A public meeting to officially launch the West Seaton and Seaton Hole Association will take place in Seaton Town Hall on Thursday 5 March 2015 at 7 pm.
Daily Archives: 2 Mar 2015
The problem of “starter homes”
Broadband connections failing rural South West, says Somerset MP
“… Tessa Munt, Liberal Democrat MP for Wells, Somerset, said the coverage of “super-fast” connections “hardly meets the needs of rural businesses and residents”.
According to the latest data published by Ofcom, just 44% of Somerset gets the fastest hook-up. Devon is also in the slow-lane, boasting just 45% coverage. Cornwall, meanwhile, is up to 72% – principally thanks to extra EU cash.
However, London boroughs can expect 100% coverage and even Plymouth is up to 94%.
MPs on the influential Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee already fear getting the connections to 95% of the country will miss its 2017 target. Some MPs are also concerned about the dominance of telecoms giant BT, which has scooped all 44 regional contracts under the Broadband Delivery UK programme.
Campaigners have further voiced their fears over scrapping an open tender process to get broadband to the final 5% hardest-to-reach areas in Devon and Somerset.
The move will effectively hand the second phase of the roll-out in the two counties to BT under the Connecting Devon and Somerset programme.”
Still time to register to vote
Takes 5 minutes and all you need os your National Insurance number:
Is OUR MP worth £360,000 a year?
A comment on a previous post:
“Are any of our MPs worth £68k (plus all their expenses of course)??
From IPSA MP salary from April 2014 is £67,060 plus up to £36,465 in living expenses (e.g. for maintaining a second home) plus £159,950 for running their office (i.e. sometimes with salaries paid to members of their families such as husbands or wives).
If they are members or chairs of select committees they can earn a further £14,876. Or if you are a minister you can earn between £89,435 and £134,565 extra.
So that means that Hugo Swire gets a tad under £200,000 payments for himself (inc. living expenses) and a further c. £160,000 to run his MP’s office – so he costs us £360,000.
So the question I would ask is whether Hugo Swire is worth £360,000 per year?”
Are some of our MPs WORTH £67,000?
“The Lib Dems want to impose an additional 8% rate of corporation tax on UK banks, which they say will raise an extra £1bn a year towards cutting the deficit.”
No problem, the banks just put up our bank charges or interest rates on lending to cover the cost! Then it costs them nothing, their bonuses stay the same, the shareholders get their dividends, nothing changes – their increased income covers the tax, but it costs US the £1 billion in extra charges or interest.
Yes, the deficit goes down but so does our disposable income so and the banks don’t pay it off, we do as a stealth tax – real smart!
Rather than asking: can MPs manage on £67,000 should we be asking if some of them are worth that money?
Housebuilders already trashing Cameron promise of 200,000 discounted houses
Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: “The bottom “line is that you don’t solve an affordability crisis by getting rid of affordable housing. Our housing shortage has been decades in the making, and all those struggling to cope with expensive and insecure private renting are bearing the brunt.
“200,000 homes over the course of a parliament sounds good on the surface, but in reality this is giving with one hand and taking with the other. Removing the requirement on developers to build affordable housing is extremely worrying, and won’t help those currently struggling with sky high housing costs.
“Politicians of all parties need to convince voters that they can solve this crisis once and for all. More piecemeal schemes won’t do – we need a big bold plan that will fix our broken house-building market for the long term, and finally put a stable home back within reach for generation rent.”
Backbench majority councillors labelled “kicked dogs” by their former Leader!
Cardiff Council is having major problems and there have been calls for the sacking of their Leader. One councillor said.
“… in an explosive leaked email, Coun Cook told the embattled council leader the cabinet should have paid more attention to the views of its backbenchers.
The email added: “I am surprised that you seem unable to appreciate that if you kick a big dog enough times and ignore its growls of displeasure, it will eventually rip the aggressor’s throat out.
You and your Cabinet (and the Group Officers) have signally failed to heed our warnings, some of you have completely failed to understand and live up to your responsibilities and collectively the entire Cabinet as well as the Group Officers have failed to convince me that any of you have the ability to take this Group and Council forward out of the hole into which you have lead us.
“The call from beyond the Labour Group is for you to stand down, privately I support that call.”
Contrast this with Conservative East Devon District Council where their own backbenchers do as they are told by block voting with the Leader (whilst insisting they are not whipped).
Less barks from a big kicked dog, more like little squeaks from a tiny, ignored chihuahua frantically licking the Leader’s … throat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-31690755
Two tier home ownership: green for the rich and brown for the poor
Green = executive-style homes in lovely surroundings and in beautiful countryside or coastal areas – you choise – where, if you fancy a change or a trade up or downsize or you get a job elsewhere, you sell for something else of your choice
Brown = little boxes on brownfield sites, no planned infrastructure, forced to keep the “starter home for 5 years before selling, so if you get a job elsewhere or your family size increases beyond your number of (small) bedrooms, before 5 years is up, tough luck, you have to pay the 20% discount back if you need to move.
And what if your Local Plan doesn’t accommodate the “200,000 starter homes” but instead relied on affordable housing? Tough luck again, affordable housing is thrown out in this plan.
Can you work out how the “starter homes” are funded from this press release:
“The 20% discount will be paid for by waiving the fees homebuilders have to pay to local authorities under so-called Section 106 agreements, amounting to at least £45,000 per dwelling on brownfield sites.
The Conservatives say homes worth £250,000 outside London – or £450,000 in London – would be eligible for the scheme and that first-time buyers would have to repay the 20% price advantage if they sold within five years.”
Anyone else thinks there are more holes in this scheme than in a pair of fishnet tights?
Sainsbury’s negotiating on”intermodal freight” site
Oh, please, no EDDC, not another HQ location!!!
Devon and Cornwall Police Commissioner to spend half a million pounds on office relocation
The Police and Crime Commissioner, Tony Hogg, and his 23 staff are to relocate to Police HQ in Middlemoor after he said when he was appointed that it would be inappropriate to be in the same building. We pay £100,000 a year for his current offices.
“Devon and Cornwall Police has to save another £9m in the financial year 2015-16, on top of £51m in cuts made over the last four years.
In 2013, Mr Hogg was criticised for using accommodation allowances to stay at the Royal Marine Commando Training Centre in Lympstone, rather than Middlemoor.
At that point, he said: “My role is all about holding the chief constable and the police force to account on the public’s behalf, and therefore it is not appropriate for my office, or my accommodation, to be sited there.”
Is it some sort of virus? Austerity? Not in my (new) back yard!
East Devon Watch 