“Elysium: a place or state of perfect happiness”

EDDC’s Annual Report for 2014/15 is now out:

(http://eastdevon.gov.uk/media/1316010/annual-report-2014-15-website.pdf)

and those reading it might be forgiven for thinking that the opening letter of the acronym stands for Elysium as opposed to East. Because everything in East Devon is, if the report is to be believed, Absolutely Fabulous.

One doesn’t expect reports of this kind to be brutally truthful. But one is entitled to expect some degree of modesty and acknowledgement that life is not all a bed of roses. Not however if you are Cllr Diviani: “this annual report is an opportunity to pause and reflect on our successes over the past 12 months before we look forward … to … the next four years”. It’s an opportunity also, of course, to reflect on abject failures. To have seen some references to ‘challenges’ might have been a bit more honest, Cllr Diviani.

The report reveals that more than half of respondents don’t think EDDC is doing a good job delivering jobs in the west of the district or making towns better places to live. Still, never mind, notwithstanding the grumpy 12,000 people who signed a petition against the demolition of Elizabeth Hall in Exmouth – no fewer than 44 jobs were created when Premier Inn bulldozed the site and put up a hotel! (In fact the creation of these 44 jobs is such an achievement that a photo of the opening of the Premier Inn takes up half of page 12 of the Report.)

But the best spin of all is to read that in 2014/15 EDDC received a record number of planning applications (1,221), and the record number of appeals received (74) constituted a 77% success rate. Good news? Only up to a point. Had EDDC got its act together and a Local Plan in place, taxpayers’ money wouldn’t have been wasted receiving so many applications, and defending so many appeals, in the first place.

As it is, the only mention of the Local Plan in the report is confined to a single sentence, conveying the impression that its progression to a “second round of hearing sessions” is perfectly normal, and that its likely adoption in late 2015/early 2016 and is not years and years behind schedule, as the savvier voters know only too well.