Until the last election educational funding per pupil in Torbay was £1,350 per pupil whereas in other parts of the country it was up to £5,000 per pupil.
Now, 2 months after the election, and Torbay now being politically fully blue in control terms rather than blue and yellow, the government has announced that it will inject a further £1.5 million into Torbay schools.
It is a terrible thing when education is politicised.
Given all the hoo-ha a couple of years ago when errant Councillor Graham Brown was forced into resigning as an EDDC Tory Councillor due to his extensive personal local development interests:
the government put out the following press release:
Response to a report in ‘The Telegraph’ that councillors are offering themselves for hire to property developers.
placeholder
Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said:
“This government has increased accountability and transparency over councillors’ interests, to accompany greater power and freedoms for local councils.
“Councils should adopt a Code of Conduct that reflects the Nolan principles on conduct in public life, with councillors declaring any private interest that relate to their public duties, and councillors must take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.
“In addition, it is now a criminal offence to fail to declare or register disclosable pecuniary interests – which includes any employment or trade carried out for profit or gain. The register of councillors’ interests must be published online by the council.
“Councillors should act in an open and transparent way, to avoid conflicts of interest on issues such as planning applications or benefiting financially from the issuing of council contracts.”
Given this advice, how do our new councillors with extensive property development interests plan to deal with the fact that two of them are on the Development Management Committee and one of them is the Chairman of the Asset Management Forum?
Councillors Colin Brown and Paul Carter are both on the Development Management Committee.
Councillor Brown’s Register of Interests is here:
Click to access roi-colin-brown.pdf
and includes local property development interests (as well as owning a hotel that is currently used as a polling station for local and national elections):
and Councillor Carter’s Register of Interests (recently updated) is here:
Click to access roi-paul-carter.pdf
and includes local property development interests:
In addition, Councillor Carter has submitted land that he owns for inclusion in the EDDC Local Plan.
Councillor Pook may be a more complex case. In HIS Register of Interests (also recently updated) he lists his local property development interests but also adds in Section 4:
“Litehomes purchase of land from and development house for EDDC (May 2015)” (sic)
Click to access roi-geoff-pook.pdf
What on earth does this mean? Perhaps he could enlighten us about Litehomes.
Additionally, he neglects to inform us that, as Chairman of the Asset Management Forum, he leases a site for beach hut in Beer from East Devon District Council and is currently heading meetings about EDDC giving notice to all lease holders so that huts can be auctioned off to the highest bidder – something being handled by … the Asset Management Forum.
In this case, he has sought to say that Beer, where he leases his hut, should be a “special case” because:
“I have suggested that the history of beach hut ownership and use in Beer is perhaps different from other towns and villages in East Devon – families have traditionally had tea on the beach in Beer and this is part of the historic character of the village”.
http://www.beerparishcouncil.org.uk/news.php?id=4604
As EVERYONE who leases a beach hut anywhere in East Devon also by default has “tea on the beach” we are not entirely convinced by this argument for making Beer a special case!
It should also be noted that on 11th May 2015, 4 days after the latest local election, Councillor Pook left the Independent Group. On 15th May he was identified as a cabinet member. At the beginning of June it was rumoured that he may have indicated that he might not continue as an “Independent” councillor for much longer.
Some Beer voters might feel a little miffed if that transpires.
Following on from the post where Devon County Council foresees a town “as big as Barnstaple” at Cranbrook. we have received the following comment which is upscaled to a post here:
Here are some historical EDDC statements about the size of Cranbrook:
Cabinet 2 May 2012 – “The Local Plan anticipates the completion of 6,000 homes at Cranbrook in the period to 2026 representing a likely population in excess of 13,000 people.”
Cabinet 3 April 2013 – “More broadly this pace of delivery is fundamental to supporting the achievement of the Local Plan, with circa. 60% of the remaining strategic housing requirement due to be accommodated at Cranbrook with expansion up to circa 6,500 homes over the plan period.”
Cabinet 4 Sept 2013 – “It is anticipated that by 2026, 6,000 new homes and associated town centre and other facilities will have been built. Assuming an occupancy rate of 2.2 persons per dwelling this is likely to mean that Cranbrook’s population will reach approximately 13,000 people – similar to Honiton by 2026. These 6,000 new homes are anticipated to come forward as a consequence of the following: Outline planning application 03/P1900 granted in October 2010 for the first 2,900; A Full Planning application for 600 homes (submitted on 2 August 2013) and (at the time of writing, being checked for validation) the ‘East and West Expansion Areas’ – allocated for approximately 2,500 homes in the emerging Submission East Devon Local Plan 2006-2026.”
Cabinet 4 June 2014 – “The vision for Cranbrook clearly anticipates that it will be much more than a housing estate with it being seen instead as a “new East Devon ‘market town’” with a “fully functional town centre” that is “ideally placed to perform a role in serving tourism in East Devon”.”
Cabinet 5 Nov 2014 – “The new Local Plan identifies both east and west expansion areas for Cranbrook to bring the overall level of development to about 6,000 houses. The new local plan does also show an indicative location for about 1500 houses to the south of the old A30 Honiton Road after 2016. New Community Partners (NCP) have advised that they will be submitting an outline planning application for the east, west and southern expansion of Cranbrook comprising possibly 4,000 houses before the end of 2014. The NCP held a “Cranbrook to 2031’ public exhibition on 15 and 16 October and before the end of this calendar year we expect to receive an application or applications for the largest residential scheme East Devon DC has seen in many years.”
EDDC Web site today – What is Cranbrook all about? – “Currently, a total of 3,561 homes, two primary schools, a secondary school, town centre, local centre and associated infrastructure and green spaces have planning permission but there are plans for a further 4,000 homes and associated infrastructure set out in the New Local Plan meaning that the town is planned to grow to a total of around 6,000 homes by the year 2026 and to 7,500 homes beyond that. This equates to a town of approximately 15,500 people (slightly larger than Sidmouth or Honiton).”
So, EDDC’s official position is originally 6,000 houses / 13,000 people , and now targeted at 7,500 homes (which would be c. 16,250 people). So I am not sure where 30,000 people has come from – or why a second station is needed when the population is actually projected to be only half the size of Barnstaple.
It is now possible again to set up a petition for a subject to be debated in Parliament. When a petition reaches more than 100,000 signatures it must be debated in Parliament.
You can sign a current petition or start a new one at:
https://petition.parliament.uk/
Current petitions include:
A vote of no confidence in the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104334
Imposing taxes on foreign investors buying property worth more than £3.5 million:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104311
To sign you must give a valid email address (which is not published) and respond to a link which will be sent to that email address.
The Cranbrook Herald is running a front page story which says that, according to Devon County Council, Cranbrook will need a second railway station because eventually “it could be bigger than Barnstaple” (pop: 30,000 plus).
http://www.cranbrookherald.com/home
This is an even bigger increase than that announced late last year (around 20,000):
The current population estimate of Cranbrook is around 2,500:
It’s 7 shops will open later this year: a cafe, fish and chip shop, a Chinese takeaway, a small Co-op, an estate agent, a pharmacy and a charity shop.
Talks about new roads into Cranbrook (which the new town council don’t like because they are “dull and not pretty” with insufficient access for the planned supermarket and a pub) seem to hint that there may also be a bigger supermarket in the offing.
Not much infrastructure for 30,000 people! Still at least they can eat, drink, be merry, sort out their hangovers and buy cheap clothes and then, when they are ready to move, they can use the estate agency! Though with many homes likely to be buy-to-let from cashed-in pensions and the like, the rental side may be busier.
Isn’t it interesting that Hugo Swire seems to criticise controversial decisions in East Devon just after those decisions have been mad.
Knowle relocation – condemned only after the decision had been made and just before the election.
Closure of local hospitals – criticised the day AFTER the decision was made.
Good or bad timing?
Voter registration leaflets are dropping through our doors. It is SO tempting not to return them to see if we get a visit from a nice lady or gentleman who will ensure that we do!
Mark Williams is not a great believer in those visits, not having not arranged any for several years – a fact that Members of Parliament heavily criticised when he was hauled before them last December to explain an alarming drop in voters – from around 102,000 to 96,000.
Now intriguingly we learn from this week’s Sidmouth Herald that he is talking of a current 110,000 voters who are registered – which would mean a whopping 14,000 people have only recently been registered.
Typo surely? Fortunately, he is appearing before a committee in September to explain why so many things have gone wrong with voter registration in the past few years, so we can all know what is really the correct number.
…”In the 30 years after 1948, council house building never fell below 100,000 a year and often approached 250,000 but by the 1990’s local authorities had virtually stopped building new homes …”.
Book review, Sunday Times Culture: “Something will turn up” by David Smith
Social and affordable house building on this scale was accomplished during at least two big recessions in that period.
Now? Well, it’s a free market … which means build the lowest quality housing on the best sites and sell it for the biggest profit you can get.
Anyone see a pattern here (see post below this one):
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/17/city-watchdog-chief-quits-fca-george-osborne
Like the NPPF that was designed by a group of developers.
Like the Food Standards Committee made up of food industry representatives.
And like public speaking at EDDC being reviewed by the Council’s majority party Executive Committee.
At this rate, the Human Rights Act will probably be reviewed by prisoners found guilty of war crimes at the International Criminal Court!
Too Many People Are Not Registered to Vote – And It’s About to Get Worse
Too many people are not registered to vote. The reasons for this vary – they don’t have the time, they are disillusioned with party politics, they don’t see how voting will make any difference to their lives. But the result is the same: they are not getting heard and the future of our country is being decided by an increasingly narrow section of society.
And it is about to get worse. This week, the government decided to bring forward by a year the end of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, removing millions of people from the electoral register and ignoring the advice of the Electoral Commission.
This raises serious concerns for our democracy and is the latest in a long line of deeply partisan moves by a government intent on stifling democratic scrutiny and rigging the game in its favour.
The Electoral Commission has warned that 1.9million people could fall off the register if the transition deadline is brought forward.
We know what kinds of voters are more likely to be missing: they are private renters, members of the BAME communities, those who live in built up areas or towns with a high student population. Perhaps the greatest divide is between the older and younger generations: some 95% of the over-65s are on the electoral register, yet only around 70% of 18 to 24-year-olds are estimated to be registered.
The register is the beating heart of our democracy. The coming year will see a significant number of elections, which makes it even more important for the register to be as complete and accurate as possible.
But it also performs a wider function. It provides the foundation for the boundary review, which determines parliamentary constituency boundaries. The next review is due to start early in 2016 and the registers published in December 2015 will be used as its basis.
David Cameron has decided to push ahead with an arbitrary reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600, despite warnings that this could lead to constituencies that do not reflect local communities.
Now he is proposing to do so on the basis of a severely depleted register with missing voters concentrated in certain communities and parts of the country – a clear move by the Government to give the Tories an electoral advantage and one that would call into question the legitimacy of our democracy.
This of course has to be placed in the context of a government who after severely restricting access to justice and reducing the ability of charities to challenge government policy in the last Parliament, has, barely two months in the job, promised to limit Freedom of Information powers, scrap the Human Rights Act, create two-classes of MPs by the backdoor and only this week published a Bill to stifle legitimate rights to take industrial action.
David Cameron’s Government may claim the one nation mantra but their politics are divisive and partisan. We will not stand by and allow millions to lose their voice.
Lord Falconer is Shadow Lord Chancellor and the shadow secretary of the state for justice
Source: Huffington Post UK
“The idea that the NHS can remain taxpayer-funded and free needs to be re-examined as costs rise”, a Conservative health minister has said.
The Conservative Party Manifesto for this election promised a free high-quality health service.
Added to which, the cap on cost of residential care promised for 2016 has been delayed until at least 2020:
…”Mr Ellwood, who lives with his solicitor wife in a £700,000 converted barn in a Dorset village and rents a London flat, said the pay rise was well overdue and much needed in his case.
He wrote: ‘I know I speak for the silent majority (who are not millionaires) to say this increase is well overdue. I never expected to be watching the pennies at my age and yet this is what I now have to do. …’
Bet the people who voted for him in his Bournemouth constituency really feel for him, poor thing.
“…County Councillor Claire Wright said: “It’s an absolute travesty. We heard that 11,000 people signed petitions to save the hospitals and they didn’t answer my question as they said they didn’t have enough information on how much a health hub would cost. The CCG say they are saving £500,000 but they haven’t costed in how much it will cost to create a health hub, which in Budleigh Salterton cost £800,000 and they haven’t costed how much home-based care will cost. It doesn’t stack up financially as they say that’s detail and are using numbers to their own advantage.”
Letter: Guildford Borough Council –
Where Democracy Goes to Die
I attended for the first time on Tuesday evening (July 7) the monthly Guildford Borough Council meeting. I was expecting debate on Guildford’s key issues and I wanted to experience first-hand how the elected officials that hold Guildford’s future in their hands go about safeguarding it.
What I experienced was the worst kind of self-congratulatory, derogatory, tribal politics where power grab was pretty much the order of the day.
I was expecting to see the Conservatives, having won an unprecedented 35 out of 48 seats, through no effort of their own but because of the coincidence of the general election and the fact that local election results follow national trends, being magnanimous in their victory.
Instead I witnessed contempt for the other parties, especially for the Guildford Greenbelt Group (GGG), whose only fault was to challenge the status quo and win three seats from the Conservatives.
No wonder young people are switched off politics when a number of white, middle-aged men are only interested in their own opinion and congratulating each other for the fantastic job they believe they are doing without any regard for what would be best for the borough they represent.
During the pompous proceedings there was complete disregard for all opposition, ignoring the fact that the opposition are elected members representing thousands, the majority actually*, of the borough’s residents.
Request for transparency by the GGG was denied on the questionable grounds of data privacy.
But worst of all was the election of councillor representatives for a number of charities across Guildford.
A number of concerns were raised as to how or why candidates were put forward. In any fair selection, you would expect at least a small biography from each candidate explaining why they are best suited to the position in question as well as allow the candidates to state their case for nomination.
Not in Guildford Borough Council. There is no time for anything non-partisan in there. As long as a Conservative is chosen we can dispense with such niceties.
In a vote that can only be described as a farce, the council did not explain why these people were chosen as candidates nor allow the candidates to explain to the electorate, their fellow councillors, why they were best suited for the position and its requirements.
The explanation for this? There was not enough time and the councillors would stay there for a few more hours if such proceedings were allowed. Guildford’s citizens must be proud to know that their elected representatives, in their one monthly meeting do not have enough time for democracy to take its course.
Why waste time, when the outcome is predetermined and unless you are a Conservative, you won’t be voted in?
Two cases stand out: Cllr Angela Gunning’s removal from the Guildford Waterside Centre as well as Cllr Julia McShane’s removal from the Westborough and Park Barn Community Centre.
In a move that represents the nasty approach the Conservatives plan to follow for the next four years, prior to the meeting Cllr Iseult Roche [Con, Worplesdon] notified Cllr Gunning [Lab, Stoke], against whom she was standing, of her intention to withdraw her nomination.
Then, during the proceedings, Conservative Cllr Roche decided to withdraw her withdrawal whilst at the same time making a small speech as to why she was the most appropriate candidate for the position, the only speech allowed.
Lo and behold, she was voted in with Conservative councillors voting, as throughout, almost en bloc.
Similarly, Cllr McShane [Lib Dem, Westborough], a long-standing councillor for her ward was voted out of the Westborough and Park Barn community centre in favour of the two Conservative councillors in the ward, who had stood as “paper candidates”. One of them had not even turned up for the council meeting.
In a council where the leader proclaims the importance of re-building the council’s damaged reputation, yet sees no issues with remaining in business with a convicted forger and deceiver, we should only expect the council’s resources to be used in favour of the narrow-minded Conservatives’ political agenda instead of the well-being of all of Guildford borough’s citizens, to improve living standards right across the borough.
At the same time, the opposition can be ignored and held in contempt throughout.
As the elections held that night showed, there was no concern for the needs of the external organisations, only the needs of the Conservatives. The next four years will deteriorate Guildford’s standard of living for most residents unless they happen to support the Conservatives.
The council meeting clearly showed that in Guildford Borough, local politics do not transcend party politics and petty behaviours. No wonder it switches people off.
George Dokimakis is a member of the Labour Party.
*47%, of those that voted in the recent GBC elections, voted Conservative.
“Government makes ‘outrageous’ U-turn over fracking in precious wildlife sites”
“There are 4,000 SSSIs in England, more than 1,000 in Wales and 1,425 in Scotland.”
“Fracking will still be excluded from national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, the Broads and world heritage sites, under the new plans, though shale companies will be allowed to put a rig outside a national park and drill horizontally underneath it.
Some of the SSSIs will fall within the borders of those other protected areas, but even so the RSPB believes thousands of SSSIs could potentially be affected.
Matt Williams, a policy officer at the RSPB, said: “The government has reneged on its commitment to rule out fracking in some of our most important wildlife sites.
“Despite promising in January to exclude fracking from SSSIs, today’s announcement ignores any such commitment, leaving some the UK’s most valuable wildlife sites exposed to risk from future fracking.”
SSSIs are described by government officials as the “best of our wildlife, geological and physiographical heritage”.
Daisy Sands, head of energy at Greenpeace UK, said: “With a few days before recess, this looks like nothing but a blatant attempt to bypass democracy to sneak this deeply unpopular policy in through the back door while no one is looking. Ministers have given concerned citizens up and down the country no opportunity to voice their opposition to the plans that could ruin the countryside, contaminate the water supply and have a devastating impact on the climate.”
The draft regulations, which will be debated in September, also said that fracking would be allowed under protected groundwater source areas, where drinking water is gathered.
Even under the most sensitive of those groundwater areas (SPZ1s), fracking will be allowed so long as it at depths of more than 1,200 metres. A limit deeper than that would “hinder the exploitation of potentially valuable shale gas reserves”, the regulations said.
No public consultation was held on either the dropping of SSSIs from the list of protected areas from where fracking would be excluded, or how deep the groundwater limits should be set.”
East Devon Watch 