Could local authorities, such as EDDC, be inspired by what’s happening in Plymouth? See http://carbonvisuals.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f82d84d0259421d9d576de417&id=d97d6c0aca&e=a4b189be18
Monthly Archives: November 2014
Areas without a landscape designation can escape development on landscape grounds
Interesting ruling in a planning case in Crewkerne just announced which could have implications for sites in East Devon. South Somerset (as one might expect) did not have a local plan or a 5 year land supply. The council dragged its heels about a decision so the planning application went straight to a Planning Inspector for decision. Had the council pulled its fingers out, one of the objections to the site would have been the impact on the landscape character and accessibility of the site. The planning application was for a site that had been considered for inclusion in the (draft) local plan but which had been rejected.
The site does not have a specific landscape designation but the Inspector states:
“The appeal site and the surrounding countryside have no established landscape designation. Nevertheless, that does not mean that the area is not a valued landscape which the Framework advocates should be protected and enhanced. It is a highly attractive undulating landscape in which the relatively small fields, said by the Council to be pre-17th century ancient enclosures, are largely defined by well established hedgerows a and intermittent mature trees. The site acts as an intimate scale buffer between the town’s built edge and the larger agricultural rolling fields of the surrounding landscape. The area has intrinsic character and beauty, which the Framework, in one of its core planning principles, advocates should be recognised. … there are some parts of the appeal site which have more moderate landscape sensitivity. …
…In conclusion, I am not persuaded by the appellant’s contention that the design of the proposed residential scheme fully respects the form, character and setting of the locality. The development would have a significant and adverse impact on the character and quality of the local landscape particularly when viewed from nearby publicly accessible vantage points, …
The Inspector goes on to say that lack of suitable public transport to the site is an issue and that he finds the associated travel plan weak. He also mentions that the developer says that the Local Plan underestimates how many new houses will be needed. However, the Inspector is not persuaded by this argument as the developer cannot say exactly how many houses ARE needed. He is also similarly not persuaded by the developers when they cite their “experience” and “opinion”.
He goes on to say:
“Boosting significantly the supply of housing will inevitably require housing to be built on some greenfield sites which will result in changes to local environments. Nevertheless, the substantial and specific harm to the natural environment that would arise from this development, and the shortcomings of the location in terms of its accessibility and sustainability would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the a acknowledged benefits of the proposal. Therefore, I conclude that the appeal must fail.
The full decision notice is here
Horses for courses?
News reaches us that a flurry of bets on Independent Councillor Claire Wright to win the East Devon seat at the next general election has led not only to a cut in odds but also the imposition of a maximum sum that can be put on for her to win.
What do the bookies know that we don’t?
The missing 6,000 plus voters: where does the buck stop? Does it stop at all? Is there even a buck?
When an East Devon constituent asked the Electoral Commission what steps our Electoral Return Officer (CEO Mark Williams) had taken to keep the Electoral Roll up to date, they replied:
In 2011 the ERO reported in his self-assessment return that although he considered he was ‘meeting’/’performing ‘above’ standard 3, he also stated that he was unable to carry out a full personal canvass of non-responders. As a result we decided to amend the assessment for East Devon to ‘not meeting the performance standard’. We do not believe that either personal canvassing or telephone canvassing took place for the 2011 canvass.
The data return submitted at the end of the 2012 canvass again revealed that no house to house enquiries were conducted. We do not believe that telephone canvassing took place in 2012.
In 2013 telephone canvassing was utilised as part of the canvass, but no personal visits to non-responding properties took place, despite an indication from the ERO prior to the canvass that this was planned.
Source: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/electoral_registration_is_teleph
So, for the years 2011 and 2012, no canvassing was done at all and in 2013 telephone canvassing WAS done, but not house-to-house canvassing.
Source: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/elvectoral_registration_is_teleph
According to this website:
Click to access Part-C-Annual-canvass-final-August-2009.pdf
“1.6 If the Electoral Registration Officer fails to take steps where necessary, they will be in breach of their official duty, which on summary conviction can result in a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”
[currently the level 5 fine is £5,000]
and according to this website:
Click to access Analysis-of-electoral-registration-data-for-Great-Britain-2013.pdf
“EROs will also continue to have a duty under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 to take all steps that are necessary – including making house-to-house enquiries – for the purposes of maintaining the register.”
[Note the word “including”]
Also, according to this website:
Click to access DIRECTION-UNDER-THE-REPRESENTATION-OF-THE-PEOPLE-ACT-1983.pdf
(1) 20Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (registration officers have :
a duty to take necessary steps) is amended as follows.
Voter Registration
(2) Before paragraph (a) in subsection (2), there is inserted:
(a) taking active steps to increase the number of people on the electoral register that belong to a specified group;
(b) leading or arranging for one voter engagement session per academic year at each school or further education college within his area of responsibility.
We presume that all schools and further education colleges in East Devon have had their voter engagement visits each year …..
But are there any statutory bodies in our county tasked to examine if there is a possible offence under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act.
According to the Electoral Commission, no police force has ever prosecuted when it is believed that a Section 9A crime has been committed.
Where is the buck and where, if anywhere, does it stop? Indeed, is anyone even looking for it and would they recognise it if they saw it?
They do things SO differently in Dorset!
“John Locke, senior crown prosecutor for the CPS Wessex complex casework unit, said: “I have authorised Dorset Police to institute proceedings against Mr Spencer Flower for three offences under sections 31 and 34 of the Localism Act 2011, which imposes a duty on members of a local authority to disclose certain pecuniary interests on taking office and to refrain from participating in council business which will affect these interests unless dispensation is given.
“I carefully reviewed all the evidence provided to me by Dorset Police and was satisfied that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that it is in the public interest to prosecute Mr Flower for these three offences.
“Proceedings are now ongoing and the defendant has the right to a fair trial. It is very important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
Mr Flower was elected leader of the county council in May 2013 after being leader of East Dorset District Council for five years.
Analyst says British supermarkets will need to close 20% of their shops to remain in profit
“Britain’s biggest supermarket groups must close one in five shops in order to turn around their performance, analysts at Goldman Sachs have warned.
In a damning report on the grocery industry, the Goldman analysts said closing stores is the “only viable solution” if the major food retailers are to grow profits again. The comments came after Waitrose boss Mark Price told The Telegraph that the “Big Four” supermarkets could be forced to start closing shops as the industry faces its biggest transformation since the 1950s.
Shares in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, the listed supermarket groups, have already fallen by 50pc over the last year as their sales have slumped. However, the Goldman analysts, led by Rob Joyce, warned: “We believe the major decisions that will shape the future of the UK grocery market are yet to be taken.”
Latest news on Office Relocation, and Land Supply, this Thursday afternoon (20th Nov) at Knowle.
Budleigh Salterton: Timeo Danaos et donna ferentes
Timeo Danaos et donna ferentes – “Beware Greeks bearing gifts”
Odysseus had the idea of a Trojan Horse. When the massive wooden statue was left at the gates of Troy, the Trojans thought the Greeks had left it as a parting gift because they had given up and sailed home. The Trojans welcomed the gift, not knowing that the belly of the horse was filled with armed soldiers who would soon destroy their city.
Think of this when reading this article whilst similarly bearing in mind that it is election year:
http://www.devon24.co.uk/news/free_car_park_wins_stay_of_execution_1_3850160
Unitary authorities will come, Lord Heseltine tells CPRE Devon
EDA now regularly attends the excellent meetings organised by the Devon branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.This of course gives us the opportunity to see East Devon issues in the context of the whole county, and beyond.
The guest speaker at last Friday’s CPRE Devon meeting was Lord Michael Heseltine, who made it very clear that whatever national or local government decides, the people will say, “They don’t listen to us”! As a Cabinet Minister, he had, naturally, ploughed carefully through thousands of representations from objectors to controversial schemes!!
His legacy as a former Environment Minister has of course changed the landscape. Amongst other things, he introduced Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs); established English Heritage; and did much work on urban-fringe renewal (especially around Liverpool).
When questioned on broader political issues, he told last Friday’s audience that he is convinced that leaving the European Union would slow the British economy. And although his own report on reforming local government had not been immediately adopted, he is sure that unitary authorities will come.
We’ll see what happens in Devon, before very long…..
Footnote: Some very useful maps are on http://cpredevon.org.uk/
West Country parks under threat from developers
“Shoeboxes”
from an EDA member:
Sunday Times Homes supplement, article p.4
...”The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has been campaigning to introduce minimum space standards for new-build homes; and, last week, it convinced the government to take action. Property developers will now be required to stop constructing shoeboxes. Despite this, the UK has the smallest new-build houses in the whole of western Europe. The latest Riba research has revealed, for example, that Yorkshire – a county with one of the lowest population densities in England – has been building the smallest new-builds in the country.”
I wonder whether they have visited Cranbrook? If the shoeboxes are to be bigger in future, perhaps the current residents will kick themselves and wish they had waited for a larger “footprint”.
Hugo needed yet again to sort out Sidmouth’s drains!
Forget Ottery, Hugo – Sidmouth (and Woodbury) need you back to sort out their drains!
Here is where he promised to sort the sewers out:
http://www.hugoswire.org.uk/news/towns-arteries-clogged-fat
and indeed the clogged fat was said to have been cleared in July:
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/news/sidmouth_s_sewers_cleared_of_fatbergs_1_3698046.
Back to the drawing board on water drains and a need to put on the high-vis jacket again, Hugo, with or without the shovel and with or without the clogged arteries!
Just a thought, but it might be Victorian drains trying to cope where massive development and more houses hasn’t led to massive upgrading of infrastructure.
“The arrogant and philistine are ruining our countryside”
The missing 6,000 voters: and the award for best lame excuse goes to – Mark Williams!
… The committee was concerned that Mr Williams and Mr Finan were among 22 nationwide that had not included door-to-door canvassing in the process of encouraging more people to register on their district’s electoral roll.
The concern was reflected in the report which stated that an Electoral Enforcement Officer repeatedly failing to comply with their statutory obligations in a way that has an adverse effect on the quality of voter registration, should be subject to enforcement action. …
Note that remarks about having done telephone canvassing in interim years has disappeared , replaced with the words “other sources of data matching” (the Electoral Commission says that no telephone canvassing OR house to house canvassing was done in some years) and Mr Willliams is the only electoral officer in the country soecifically singled out in the Parliamentary Committee interim report for not answering Freedom of Information requests.
The way Mr Williams talks about the problems of canvassing in a rural community makes you wonder just how those EROs in places like Cumbria or Cornwall seem to manage the job, where he cannot. What are they doing right that he is doing so wrong? And how come he doesn’t have the same problem (or the same methods) in rural South Somerset where he does the same job?
Housing minister says councils can forget local plans
Extracted from ‘InsideHousing.co.uk”
14 November 2014 | By Martin Hilditch
Change of approach from government takes pressure off councils to comply with national planning framework.
The housing minister is happy to allow councils to ignore the government’s requirement for them to adopt local plans setting out how they will meet housing need.
Brandon Lewis told Inside Housing there would be no problem if councils made a conscious decision to rely instead on provisions in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
Inside Housing research revealed in October that fewer than one in five have adopted local plans.
Councils have a statutory duty to produce a local plan that complies with the planning framework. But if they do not have a local plan in place the NPPF states there will instead be a default ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ for house builders that submit plans to build new homes.
‘Somewhere could conceivably decide that they don’t want a local plan and they will rely on the NPPF,’ Mr Lewis stated. While this would not be ‘necessarily ideal’ there would be ‘no role for the government’ if such a decision was taken, he added.
The news could prove significant because 40% of councils don’t currently have a local plan in place, despite the NPPF’s requirement for them to do so – and fewer than one in five have a local plan that fully complies with the NPPF (because many were adopted before the NPPF came into force). Planning experts warned this could mean a ‘free-for-all’ for developers.
Elizabeth Boyd, associate director with planning consultancy Tetlow King, said Mr Lewis’ comments suggested a change of emphasis from the government.
She said some councils might ‘initially think “brilliant, we don’t need to go through all the pressure and resource implications of doing a local plan, particularly where it is politically sensitive”’.‘That [would] then mean it is a free for all for developers really,’ she added. ‘What’s being suggested is great for developers.’
Mike Kiely, chair of the Planning Officers’ Society board and head of planning and building control at Croydon Council, said that there are a number of councils that ‘haven’t got a plan in place and there is no obvious prospect that they are going to any time soon’. Sometimes this is because of resource problems in smaller councils and on other occasions because of political issues, he suggested.
However, he warned that Mr Lewis’ relaxed approach to the production of local plans could stymie the development of new housing in rural areas because of updated guidance published by the government in October. This stated green belt boundaries can only be altered in exceptional circumstances – and that meeting established housing need may not count as exceptional.
‘The minister should read his own guidance,’ Mr Kiely stated. ‘The position isn’t quite as the housing minister thinks. As a nation we are growing. And if we want to house our population that [recent] guidance is monumentally unhelpful.’
The news came in the week that a planning inspector suggested that the level of housing proposed in Cheshire East Council’s local plan strategy ‘seems inadequate’ and said there seemed to be ‘insufficient justification’ for plans to establish a new green belt in the south of the district.
COMMENTS (7):
Parliamentary Select Committee on Voter Engagement: EDDC cited for refusing to respond to Freedom of Information Requests
The Select Committee inquiry into Voter Engagement has produced an INTERIM report which can be found here:
Being interim is unusual, and they are seeking consultation comments on their conclusions and recommendations.
Paragraph 115 comments explicitly on East Devon’s refusal to answer FoI requests.
“The Committee notes that despite evidence from the Electoral Commission that they would advise EROs to respond to FOI requests as though they were subject to the Act, East Devon District Council has been refusing to respond to requests for information under the FOI Act from members of the public in respect of electoral registration activity.”
One of the recommendations is that EROs / ROs are brought under the FoI umbrella so that is required by law not just advisory.
Councillor slams CEO Mark Williams over “outing” of witness in police inquiry
More on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC)……
A heated clash took place at last night’s OSC meeting, between Independent Councillor Roger Giles and the Chief Executive, over the content of Mr Williams’ letter to councillors on 12 November, 2014.
Cllr Giles took advantage of the presence of Chief Superintendent Keith Perkin to as what view the officer would take of someone divulging the name of a person interviewed by the police in connection with a criminal inquiry. “A dim one”, was the reply.
Cllr Giles then asked “What view would you take of the Chief Executive of EDDC yesterday issuing a message in which he named a person interviewed by the police, that person being an East Devon District Councillor”.
Cue applause from the public seats and tut-tutting from some Tory members.
Commissioner Hogg intervened: “You can’t put the police in this position!”, and Chair Tim Wood hurried on to the next question.
Later, after the Police & Crime Commissioner(PCC) and his colleagues had left, Mr Williams called on Cllr Giles to apologise to the PCC for asking an embarrassing question.
Cllr Giles retorted angrily to the CEO that he had never known such inappropriate behaviour from a Chief Executive.
While no Conservative councillors expressed any concern over the revelation, Independent Susie Bond commented that such “outing” of witnesses in police inquiries could well discourage “whistle-blowers” from coming forward in the future with information of possible interest to the police.
Repercussions of the Brown affair at last night’s Council meeting
There were several…
For starters….
Devon and Cornwall Police & Crime Commissioner(PCC),Tony Hogg, spent nearly an hour and a half addressing last night’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee(OSC). He answered a barrage of councillors’ pre-submitted questions, some directly or indirectly linked to the police investigation into an influential EDDC ex-councillor. (The case was closed on 12/11/14, the day before yesterday ).
For example (N.B. Below is a summary only.Recording of the meeting, available on EDDC website soon):
1.Q. Is a PCC informed of progress of ongoing police investigations?
Ans. Only ones that promote a risk to the public or to the reputation of the police/ only high-profile ones
2. Q. Are there safeguards to monitor police relations with partner organisations?
Ans. “I have every confidence” that D&C police are impartial. A joint Audit Committee keeps checks, and a complaints process and appeal system exists.
3. Q. Is declaring membership of the Freemasons a requirement for all staff?
Ans. Membership of this large, charitable organisation “has no bearing on police membership”. No obligation to declare, as it is not a prohibited organisation.
4. Q. As Transparency International warns that bribery in local government, and electoral corruption, are both increasing, what measures should be taken?
Ans. a) Electoral corruption..follow Electoral Commission guidance. b) Bribery…local governments have their own defence against fraud.
5. Q. Why had the Graham Brown Investigation been so lengthy?
Ans. (from the PCC’s colleague, Chief Superintendent Keith Perkin) There were delays in the initial part of the investigation, which “didn’t start for a number of months”. That was regretted, he said. The case was “a complex one” , with “in excess of 40 individuals” being seen. It was “undertaken by specialist investigators”, who had not found enough to reach “the threshold of evidence” for criminal charges to be made.
Three supplementary questions were asked. Two were from Cllr Claire Wright (Independent), who picked up Mr Williams’ phrase (in his e-mail to councillors, 12.11.2014), that the Brown investigation “hasn’t identified (anything) worth pursuing”. She asked if there would be a report and recommendations from the police to EDDC, and whether that would be made public. “I’ll get back to you.”, Chief Superintendent Perkin replied. He gave the same reply to her second question about whether or not Devon and Cornwall are satisfied that they have interviewed everyone.
Cllr Ben Ingham (Independent) was concerned that the initial delay had contributed to the findings, and had perhaps influenced the outcome of the inquiry. The Chief Inspector assured him that “No evidence was lost as a result of the initial delay”.
Much more to come on last night’s OSC…
“I have to warn councillors, an election is coming”, O&S Committee told
….So said Councillor Halse, referring to his opposition to the Knowle relocation project, at tonight’s stormy Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting. He argued that the economic climate had changed so radically since the Council office move had first been mooted, that relocation no longer made sense. He told the assembled councillors, “We need to make a modern decision” not to have a white elephant in some outpost of the District.
More revealing quotes from the meeting to come later……
BBC Spotlight features ex-councillor Brown news
The second lead story on the 10pm news yesterday can be viewed at this link, from 02:20-02:47 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04nv3kh/spotlight-12112014
East Devon Watch 