Daily Archives: 3 Feb 2016

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3 Feb 2016

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Asset sweating, Local Enterprise Partnership

New threat to Hinkley nuclear plant cash


Danny Fortson Published: 31 January 2016
thesundaytimes.co.uk

“BRITAIN could withdraw financial support for the controversial £18bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, Somerset, if a similar plant being built by France’s EDF is not running by 2020, The Sunday Times can reveal.

The condition, attached to a Treasury loan guarantee, raises fresh questions about the future of Britain’s first new atomic power plant in a generation.
Last week EDF, which is 84% owned by the French state, postponed a board meeting in Paris to approve Hinkley Point, amid concerns about the heavily indebted company’s ability to fund the project. The plant will be financed by EDF and its Chinese partner CGN, with the backing of a 35-year contract to sell power to households at above-market rates.

The arrangement hinges on a Treasury agreement to guarantee up to £17bn in loans. Mounting problems at Flamanville, where EDF is building a plant of the same reactor design, could void that commitment.

Flamanville is years behind schedule and three times over budget. Last year inspectors uncovered “very serious anomalies” in the €10.5bn (£8bn) plant’s reactor vessel. In the worst case, France’s nuclear regulator, which is carrying out a review of the project, could force EDF to break the steel vessel out of the reactor building, adding years to the timetable. Another project, in Taishan, China, has also been delayed.
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When the European Union signed off on the Treasury’s guarantee of Hinkley Point, it insisted it be conditional on Flamanville having “completed the trial operation period” and other operational milestones by December 2020.

If Flamanville misses that deadline, EDF would be forced to immediately repay any loans that benefited from government support.

George Osborne last year announced the Treasury would guarantee £2bn in Hinkley debt, “with further amounts potentially available in the longer-term”. The National Audit Office and the EU put the potential liability at £17bn.

The Treasury said: “The initial £2bn guarantee is not contingent on the Flamanville and Taishan reactors, and will be repaid in December 2020 by EDF and CGN.”

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3 Feb 2016

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Devolution, EDDC

EDDC: where unanimous means – not at all unanimous!

“Trust” is key, suggested Deputy Leader, Andrew Moulding (quoting from a conversation between Leader, Paul Diviani, and a government Minister visiting Cranbrook). Cllr Moulding was advising Members who were about to vote at last week’s Extra Ordinary Meeting, on approving delegated powers for the Leader regarding the multimillion pound devolution bid.

Just a few hours later, we understand, EDDC issued a press release that began with an essentially misleading, statement, claiming that “. . councillors have unanimously signed off the devolution prospectus” . The vote in fact was not unanimous, with 7 against and 1 abstention.

The inaccurate press release was corrected, after immediate complaints by Independent councillors.

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3 Feb 2016

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EDDC, Independent Councillors, Local Enterprise Partnership

Independent councillor sounds alarm bells on devolution

Here’s the gist of a warning from Cllr Roger Giles (Ind, Ottery St Mary), to fellow EDDC councillors before they voted on Item 7 HEART OF SOUTH WEST DEVOLUTION, at last Thursday’s Extra Ordinary Meeting at Knowle. (28 Jan) :

‘Governments regularly tell councils that they are keen to devolve powers to local government. The reality is that there is more and more interference from Whitehall in the affairs of councils. In spite of being 200 miles away, Whitehall thinks it knows best how local councils should meet the needs of their residents.

The latest Government claim to “devolution” is no such thing. It is a cynical misuse of words.

The Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership proposal contains no additional money.

And there is a considerable democratic deficit. HoSW meetings are in private – the press and public are not entitled to attend. Neither are the press and public allowed to see agenda papers or minutes of meetings. It is a totally alien concept to councillors who rightly conduct their business in an open and transparent way.

At the moment EDDC provides services to the people of East Devon based on decisions made by 59 elected councillors. If the public does not like what its councillors have been doing it can vote for someone else.

If the HoSW proposal becomes a reality, major spending decisions will be taken by unelected and unaccountable business people. There is also the fear that most of the money available will be spent on major projects in Exeter, rather than in communities such as Ottery St. Mary.’

Without proper debate of these alarm bells clearly signalled by Cllr Giles, the devolution process was approved, though not “unanimously”, as EDDC’s initial press release said.

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3 Feb 2016

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Local Enterprise Partnership

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Project Director for Hinkley Point C quits job to spend more time with his family

The flagship (vanity?) project for our Local Enterprise Partnership:

“The man in charge of Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in 20 years is to leave the project.

Chris Bakken, the project director for Hinkley Point C in Somerset, will take up a new role at US energy company Entergy in April.

EDF Energy said he had decided to return to his home country to pursue “new professional opportunities” and spend more time with his family.

He has been in charge of the £18bn Hinkley Point C project since 2011.
A final investment decision for the nuclear project was postponed by EDF Energylast month.

Hinkley is due to start generating power in 2025, and is expected to provide 7% of the UK’s electricity once it is running.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-35482001

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3 Feb 2016

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Honiton/ Gittisham, Thelma Hulbert Gallery

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Thelma Hulbert Gallery – still loss-making after all these years

Somewhat hard to understand figures put to the Cabinet on this constantly loss-making gallery:

“The revenue cost of the THG to EDDC above the line of the recharges 2016/17 is £73,080 which is a figure that Cabinet might agree is continuing the trend in reducing its overall level of support and showing better value for money. The total amount saved from both 2015/16 and 2016/17 will be £20,600 on the 2014/15 budget.

Click to access combined-cabinet-agenda-100216-public-vers-sm.pdf

pages 199-211

Several pages of costs are included which show that the annual wages bill is around £80,000 plus around £1,000 of car park permits.

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3 Feb 2016

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Austerity cuts, Tax avoidance

Fat cats get fatter

“Ministers have come under fire after it emerged an Amazon boss has been appointed to the board of a key Government department.

The appointment has caused further anger over the Government’s record on collecting tax from multi-nationals after it was revealed last year that Amazon paid just £11.9 million to the UK taxman despite sales of £5.3 billion in 2014.

Doug Gurr, president of Amazon China, is expected to be announced as a new non-executive director of the department’s board next week, the latest in a growing number of business leaders appointed to the boards of government departments. …

… Other prominent business leaders on Whitehall department boards are Ian Davis, chairman of Rolls-Royce and Dalton Philips, the former boss of Morrisons and Sir Ian Cheshire, the newly-appointed chairman of Debenhams. …
… It emerged over the weekend that Facebook paid just £86million to all tax authorities outside the United States in 2014, despite declaring profits of more than £2.4billion – which suggests the firm paid a tax rate of just 4 per cent.

But its latest accounts filed to the US Treasury revealed it is reserving a $2.46billion (£1.7billion) fund for ‘uncertain tax positions’ – relating to tax investigations in a range of countries, including the US and Ireland, but not the UK, according to The Times.

The liability fund is more than double the £800million it set aside last year.

Thousands of ordinary British taxpayers, who do not have the luxury of setting aside millions of pounds to settle tax disputes, will start receiving fixed-penalty notices in the coming weeks.

The fees are expected to raise up to £90million for HMRC this year.
The penalties are issued to taxpayers who missed the deadline for submitting their self-assessment on January 31 and apply even if no tax is due.
If they are unpaid after three months, the penalty increase by £10 for every day they remain unpaid, up to a maximum of £900.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3429766/Amazon-boss-appointed-Department-Work-Pensions-board.html

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3 Feb 2016

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Exmouth, Moirai Exmouth project

Moirai … some companies being struck off

New Documents Filed:

29/01/2016 – First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652)

Companies were:

MOIRAI CAPITAL INVESTMENTS (TORQUAY) LTD
RIVIERA LEISURE PARK LTD
RIVIERA SPORTS LTD
RIVIERA BEACH LTD

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3 Feb 2016

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EDDC

Borough vows to publish pre-application advice from planning officers routinely

Chances of this happening here? …

“The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will – from March this year – routinely publish any advice that planning officers, or its Architectural Appraisal Panel, have given to an applicant about a development proposal before the application was made.
The council believes it will be the first authority in the country to open its files in this way.

The Royal Borough said: “The council offers a popular advice service (www.rbkc.gov.uk/advice) to those who are considering making a planning application. The advice is generally confidential between the council and the customer, but can be published following a request under the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations once a related planning application is made.
“The advice will now be published automatically once a planning application is made without someone having to make a request under that legislation.”

Cllr Tim Coleridge, Kensington & Chelsea’s Cabinet Member for Planning Policy, said: “The Royal Borough is already streets ahead of many other councils in the way it publishes planning application information on its website and this is another step in our commitment to being transparent.

“Everyone will be able to see the advice our officers have provided, how they have fought to get improvements to development proposals and how they have encouraged applicants to engage with those who might be affected.”

http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25839%3Aborough-vows-to-publish-pre-application-advice-from-planning-officers-routinely&catid=63&Itemid=31

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3 Feb 2016

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EDDC, Local Plan, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury

Vote-catching? You decide

Sidmouth Ward Member, Cllr Cathy Gardner (EDA Ind) made the following speech, at last Thursday’s Extra Ordinary General Meeting:
Adoption of Local Plan, Item 6:

“The responsibility for putting the Sidford site into the LP lies squarely with the leaders at EDDC and has done since 2007.
They chose to include the site, based on arguments put forward several years ago by a variety of interested parties. There was no real desire to remove this site from the LP last year, otherwise why was the Planning Officer not instructed to provide evidence for an alternative? Can the Leader explain the purpose of the vote to ‘remove’ the site if it was not purely a vote winning exercise?”
[The so-called “decision” to remove the site was made just before last year’s district council elections].

Although the question was specifically addressed to the Leader (Paul Diviani) who was in the room, it was Chief Executive(Mark Williams) who attempted an answer. He said that councillors “in their wisdom” had gone ahead with a late-in-the-day vote to delete Sidford employment land from the Local Plan, despite his own warnings that their action could derail the Inspector’s approval of the whole Plan. There was a strong hint that Councillors should have known that, as the completed Draft Local Plan was already with the Inspector, it was anyway too late for them to make changes.

Who bears the responsibility for putting the Sidford employment site into the Local Plan? Hardly the Inspector, says Councillor.

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3 Feb 2016

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Affordable and Social Housing

500,000 buy-to-let properties to flood market as tax breaks end?

“Half a million buy to let properties could be dumped on the housing market in the next 12 months, potentially driving down house prices as landlords move to avoid a crackdown by George Osborne.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3429735/Landlords-flood-market-half-MILLION-homes-drive-house-prices-scramble-avoid-George-Osborne-s-buy-let-crackdown.html

Questions: how come there were are so many and what profits were they making up to now? And where will people who can’t afford to buy live?

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3 Feb 2016

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EDBF, EDDC, Local Enterprise Partnership, Local Plan

The enduring influence of the East Devon Business Forum on the Local Plan

A speech given to councillors last week by Jeremy Woodward of Save our Sidmouth is reproduced below. Owl notes that, hoping that memories are short, EDDC is already planning to discuss its replacement (see earlier post). Preliminary work on the review of the just-adopted Local Plan will take place fairly soon. Will its replacement – and the handful of people who run our Local Enterprise Partnership – be the ones to decide what goes in that one?

“Mr Chairman,

Would you not agree that the Local Plan which you and your colleagues are being asked to adopt is in fact a deeply flawed document?

As an illustration, if I might quote from the submission made by the Vision Group for Sidmouth to the Local Plan on 8th June 2012.

I begin:

“The influence of the East Devon Business Forum on proposals for employment land and housing in the draft Local Plan should be considered. In January 2007, a Sub-Committee was established by the Forum to consider ‘amending the Atkins report’:

To refer to the

“Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the East Devon Business Forum on 25 January 2007

“Atkins Report:

“Graham Brown reported that he had attended a meeting with the Corporate Director – Environment to discuss the preliminary findings of the Atkins Report. The findings included the conclusion that East Devon did not need as much employment land as [the] East Devon Business Forum had recommended. Forum members discussed how the findings of the Atkins Report would be amended as they were not in step with East Devon’s needs.

“A Sub Committee of the Business Forum would need to investigate employment land availability, where there was potential for growth and where the business community would like to see development take place.”

End of minutes.

It appears that a group of business people comprising this Forum reviewed the publicly-funded [independent] Atkins Report and then determined that the employment land provisions were insufficient; they subsequently proceeded to derive their own projections, which the District Council then adopted as “evidence” for the increased employment land figure which ensued:

To refer to the

“Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the East Devon Business Forum on 31 January 2008 [a year later]

“Update on Employment Land Issues:

“Members noted that the work the Business Forum had done on the Atkins Report had made an enormous difference to the final report prepared by the Employment Land Issues Task and Finish Forum. This had been accepted by the Executive Board. The report was now being used by the Development Control Committee as a base when considering planning applications for employment land.”

End of quote.

Again, Mr Chairman, would you not acknowledge that the Local Plan is a deeply flawed document?

Because, if we chose to take the Council’s own calculations of one new home to one new job, this deliberate inflation of employment land undermines fundamentally the housing figures proposed in the Local Plan.

Thank you”.