan and Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) – has seemingly roused from his slumbers Deputy Chief Executive Richard Cohen. In a Press Release – er, sorry,

SHMA briefing for editors and members 27 Aug final

he provides a guide to recent events that might just as well have been subtitled ‘Everything is Under Control – Honest!”.

Readers will be fascinated to learn that, while the draft Local Plan envisaged 15,000 more homes for East Devon and recent independent research estimates a figure closer to 11,358 …. this is not enough for the economic powerhouse that is East Devon. In keeping with Cllr Paul Diviani’s interview on Radio Devon the other day – a contribution composed chiefly of stumbling ineptitude, the only incontrovertible fact being that he refused twice to answer the question when the Local Plan might be ready – the implication would appear to be that EDDC is hellbent on allowing as many houses on the East Devon countryside as it can get away with. Hence the ‘Briefing for Editors’ writing evangelically about the “explosion of activity .. at the Growth Point” where “new businesses can be expected to move into sites like SkyPark and Exeter Science Park”. That’d be the same Growth Point where Sainsburys was going to build a distribution centre creating hundreds of jobs, only to pull out earlier this month, right?

Consultants should have been putting together data to enable the SHMA to have been all but finished by this stage. But doubting Thomases will be reassured by Mr Cohen’s assurance that “our consultants will now continue with the work required to fully evidence housing need into the future.” Um, “now continue”? So what have they been doing previously? Knitting? And just when will the SHMA finally see the light of day?

The document ‘Briefing for Editors’ belongs more to the days of Pravda than the Knowle. Next up, expect a statement from Mr Cohen that EDDC can look forward to record tractor production and grain harvest in 2015.