Whose fault is it the Local Plan took so long? Sidmouth says EDDC’s Mark Williams!!!

Not the false start made by the first Local Development Framework group, which spent 2-plus years visiting sites of favoured developers.

Not the East Devon Business Forum and its Chairman disgraced ex-councillor Graham Brown which attempted to get an iron grip on it.

Not the officers and councillors who employed consultant after consultant until they found one they agreed with.

Not the same officers and councillors who had their drafts thrown out twice by the Planning Inspector.

NO! NO! NO! IT IS ALL THE FAULT OF – SIDMOUTH!!!

Sidmouth delayed the Local Plan! and Mark William’s loses it!

At a heated meeting of EDDC councillors tonight to approve the Local Plan, CEO Mark Williams lost control of himself in a big way.

In response to a fairly conciliatory speech from resident Richard Eley, on behalf of Save our Sidmouth, a furious Williams lambasted Sidmouth for delaying the Local Plan and increasing the number of houses in it!

“But for Sidmouth we would have had a local plan three years ago,” he ranted, adding that “the end result of all your objections is that we’ve ended up in the local plan with more houses than originally proposed.” (Gasps of astonishment from the public and cries of “rubbish” and “nonsense”.)

A few minutes later he rounded on Richard Eley again accusing him of “churlishly” calling the Inspector “idiotic”. Eley sprang to his feet and angrily denied he had used that word about the inspector, and demanded an apology – supported by more cries of “scandal” and “apologise” from the public.

He insisted on reading the offending part of his speech again which proved his point that the i-word was never used. In fact, he described the decision to include land at Sidford for a business park as “stupid”.

After more moments of mayhem and shouting from the public, a reluctant apology was extracted from the CEO.

Many observers were left wondering if Mr Williams might not need a long rest –as in retirement on a generous pension………

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

28 Jan 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts

David Cameron still unhappy with his constituency council’s cuts and demands they “look again”

Prime minister David Cameron has once again advised the Conservative leaders of his local council to “look again” at its budget proposals after the council’s leader announced £69m of planned savings for this Parliament.

In a letter sent to Oxfordshire County Council, in response to its cabinet’s warning of the “devastating impact” of cuts, the prime minister said he understood it will be challenging to make further needed savings – but urged it to reconsider its plans.

“Oxfordshire and other councils must continue to reform the way they work to become more efficient, both in back-office functions and in front-line service delivery,” he said in a statement today.

“The recent Spending Review… made it possible for councils to sell property assets and use the capital to invest in transforming local services – and ensure further savings.”

Earlier this week, the council’s leader, Cllr Ian Hudspeth, was “desperately sorry” to announce that cuts to the county would have to go even further than imagined, with these options once considered just a worst-case scenario that councillors believed would not be needed.

“The clear message from our budget consultation in the autumn was that making proposed savings would have a real impact on people and communities,” he said. “We will be doing everything we can to help communities manage their impact. It should be remembered that this is our sixth consecutive year of having to make cuts and by 2020 we will have completed a decade of savings.”

The letter from the prime minister follows similar correspondence in November, after which Cameron was accused of breaching the ministerial code by offering special help to his Witney constituency in the face of looming cuts.

The exchange triggered a wave of criticism of ministerial hypocrisy at the time, as well as accusations that the prime minister failed to understand the impact of his own government’s cuts.

This was further exacerbated when Hudspeth sent a letter to Cameron detailing, in a six-page analysis, accurate figures showing the depth of the county council’s financial plight, despite reductions in back office expenditure.

Speaking to the Oxford Mail this morning, Cllr Hudspeth said the county council’s deep cuts were a result of the government’s “difficult decisions to reduce the national deficit”, an aim which it had always been clear about.

“There is no row. We are two men trying to do very difficult jobs in a difficult situation,” he said. “The county council is using its reserves, selling its property assets and working on co-location with other authorities to become more efficient, so to be quit honest Mr Cameron and I are both saying similar things.”

Overall, Oxfordshire has been forced to bring savings originally proposed for future years back into 2016-17, as well as slash spending in certain areas in a one-off basis, including library services and training budgets. It also warned that there will be more cuts to come after the council assesses whether there are different ways of working, with a lot of debate still expected in the coming months.

http://www.publicsectorexecutive.com/Public-Sector-News/cameron-asks-his-constituency-to-look-again-at-devastating-cuts