“An alliance of nine European governments, led by Germany and including France, Spain, Italy and Poland, have written to the European commission to warn it not to dismantle nature protection laws.
But conservationists have questioned why Britain is not part of the effort to publicly defend the habitats and birds directives ahead of a review by the commission aimed at cutting red tape for business. …”
Mary de Souza Chairman, Chardstock Parish Council and Neighbourhood Plan Team writes:
“I am writing in response to the article in Axminster’s Pulman’s Weekly News, dated March 31st 2015.
The article headline ” Amended Local Plan on its way to inspector” refers to the amendments to the plan that East Devon Councillors agreed to at a special meeting on Thursday 26th March, which included granting a “built-up-area Boundary ” for Chardstock, in order to facilitate sustainable development.
For the benefit of your readers, I would like to put this statement in context and point out how the agreement to include this amendment would appear to have been reached. But firstly a bit of background information.
Chardstock has always had a Built up Area Boundary ( BUAB) and the previous draft Local Plan allocated a quota of ten houses, which have subsequently been built. Since then planning permission has been granted for a further four dwellings. However, in December 2014 and February 2015, three planning applications, two of which went before the Development Management Committee ( DMC) were refused permission on the grounds that Chardstock was not considered to be sustainable.
This is the Planning Officers report : “The proposed development by reason of its location on the edge of a village in the countryside which has limited services to support growth, fails to accord with the definition of sustainable development, specifically the environmental role, found within the National Planning Policy Framework. In this case, the Local Planning Authority considers that the adverse impacts of this development in terms of unsustainable location with the occupiers of the dwellings having limited access to essential services and infrastructure (including public transport and access to it) significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of providing these dwellings to meet the shortfall of housing within the district (5 year land supply) when assessed against the policies within the Framework as a whole.”
During this period a DMC “Think-tank” along with planning officers were making a careful study of all the villages in East Devon, looking at their services and facilities as well as public transport and access to it.
Chardstock is fortunate that it has an excellent local shop and Post Office, as well as a church, pub and primary school, but access to other essential services only found in Chard or Axminster necessitate a journey by car and are not realistically accessible by public transport, as the nearest bus stop is best part of a mile down a single track lane, with no lighting or pavements from the centre of the village.
These facts therefore meant that under the latest draft of the Local Plan, Chardstock was one of the villages recommended to not have a BUAB. This recommendation was upheld by the DMC at their special meeting on Monday 23rd March.
But at the full Council meeting on 26th March, a member of the public, who isn’t actually a resident of East Devon, but happens to own a plot of land in Chardstock on which he has applied to build 5 houses, spoke and asked that Members also consider the inclusion of Chardstock in the list of sustainable villages.
Is it just coincidence, that what followed was a proposal from Cllr Andrew Moulding that Chardstock be added to the list of settlements to have a BUAB ? The minutes from this meeting also point out that,
• the village is not served by public transport,
• the views of the parish council had not been sought,
• it was more appropriate for the village to identify appropriate levels of development through a Neighbourhood Plan.
But the proposal was put to the vote and carried. This decision and the way in which it was reached also demonstrates the lack of support from the Council for the Parish Council, the local community agenda and an apparent lack of engagement with Chardstock’s emerging Neighbourhood Plan, failing to consult with the Parish Council or local community over a major policy change, rather being led by the wishes of a local developer.
The issue of sustainability is one that the Parish Council and Neighbourhood Plan Team have been looking at very closely, and is an issue that has generated a lot of interest from the residents of Chardstock, who have been consulted on this and other subjects as part of the production of our Neighbourhood Plan.
It’s not just about not having a realistic bus service in the parish – less than 12% of the population have any sort of relatively easy access to the service, and the majority are anything from 1 to 4 miles from the nearest bus stop, as well as the fact that this is also a bus service that as of 12th April will be reduced from an hourly service to a 90 minute service, making access to Chard and Axminster even more difficult. It is also about other aspects of our infrastructure, including poor roads, which with the cuts to services from Devon County Council will be receiving even less attention than they were before.
So what is it that has made the Council decide that all of a sudden we are sustainable. Are there measures that are being put in place that we are unaware of ? Or is this indeed an example of the influence that developers have over the Council ?
http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/council_s_decision_on_latest_draft_of_the_ed_local_plan_1_4024159
Do they know something we don’t know?
Oh, and it’s a busy job:
“It is essential that you have excellent communication, organisational and time management skills. You must also have the ability to work without supervision and use your own initiative, as you will be dealing with complaints and requests for information from members of the public on a daily basis.”
“The Government narrowly avoided another humiliating House of Lords defeat, winning the vote by just 257 to 246.
Peers rejected a Lib Dem bid to block an accelerated transition to individual voter registration.
“Ministers should be ashamed,” said Lib Dem peer Lord Tyler, who tried to kill the plans with a ‘fatal motion’.
The Tory plan to switch to a new method of registering voters from the end of this year had been criticised by the independent Electoral Commission, as nearly two million people have not signed up.
Labour has warned it will prevent huge numbers from voting and will skew the forthcoming review of Parliamentary boundaries, which will be based on the new electoral register.
Labour peer Lord Willis said: “This risks excluding millions from their democratic right to vote.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/conservative-peers-could-cost-two-6718620
Don’t like what the House of Lords says? Crush it:
… if you take all the unanswered and refused Freedom of Information requests on the whatdotheyknow website:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/east_devon_district_council
Please note that attendance at this event requires pre-registration – details below:
Saturday, 21st November 2015
10.30am-2pm
at
Kentisbeare Village Hall, Cullompton, EX15 2AB
‘Food, Farming & The Countryside’
A CPRE Devon seminar & light lunch with our special guest speakers:
Neil Parish MP, Tiverton & Honiton
John Sheaves, CEO Taste of the West Andrew Butler, NFU Devon County Adviser
RSVP Rosemary Jessel, CPRE Devon Events Co-ordinator Tel:01409 241409 cpredevonevents@gmail.com
Kentisbeare Village Hall is just 3 miles from the M5 Junction 28 (Cullompton) exit.
“… The new regulations issued just weeks after the election say fracking would be allowed to take place below 1,200 metres in national parks, the broads, areas of outstanding natural beauty, world heritage sites and areas that are most vulnerable to groundwater pollution. To do this, fracking companies would have to drill down and sideways from outside protected areas. ”
SSSIs, conservation areas for wildlife and plants, would receive no protection under the regulations.
A cash crisis in the NHS is starving community hospitals and threatens to undermine the whole system, it has been warned.
Former health minister and Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw said failing to fund community health facilities, such as community hospitals, physiotherapy and community nursing, was short sighted.
He said it played a vital role in keeping patients out of major hospitals and blamed under-funding as the latest casualty of the sweeping reorganisation of the NHS undertaken by the Coalition Government.
His words come as the Prime Minister has been urged to step into the row over cottage hospital closures in North Devon.
Meanwhile, in Cornwall healthcare commissioners have been forced to search for new providers of community care after a private company ceded its contracted saying it simply could not deliver for the money being paid.
Mr Bradshaw said lack of funding underpinned the whole problem and things had to change.
“The underlying problem here is the serious financial crisis affecting the NHS, which has mainly been caused by the Government’s disastrous and costly re-organisation of the health service at the beginning of the last Parliament.
“The independent regulator, the Care Quality Commission, warned this week that a growing number of organisations are unable to guarantee safe care and Monitor, which oversees Foundation Trusts, said the NHS faces its worst crisis for more than 30 years.”
Earlier this month, Northern Devon Healthcare Trust (NDHT) voted to close in-patient beds at Ilfracombe and Bideford Hospitals, despite protests from their own senior medics and patients and warnings from healthcare commissioners. In the latest twist to the saga, Great Torrington Town Council has urged David Cameron to see for himself the unique problems faced by their community.
The council urged Mr Cameron to see for himself the challenges in rural areas which were being made worse by “insufficient funding.” …
Potential car parkers in the Mill Street car park in Sidmouth had charges hiked by more than 300% to £5,400 per year so it’s not surprising that they did not take up spaces which worked out at more than £14.79 per day.
We now hear that DCC are offering landlords, contractors and business owners ( which, of course will include developers) will be able to park on double yellow lines for £5 per day = £1,825 for 365 days of parking.
Mill Street – £14.79 per day
Double yellow lines – £5 per day
Today, the Express and Echo says there will be few checks on the £5 per day charge – indeed without appropriate legislation to define each category it will be impossible to do it at all. A source is quoted as saying “It’s all about the money”.
Yet another example of EDDC plc and Devon County Council plc – grabbing what they can when they can build their luxury HQ (EDDC) or to plug their own party’s funding cut black holes (DCC).
Sheer madness or sheer greed – take your pick.
Interesting exchange of emails regarding the contract for Knowle between EDDC and Pegasus:
You can see why the Conservatives want to water down the Freedom of Information Act.
Did anyone else know about this? Is it a Stuart Hughes idea? If not, who? And why? And why hasn’t Stuart Hughes publicised it in a funny suit or video? And why can’t the rest of us avail ourselves of this useful perk? Imagine how much it would save in parking fees.
“Permits allowing drivers to park on double yellow lines for just £5 a day have been made available in Devon. The scheme is open to business owners, landlords and contractors”.
Roads in Cranbrook are not yet ” adopted” by DCC and EDDC. Police cannot therefore enforce parking or speed restrictions:
“There are concerns that some councils are failing to use powers available under highways regulations, which require builders to complete works.
Councils can ask builders to sign a Section 38 Agreement, under the Highways Act 1980, to ensure that the roads are built to an acceptable standard and will eventually be adopted. They are backed with a bond to cover the cost of the work in case it is not completed, or the builder goes out of business.
… “Councils can serve a notice, called a Section 220 notice, which gives them the power to prosecute a developer if the work is not guaranteed, but the fine limit is set at £1,000.
“Unfortunately, the level of the fine is only a small deterrent when compared to the value of a housing site,” said a St Helens Council spokesman.
Jim Codd of The Resident Adoption Action Group supports homeowners in this situation. He says he is aware of around 100 roads across England and Wales where work has been left incomplete and says there may be many more out there.
“There are problems all over the country,” he told the programme.
“But as it stands there is no legislation to force developers to get new roads adopted by the council.”
Even where these agreements are signed, residents have to rely on a council enforcing them when work is left unfinished. “
Perhaps councillors would like to check whether EDDC has entered into such agreements in Cranbrook and elsewhere and, if so, what it is doing to enforce them.
“The government stands accused by a leading Tory thinker of creating a “country for older generations” in which pensioners benefit from constantly rising incomes while the young, their families and children pay the price of punishing policy decisions, including cuts to their tax credits.
In a hard-hitting intervention on the eve of what is expected to be a tempestuous House of Lords debate over plans to slash the incomes of millions of low-income families, former Conservative minister and prominent party intellectual David Willetts says the current policy mix is manifestly unfair and breaks the supposed “social contract” between generations. …”
This is the latest of several articles with a similar theme recently which seems to hint that some, or all, universal pensioner benefits (bus passes, winter heating allowance, free TV licences for over-75s, protected state pension increases) may be for the chop.
Remember EDDC promised that if it moved to Honiton, it would have “hubs” in major towns: didn’t work for Mid Devon:
“Earlier in the year it was announced that Exmouth seafront, where the café is situated, would be undergoing an £18m redevelopment. It is still unclear how long the Harbour View Café will continue trading.
Dawn said for 18 months the existing traders were excited about the redevelopment, until it became increasingly clear they wouldn’t be a part of it.
“I was absolutely gutted when I realised we were surplus to requirements,” she said.
“We suddenly realised that our time might be running out down there and for myself, I’ve spent my whole working life down there, I still don’t know what I’ll do next. I feel lost at the thought of losing it. We’re living on a day by day, hand to mouth situation until we know more. We say to our customers we are still here. The doors are still open at the moment. Whilst we are still here there is hope.”
If you have not registered to vote, it can be done quickly and easily online. If you do not register to vote by 1 December 2015 you will not be able to vote in any by-elections elections or in May 2016 when some council seats in parts of the country are up for election.
40 percent funding reduction would devastate local services and communities, councils warn
LGA media release 19 October 2015
“A further 40 per cent real terms reduction in local government grant funding in the Spending Review would deliver the £10.5 billion knock-out blow to cherished local services, the Local Government Association warns today.
Non-protected government departments have been ordered to draw up savings plans worth, in real terms, 25 and 40 per cent of their budgets ahead of the Spending Review on November 25, which will set out government spending plans for the next four years.
Analysis by the LGA, which represents more than 370 councils in England and Wales, reveals a 40 per cent real terms reduction to core central government funding would be worth £8.4 billion. The same cut to separate local government grants would see a further £2.1 billion lost from council budgets.
This would mean local government losing 64 per cent of its grant funding between 2010 and 2020.
In its Spending Review submission to the Treasury, the LGA has already predicted councils will face almost £10 billion in separate cost pressures, through government policies, inflation and demand, by 2020 even before another penny is taken out of council budgets.
Together with another 40 per cent reduction to funding from central government, this would leave councils facing £20 billion in funding cuts and increased cost pressures by the end of the decade. Local government leaders say this would devastate local services and communities.
To put those figures into context, annual council spending on individual services in 2013/14 include:
Bin collection and recycling – £3.3 billion;
Arts and leisure (libraries, leisure centres, museums) – £2 billion
Road maintenance – £1.3 billion;
Subsidised bus services and free travel for elderly and disabled – £1.7 billion
Street cleaning – £717 million;
Parks maintenance – £690 million;
Street lighting – £530 million
Trading standards, noise, environmental health – £480 million.
The LGA said even if councils stopped providing all of these vital services for their residents, it would still not be nearly enough to plug the potential £20 billion hole in their finances by the end of the decade.
Lord Porter, LGA Chairman, said:
“Councils are under no illusions about the challenge that lies ahead. We know we face almost £10 billion in cost pressures by 2020 even before the prospect of further challenging funding reductions over the next four years.
“What is clear is that another 40 per cent real terms reduction to local government grant funding on top of these cannot be an option on November 25.
“It is a false economy to reduce funding to local government while attempting to prop up other departments.
“Providing councils with fairer funding is the only way to avoid the unintended consequence of other parts of the public sector, such as the NHS, being left to pick up the financial pieces. When making its spending decisions government must consider the huge pressure funding reductions to councils would have not just on vital local services but on the public sector more widely.
“Councils have worked tirelessly to shield residents from the impact of the 40 per cent government funding reductions they have been handed since 2010. However, the resilience of local government services cannot be stretched much further.
“It would be our residents who would suffer as councils are no longer able to deliver some of their statutory duties, like street cleaning and providing the free bus travel that is a lifeline to our elderly and disabled.
“Closing every children’s centre in England would save £700 million but this would only be enough to plug the funding gap facing adult social care for one year. Councils could stop fixing the two million potholes they fill each year to save £600 million by 2020, but this would still not be enough to keep providing free bus travel to elderly and disabled residents.
“These are the difficult decisions councils will be forced to face. Many of the things people take for granted, like clean and well-lit streets, maintained parks and access to leisure centres, will become a thing of the past as a result.”
Additional information
Breakdown of local government core spending (figures in £000s and exclude expenditure on schools and housing benefit).
2013/14
Education
£4,249,676
Highways
£1,591,039
Public Transport
£1,850,344
Children’s Social Care
£6,914,607
Adult Social Care
£14,565,464
Housing
£2,003,473
Cultural Services
£2,708,616
Waste Management
£3,324,260
Other Environmental Services
£798,707
Regulatory Services
£888,334
Planning and Development
£1,262,183
Central services
£2,618,551
All other services, capital financing and other costs
£4,693,501
Public Health
£2,507,832
Total net expenditure
£49,976,587″
Tory plans to wipe 1.9m names off the electoral register are set to be blocked by a House of Lords revolt, following advice from Britain’s voting watchdog. Liberal Democrat and Labour peers are poised to vote to halt Government plans to slash the electoral roll ahead of next May’s elections for local councils, the Scottish Parliament and London Mayor.
Despite warnings from the Electoral Commission about the dangers of disenfranchising legitimate voters, ministers believe many of the names are bogus and have speeded up by 12 months plans to “modernise” the system with individual registration. The independent watchdog has now issued a briefing note urging peers to vote against the Government next Tuesday, in what will be the second crunch clash between the Commons and the Lords, after the row over tax credits cuts.
The note, seen by The HuffPost UK, states that acting before the outcome of its annual canvass of voters before the outcome of “means the Government has acted without reliable information on how many redundant entries will be removed at the end of this year and how many eligible electors will need to re-register ahead of May 2016.”
“Taking into account…the scale and importance of the polls scheduled for next May, we continue to recommend that the end of transition should take place in December 2016 as currently specified in legislation” It concludes: “We therefore recommend that Parliament does not approve this order.”
HuffPost UK understands that both Labour and the Lib Dems will order a three-line whip to ‘annul’ the Tory statutory instrument on the changes – and with an in-built anti-Tory majority they are set to win the day.
Labour’s Lord Kennedy has today tabled an amendment to Lib Dem peer Lord Tyler’s motion to annul the legislation, “on the grounds that it goes against the advice of the Electoral Commission”. In his Labour conference speech last month Jeremy Corbyn warned: “We know why the Tories are doing it. They want to gerrymander next year’s Mayoral election in London by denying hundreds of thousands of Londoners their right to vote.”
The new Individual Electoral Registration (IER) process will particularly affect those in rented accommodation and urban areas, who are less likely to register, and students, because universities and colleges no longer ‘block register’ students living in halls of residence.
Campaign groups have complained that in areas such as Hackney in London, one in four voters could lose their rights to be on the electoral roll. But writing for Huff Post UK, Cabinet Office minister John Penrose said that the changes would bring Britain into line with ‘every other serious democracy in the world’.
In its briefing note, the Electoral Commission makes clear that it would be wiser to stick to original plans to complete the reforms by December 2016 rather than December 2015. “The earlier timetable puts the greater onus on electors as they will need to take action in order to ensure they are able to remain registered and participate in the May 2016 polls,” it says.”By contrast, the later timetable puts the greater responsibility on EROs (Electoral Registration Officers) to identify and take steps to remove redundant or inaccurate entries.”
Ministers usually accept the advice of the independent watchdog and in September decided to fully adopt its recommendations to change the question in the EU referendum.
Source: Huffington Post UK online, today
East Devon Watch 