“Sightseers spend £499million a year in the South West, more than anywhere else in the UK, new figures show.
Even more (£547million) is spent on visitor attractions in the region – second only to London, a survey of domestic tourism has revealed.”
And still East Devon District Council ignores tourism. The more incursions of housing and industrial units into our beautiful coastal and countryside areas, the fewer tourists we get.
Two successes for EDA Independent councillors’ campaign for openness and democracy at last night’s EDDC Scrutiny Committee Meeting –and a thumping failure.
At the suggestion of EDA Independent councillor Ben Ingham, the committee unanimously recommended that the shadowy activities of the secretive Asset Management Forum should be dragged into the light. They agreed that Forum meetings from now should be minuted and open to press and public.
They also unanimously approved “best practice” recommendations from a recent Government training session for scrutiny committees.
In fact, EDA Independent councillor Marion Rixson was praised for having already pre-empted the recommendation that individual councillors should do detailed research into topics of concern. Her comparative study of different councils’ management of beach huts was crucial in influencing the EDDC’s recent decision to scrap its plan to auction the rental of its beach huts to the highest bidder.
Sadly the Committee was unable to shine a light on the scandalous Chardstock affair.
Two speakers expressed their frustration and disappointment that the Committee could not scrutinise the dubious way in which their small, isolated community had been declared suitable for large scale development in the Local Plan.
If any village in East Devon in “unsustainable” it’s Chardstock with its few facilities and poor access. The Parish Council thought so, EDDC’s planning officers thought so. But at an Extraordinary Council Meeting on March 25, called to finalise the Local Plan, Chardstock was designated “sustainable”!
Grave doubts have been expressed about the process that led to this astonishing decision. A member of the public, who many assumed was a Chardstock councillor, spoke strongly in favour of designation as sustainable. He was later identified as a developer, not resident in the village.
Deputy Leader Andrew Moulding spoke eloquently in his support – and a majority of the Council agreed to re-designate the unfortunate village.
To many observers, including Independent councillors, this appeared to be a shameful manipulation, and an earlier meeting of the Scrutiny Committee had agreed to investigate the process.
Last night it emerged that the Council’s Legal Officer had advised that the Scrutiny Committee should not discuss the matter until the Inspector had ruled on the Local Plan. By which time it would be impossible to change Chardstock’s designation!
The Legal Officer did not attend, and it was left to a deputy to try justify the decision.
In frustration, one of the Chardstock councillors accused the Committee of kicking the Chardstock scandal “into the long grass”. Chair Roger Giles denied it, and said it would be investigated whenever the Inspector had made his decision.
EDA Independent councillor Cathy Gardner said she was embarrassed to be a member of the Scrutiny Committee which had let down the public.
There’s obviously work to do before all the dark corners of EDDC are open to daylight!
“Inflation may have dipped into minus figures, but rents have leapt by an average of between 6.3% and 8.5% over the past year, according to two reports, highlighting the dramatic extent to which the cost of a place to live has uncoupled from the cost of living.
The average rent paid by private tenants in England and Wales reached a record high of £816 per month in September, compared with £768 a year earlier, said letting agents Your Move and Reeds Rains. Meanwhile, the latest official inflation figures showed UK prices were 0.1% lower than this time last year. …”
Earlier this month David Cameron changed rules so that developers no longer have to build “affordable homes” for rent or shared ownership.
East Devon councillor Cathy Gardner reports on the EDA website:
“I had some new experiences this week – attending a ‘think tank’ and a Sidmouth Beach Management Plan (BMP) Steering Group meeting. Think Tanks are informal discussions arranged by Portfolio Holders (Cabinet members given specific areas of responsibility like Economy or Tourism). I have no idea yet if there will be any actions as a result of the discussions on Monday (12/10/15) but Officers were present and some good ideas were put forward. The topic of this meeting was how to use grant money that the Council had received for supporting the local economy. The workings of EDDC are becoming clearer, if still frustrating.
The BMP meeting was very informative, although progress seems to have been slow. The Steering Group consists of a range of people, mostly not on EDDC although it is Chaired by Cllr Moulding (Axminster) who is Deputy Leader. An area of concern is Alma Bridge: continued erosion means that another solution will be needed soon. Even so it seems highly likely that the coastal path will be diverted over the footbridge at the ford at some point. There does not seem to be any urgency from DCC to start work on a long-term answer (probably with the bridge further inland than it is now). They seem to want to wait until the BMP process advances some more. Another challenge for the BMP is the quality of the data being used to estimate erosion rate. This is a historical problem as good data has only been recorded recently, however the inclusion of data that everyone agreed was wrong seems counter-intuitive. We will have to wait many more months before a plan is drafted and then more months before funding is found to start work.
I hope this insight into the workings of EDDC is informative.”
Some reading between the lines needed here:
Auctioning leases has NOT been ruled out when 5 year leases are offered ( it is unclear if leases apply to all sites or just Budleigh Salterton and Seaton sites).
Taking out the word “significant” from the original phrase ” significant increase” means nothing.
“Market rents” will be charged.
A typical EDDC non-transparent fudge that only benefits one side: EDDC.
Tenants beware!
East Devon Watch 