The protest at Full Council by Save Our Seafront campaigners, was aired on Spotlight tv yesterday, on the morning and the evening news.
See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06j6pdv/spotlight-22102015
from 12:45-12:53.
Monthly Archives: October 2015
How developers should smooch local authorities
A couple of solicitors writing on the “Local Government Lawyer” website give advice to developers on how to get the best out of their dealings with local authorities. Here are a couple of paragraphs of their article:
“… Huge cuts in public sector funding means that councils are looking to engage ever more in property development to generate place-shaping, capital receipts or longer term income streams. If developers know how to engage properly with councils, understand what makes them tick and talk the right language then great (and profitable) things can be achieved. Conversely, far too many developers shoot themselves in the foot both reputationally and financially and miss out on deals with the public sector because they just don’t know how to put it together. …
… Councils are a lot more innovative and willing to explore collaborative arrangements with developers than developers often realise. Not every council is going to have the right approach and, indeed, councils need to improve and continue to develop their own commerciality and freedom of thought. For the most part, however, in our experience they are open to listening to and engaging with developers who have something different say and an attitude which chimes with that of the council. Whether it is at the soft market testing stage or during the procurement it is worth exploring the options. …”
Devon one of worst places to live for quality of life
Worst places to live:
Bradford
Kingston Upon Hull
North of Northern Ireland
Eilean Siar (Western Isles)
West & South of Northern Ireland
Blackpool
Devon
Central Valleys
East of Northern Ireland
South Teesside
Devon came in at 132 out of 138, a drop of 46 places from last year.
“The uSwitch.com study assessed 138 local areas (NUTS3 regions) for 26 factors such as salaries, disposable household income, and the cost of essential goods including food bills, fuel costs and energy bills. The study also factored in lifestyle issues like hours of sunshine, working hours and life expectancy to ensure a full picture of the quality of life in each NUTS3 region.”
In East Devon they try to grab beach huts, in Huddersfield it’s gardens
Residents 0, Developers 1. Better hope EDDC doesn’t own anyone’s garden.
“It’s taken decades of toil and thousands of pounds to turn these gardens into pristine suburban oases. But there’ll be digging of a different kind soon – when developers send in the demolition squads.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3285446/The-council-s-trying-steal-gardens.html
Ministers opt themselves out of international law
What’s betting our own dear International Minister MP Hugo Swire was involved!
“Conservative ministers have been accused of quietly abandoning the longstanding principle that members of the government should be bound by international law.
A rewrite of the ministerial code that sets out the standard of conduct expected has omitted a reference to the subject – a decision that senior lawyers say could have far-reaching implications for the UK and its relationship with the rest of the world.
The latest version of the code, which was published without fanfare on Thursday last week, reveals that a key element has disappeared. The previous code, issued in 2010, said there was an “overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life”.
In the new version the sentence has been edited to say only that there is an “overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law and to protect the integrity of public life”.
Lawyers say key issues affected by the change could include decisions about whether to go to war or use military force, such as the use of drones in Syria, any decision made by an international court about the UK and any laws not incorporated into English law, such as human rights legislation and the Geneva conventions.”
http://gu.com/p/4dgj
Exmouth seafront “dangerous territory” says council leader
Mysterious words from EDDC Leader Paul Diviani at the latest Full Council apparently. They tumbled out in response to a barrage of questions from IEDA Councillors, following issues raised by representatives of the Save Exmouth Seafront (SES) campaign.
East Devon Watch has received this summary:
“Cllr Megan Armstrong quoted from Exmouth Regeneration Board minutes (7th Oct 2015) which state that the area was being regenerated “for the wider benefit of Exmouth” . Was this statement, and other justifications for the seafront development, “based on facts, assumptions, or wishful thinking by the Council”, she asked?
Cllr Ben Ingham picked up her point, saying that the Council should “tell the truth”, that their Exmouth seafront plans were to make money to fill an anticipated gap in their finances. It was “total rubbish” to pretend it was “for the wider benefit of Exmouth”.
Cllr Ingham also referred to concerns raised at public question time about EDDC’s choice of partnership company for the seafront development. SES had sent Councillors their research on the matter. But Cllr Cathy Gardner’s proposal that the Scrutiny Committee should check that due diligence had been properly done, was summarily dismissed by Leader Paul Diviani. “You are wandering into territory that is very dangerous”, he told her.
A (combined?) written reply to the Independent Cllrs was promised.”
More on the Save Exmouth Seafront campaign on BBC RADIO DEVON’s breakfast programme today and on RADIO EXE.
Some background here:
Hugo’s bottom slap just got worse …
“Ask Holly: My boss keeps flirting with me”
“Dear Holly,
My boss keeps coming on to me and I don’t know what to do. Most of the time, it’s just the usual ‘playful’ slaps on the buttocks, or ‘accidentally’ dropping his pen on the floor and asking me to pick it up, but it’s only a matter of time before he tries to get me involved in that pig nonsense. How can I fend off his attacks but still keep my plummy job?
Hugo Swire
Westminster
Dear Hugo,
Maybe your boss is lonely. Sometimes grown ups just want a friend. Like my teacher, Mrs Dodkins. She’s always cracking maths jokes and trying to get everyone to join her rubbish choir, but no-one ever does because her breath smells of coffee and she openly says One Direction aren’t very good, but she has no taste because she’s MEGA old, like 36 or something and too outdated to appreciate real art.
Hope that helps
Holly”
Is what is best for East Devon District Council best for East Devon?
It is now widely accepted that councils are no longer viewed as “public services”. A council used to be elected to represent the interests of its area and its councillors were supposed to represent the views of their electors (though this was not always the case). Council tax was seen as the price we paid for our public services.
Now councils are seen as businesses. They exist to make a profit. They are no longer guardians of public assets but are looking to sell off as many of their “unprofitable” assets as possible whilst retaining cash cows. They do not see a responsibility to council tax payers or to future generations and now developers are what they call their real “customers” that they are there to serve. Indeed, a few years ago, one of EDDC’s senior officers said that, yes, developers are their real customers as they pay large sums into council coffers, more than council tax and therefore they should be considered the council’s most important customers – far more important than council tax payers.
Now we have the situation where the “council businesses” no longer has the interests of electors at their heart and they are increasingly attempting to be simply profitable businesses. But the problem then arises when what is best for the business is not best for electors.
Take the situation in Exmouth. The district council does not want Marks and Spencers Food to be sited near the railway and bus stations (on land owned by Devon County Council) but on its own land which is currently designated as a rugby field. Marks and Spencers knows what it wants and would have been aware of the choice of sites and they chose the one that suited their needs.
This now pitches council business against council business – EDDC against DCC. Some might say this is a good thing as it stimulates competition. However, there is a BIG stumbling block. One of these businesses (EDDC) holds the right to allow or refuse the planning application on the other businesses’s land. Today it is EDDC which holds the trump cards, tomorrow it may be DCC (for example, Straitgate Quarry, where DCC wants it to continue and EDDC does not).
In the past, the deal-breaker would have been: what is best for the district? Now the deal-breaker is: what effect does this have on our income stream and our ability to sell off assets to the highest bidder?
Increasingly, councillors are playing no part in these decisions, except to follow government guidelines that services must be slashed and developers must be encouraged and they must toe the party line on this.
We, the electors, are not just marginalised but practically eradicated from the decision-making process, since our interests are not those of the businesses which our councillors now serve.
Is this what we should accept? If not, how do we ensure that we get what is best for our district and not what is best for EDDC plc or DCC plc?
Seaton/Colyford Green wedge planning application – information for objectors
Planning Application 15/2188/MOUT
Objections need to be in to EDDC Planning by 27th October 2015. This is the date which you should look to if you want your email or letter displayed on the EDDC website and to be considered by the Development Management Committee.
The planning application will probably be discussed by the Development Management Committee on 8 December 2015 at The Knowle, Seaton.
Unfortunately the EDDC New Local Plan will not be approved by the inspector until early 2016 – one possible reason why this planning application has been made at this time.
Below is a link to points that you may wish to consider when making your objection:
Exmouth: M and S consultation ends tomorrow (Friday)
“David Cameron playfully slaps Hugo Swire’s bottom
Or, as The Huffington Post UK online put it:
“Watch David Cameron Give His Foreign Minister A Cheeky Smack On The Bum”.
Not content with holding hands with EDDC councillor Jill Elson recently:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/?s=working+together
Hugo Swire attracted a “playful” bottom slap (see pictures in article cited below) from David Cameron at the banquet for the Chinese president Xi Jinping:
Dave and Hugo were contemporaries at Eton and Mr Swire must have felt quite at home at the banquet, his family firm having had very extensive interests for many, many years in Hong Kong.
Minutes and audio record of Cabinet meeting of 16 October 2015
Following requests, here are the minutes and audio recordings of the last Cabinet meeting (16 October 2015) – including the controversial debate about beach huts:
Developers – like a rash – all over
This is Totnes, but it could be anywhere where there are rich pickings for developers:
Voter removal: claims of gerrymandering and assault on democracy
“The Conservatives’ changes to electoral registration will disproportionately remove people from the electoral register in poorer areas of the country, an analysis suggested. Over twice as many voters will be removed from the register in the ten poorest areas in the UK compared to the richest areas outside London.
The capital, a Labour stronghold, will also be disproportionately affected by the shift to Individual Electoral Registration (IER), because of the high proportion of people who live in private rented housing there.
The Government is moving Britain’s electoral register from a system of household electoral registration to an individual one. But groups, including the Electoral Reform Society and Hope Not Hate, have warned that the way the change is being made could lead to underrepresentation in poorer areas.
In Britain’s ten poorest areas an average of 6.2 per cent of people on the electoral register are expected to be removed when the system changes – with the figure as high as 22.9 per cent in areas like Hackney where people who rent their homes live. By comparison only 2.96 per cent of voters will fall off the register in the ten leafiest and richest areas outside the capital, the study, conducted by Hope Not Hate, found.
Most worryingly, underrepresentation now could be made permanent because the new boundaries for parliamentary constituencies will be decided on the electoral register as it stands on 1 December 2015. The Government wants to base the new boundaries – which are expected to favour the Conservatives – on registered voters rather than actual population levels. This means that missing voters in poorer areas – usually safe Labour – could lead to entire constituencies disappearing and reappearing in rich areas – usually safe Conservative. This would shore up the in-built advantage the Conservatives have under the current electoral system.
The Labour-facing campaign group Momentum announced on Sunday it was launching a mass voter registration campaign to try and sign as many people up to the register before 1 December so that the boundary review would reflect the population as accurately as possible. The campaign is supported the TSSA, a railway workers’ union. Sam Tarry, the union’s national political officer, described the boundary review as a stitch-up.
“The Tories want to gerrymander the electoral boundaries – taking away millions of working people across Britain’s chance to be counted,” he said. “It’s a blatant, anti-democratic stitch-up designed to keep them in power for as long as possible.
“Over the next few weeks we will work in communities across the country – going out and talking to people face to face, to ensure every citizen’s voice is heard and will count.”
Katie Ghose, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said the Government’s move was a “worrying issue for our democracy”.
“The fact that 1.9 million people risk being excluded by the government’s wrong-headed early shift to complete individual voter registration – against Electoral Commission advice – is a scandal. We should be looking at automatic registration, as happens in many other countries – otherwise millions of people could lose their voice,” she told the Independent.
“The government appear to be prioritising cutting the number of MPs while continuing to allow the Lords to grow out of all proportion – a seriously worrying issue for our democracy.
“We call on the government to listen to the experts and to delay the early shift to IER, so that those 1.9 million people aren’t excluded. Crucially though, we need a registration revolution in this country, alongside real democratic reform, to ensure political equality.”
Officials also point out that some people not covered by the new IER list may be data errors rather than real people still living at that address.
The Cabinet Office said it would work with local authorities to make sure as many people were registered as possible and added that individual voter registration was a vital reform to Britain’s political system.
“Individual electoral registration is absolutely key to tackle election fraud. We are working with local authorities to remove ghost voters who don’t exist or have moved on, to make sure we have a clean and fair electoral roll. ” John Penrose, Minister for the Constitution, said.
“This system has been tried and tested in Northern Ireland for over a decade, where there were once serious concerns about electoral fraud.
“The answer to under-registered groups like young people or expatriates is not to stuff the electoral rolls – and potentially the ballot boxes – with the names of people who don’t exist, but instead to run a vigorous and energetic voter registration campaign. Which we will do.”
The boundary review was due to go ahead before the 2010 general election but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats in response to Conservative MPs blocking House of Lords reform.”
Lib Dems appoint ” rural tsar” and target slow broadband
… Among the areas the Welsh MP believes to have been neglected under Conservative rule are community sustainability and digital connectivity. He says that despite many farmers and small businesses relying on broadband for their survival, speeds in Devon and Somerset, as well as other rural parts of Britain, are still too slow.
“The contrast between Devon and Somerset and Cornwall was quite startling,” he says. “The speeds were something like 80-90% in Cornwall, slipping down to 40% or 28% in Somerton and Frome, 42% in North Devon.
“We know these are challenges but these are economies that are dependent on that.”
Although he has already drawn up a list of priorities -incuding cuts to tourism VAT – Mr Williams says the results of the comprehensive spending review will be the true test of the Government’s commitment to rural communities. He joins fellow Lib Dems in predicting Defra funding will take a big hit.
“I just hope there isn’t a caricature that all is rosy in the proverbial garden of England, because that isn’t the case,” he says. “There is a lot of hardship, and there is still the blight of rural deprivation in large parts of Britain that needs to be addressed – and Defra has a role in doing that.
“That’s why our party is seeking and developing a strong rural narrative.”
Two weeks to find 1.9 million voters
PLEASE try to identify and get the missing voters registered – we know from bitter experience we can’t leave this to our Electoral Registration Officer – who had to appear before Parliament to explain why he “lost” around 6,000 voters in East Devon prior to the last election
In December, up to 1.9m people will be deleted from the voting register.
The way we register to vote is changing. Councils have been transferring everyone from the old voting register to the new one, but they haven’t finished the job. The government originally planned to give councils until December 2016 to re-register the missing voters. But over the summer they announced that they would speed up the process. Anyone who hasn’t been transferred to the new register will be deleted in December – that’s up to 1.9m people.
Why are the government rushing the job? In April, the new voting register will be used to work out new constituency boundaries for the 2020 election. Anyone who is removed from the register in December won’t be counted. That means areas with lots of voters who haven’t been transferred will get fewer seats in Parliament.
Tell your MP to sign EDM 333 to save the missing voters
These changes will be passed on November 2nd without even a vote in the House of Commons – unless enough MPs request a debate by signing an Early Day Motion.
Please write to your MP to ask them to sign EDM 333.
What happens when tourism declines and properties become “houses in multiple occupation”
It happened in Hastings some years ago, when London boroughs “decanted” their people with housing and mental health issues to south coast towns such as Hastings. Now it is happening on a grand scale in Blackpool.
When a seaside town (and any town that loses its main economic driver) loses its economic and/or tourism base, bed and breakfast businesses and hotels are ripe for conversion into “houses in multiple occupation”.
Government accused of attempting to water down Freedom of Information Act
“The government has been accused of a “cynical and dangerous” attempt to water down important freedom of information legislation in a campaign uniting journalists and supporters of press freedom launched on Monday.
Campaigners fear government proposals could make it more difficult – and costly – for the media and the public to use the act to access information held by public bodies. After launching a controversial independent commission to look into the issue in July, the government has called for responses to its proposals by 20 November.
Speaking at the Society of Editors annual meeting in London on Monday, Nick Turner, the digital strategy manager of CN Group and president elect of the SoE, called for the society’s 400 members to write to MPs and gather support to fight against any changes to the act.
Launching the campaign Hands Off FoI, in conjunction with Press Gazette and HoldtheFrontPage, Turner said: “This would be a cynical and, indeed, dangerous backward step in the long fight for greater openness and transparency.”
“If MPs really want to serve their constituents, they will support this campaign to maintain the tremendous work of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.”
Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, which has fought for greater openness for over 20 years, said he feared the government’s supposedly independent commission was made up of people, such as former government minister Jack Straw, who are known to believe that there should be more exemptions under FoI.
“If we don’t do something about it, the act is going to be seriously restricted,” he told the SoE meeting. The campaign group is to hold a briefing on Wednesday to discuss how best to fight government attempts to introduce more restrictions.
Asked about the government’s review of the FoI earlier on Monday, John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, denied that the current review meant that it would be overturned.
“[In the same way] everyone thinks I am going to abolish the BBC just because I am going to look at how it works after 10 years,” he said.
Afterwards, Nick Turner said he found this comparison less than encouraging. He compared the government “looking” at FoI and the BBC to “the way a lion is only having a look at an antelope with a limp”.
Cash-strapped public institutions have criticised the cost of meeting FoI requests but Frankel highlighted the many public interest stories that had resulted from the legislation. One recent local example was the Pembrokeshire chief executive being paid £2,368 a month by the local authority to drive a Porsche sports car.
Introduced in 2004, the FoI Act was described by former Prime Minister Tony Blair as the “cornerstone of constitutional reform”.
Under current proposals, which could be introduced before the parliamentary recess at Christmas, are new charges for requests, changes to make it easier to refuse requests on cost grounds and plans to strengthen ministers’ powers to veto disclosures.
Last month a letter of concern was sent by more than 140 news organisations to the prime minister.
The five-member committee includes: Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, who is already on the record calling for the act to be rewritten; Lord Carlile of Berriew, who accused the Guardian of “a criminal act” when it published stories using National Security Agency material leaked by Edward Snowden; Lord Howard, whose gardening expenses were exposed following FoI requests; and Patricia Hodgson, the deputy chair of Ofcom, which has criticised the act for its “chilling effect” on government.
It is chaired by Lord Burns, the former chair of Channel 4 and a former permanent secretary to the Treasury.”
“The public law obligation to conduct fair consultation”
“In the recent case of Moseley v Haringey, the Supreme Court considered the necessary ingredients of proper consultation by a local authority. The Court endorsed a set of six requirements. It remains to be seen how the requirements set out in this case will translate across other types public authority consultation.
Moseley concerned the introduction of a new Scheme for council tax relief in Haringey. The council had consulted residents on their draft Scheme, as required by statute. The appellants successfully argued that the council’s consultation had, incorrectly, assumed that the council’s preferred approach was the only option available. Alternative approaches were not set out in the consultation documents, and they should have been, if only to explain why they were not appropriate.
Haringey’s consultation exercise was declared unfair and therefore unlawful, but the Court concluded that ordering a fresh consultation would not be proportionate in the circumstances. The Court also highlighted specific statutory duties placed on public authorities from time to time; in this case there had been a duty on the council to ensure public participation in the decision-making process, which Haringey had failed to fulfil.
In carrying out consultations, public authorities must be mindful of both their common law duty of fairness, and their obligations under statute.
Consultation requirements
Amongst other things, the judgment endorses six general principles: the four “Sedley criteria” plus two additional principles arising from wider case law.
So, what are the Sedley criteria? In R v Brent London Borough Council, ex p Gunning it was accepted that the following four “basic requirements are essential if the consultation process is to have a sensible content”:
1. “a consultation must be at a time when proposals are still at a formative stage”
2. “the proposer must give sufficient reasons for any proposal to permit of intelligent consideration and response”
3. “adequate time must be given for consideration and response”
4. “the product of consultation must be conscientiously taken into account in finalising any statutory proposals”
In addition, the Court also endorsed two further general principles:
5. “the degree of specificity with which, in fairness, the public authority should conduct its consultation exercise may be influenced by the identity of those whom it is consulting.”
Is the public authority consulting e.g. local authorities, or members of the public? The latter and “particularly perhaps the economically disadvantaged” may require the consultation to be laid before them to a greater degree of specificity than the former, in order to be able to respond satisfactorily.
6. “the demands of fairness are likely to be somewhat higher when an authority contemplates depriving someone of an existing benefit or advantage than when the claimant is a bare applicant for a future benefit.” (citing Simon Brown LJ in R v Devon County Council, ex parte Baker [1995] 1 All ER 73).
Whilst the Supreme Court’s approval of these principles provides a helpful steer, it is not clear how they will be applied to consultations with different facts. In addition, Lord Reed stressed that, “The content of a duty to consult can… vary greatly from one statutory context to another… A mechanistic approach to the requirements of consultation should therefore be avoided.”
http://www.bwbllp.com/knowledge/2014/11/04/the-public-law-obligation-to-conduct-fair-consultation/
Developer reveals Knowle luxury retirement homes plan
Despite assuring people that this would not be a gated community, the statements made were somewhat vague (except, of course, there will be no affordable housing):
Number of homes: undecided
“Most” people expected to be local
Facilities “could be” open to the public
Hmmm …
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/developer_reveals_hopes_for_knowle_1_4273815
Pegasus homes recently developed in Cornwall start at around £300,000 for a one bed flat and £600,000 for two beds plus service charge.
East Devon Watch 