“Rural communities feel “abandoned” by police and no longer report many crimes, a former senior policemen standing for election as police and crime commissioner has warned.
Independent Bob Spencer, a former acting assistant chief constable in Devon and Cornwall, says cuts to funding and staff, allied to police station closures, has left vast swathes of countryside without adequate cover. …”
“The fees office began insisting that MPs provide documentation to prove that they have a mortgage only in 2003. In the last six years, Mr Duncan has claimed £127,658 under the second home allowance – £126 short of the maximum. Mr Duncan is rich thanks to his career as an oil trader before his election as an MP.
He worked with Marc Rich, the disgraced commodities trader, and has maintained his connections with the energy industry. He declares that he still owns Harcourt Consultants, which advises on oil and gas matters. Last year, it emerged that Mr Duncan’s private office was being funded by donations from Ian Taylor, the chairman of Vitol, a controversial oil company. Mr Duncan was shadow business secretary with responsibility for energy policy at the time. He later declared the funding in the register of MPs’ interests.
In the 1990s, Vitol paid $1 million to Arkan, the Serbian war criminal, to act as a “fixer” on a deal in Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia that had collapsed. In 2007, the company was fined over the oil-for-food scandal. Vitol pleaded guilty to larceny in a New York court and paid $13million to the Iraqi people in restitution.
Mr Duncan’s main home in Westminster has also attracted controversy in the past.
Mr Duncan bought his first house on the street in 1986 and lent it to John Major as the base for his leadership campaign. In 1992, Mr Duncan was elected and was soon made a minister under John Major.Within weeks it emerged that he had lent his elderly next door neighbour money so that he could buy his home under the right-to-buy legislation.
The neighbour bought the 18th century council house at a significant discount and sold it to Mr Duncan just over three years later. In the ensuing furore, Mr Duncan resigned from his ministerial position.
He then combined the two properties into one. Mr Duncan said yesterday: “It was me who raised the issue of gardening costs with the fees office. “Although it was a legitimate claim, we agreed that it might be seen as too large a single item and therefore I did not claim it.”
“Local government worker ROB TAPE decided to write a book based on the experiences of his council work career. He called it Sorry, It’s Not My Department. …
… Response to the book to date has been mixed. The public seem to actually quite like it and are positive about the messages it contains. On the other hand, councillors and council managers seem to be somewhat quieter. For example after sending information to more than 10,000 councillors across the country, most – including all 70 of Croydon’s councillors – have ignored my correspondence entirely.
That being said the number of independent and smaller party councillors who have been in touch has been impressively high in comparison to those from the main two parties. Read into that what you will.
But given that it is the public who deserve a clearer picture about council management, it is the public that I want to read the book.”
https://insidecroydon.com/2016/04/12/whistleblowers-book-ignored-by-all-croydons-councillors/
“Foreign aid spending will outstrip the amount given to councils to collect bins, install street lights and run local services for the first time next year, official government estimates show.
Forecasts buried in the Treasury’s Budget book reveal that spending on international development will hit £9.3bn in 2017/18 – overtaking local government spending of £8.2bn that year.
Tory MPs questioned whether at a time when councils are under “massive pressure” from cuts it was right to be spending “shedload of taxpayers’ money” on foreign aid. …
… Day-to-day spending at the Department for International Development [Dfid] will increase from £7.2bn to £10.4bn over the next five years, according to Treasury estimated released last month,
Over the same period spending on local government will drop from £10.8bn to £6.2bn as the government cuts central funding for councils. The crossover will happen in 2017/18.
Ministers justified the cut at the time by arguing extra council tax raising powers and the right to keep more money raised from business rates would counter the impact.
However council bosses have reacted with fury at the cuts from Treasury funding and said the new powers will not cover the financial black hole.
Tory MPs reacted with fury to the idea the government is prioritising foreign aid at a time when, bin collection, protection of the elderly and other council-run services are under pressure from the cuts.
Sir Gerald Howarth, a former Tory shadow minister, said: “We are at the point of facing a real crisis in local government where absolutely essential services, such as care for the elderly, are under massive pressure.
“By contrast Dfid is awash with cash and struggling to find ways of pushing this vast shedload of taxpayers’ money out of the door.
“Politics is about priorities. Surely after all the austerity we need to show the British people that we’ve got out priories right? The priority must be to look after the vulnerable citizens at home and to strengthen our defences in the face of very dangerous turbulent world out there.”
The majority of local authorities across the country have taken advantage of new powers to increase council tax by close to 4 per cent in the next financial year, partly to help fund social care.
However the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils, said the new powers would not cover the major cuts in centralised funding from Whitehall.
An LGA spokesman said: “Councils are increasingly having to do more with less and to try and protect services, such as caring for the elderly, protecting children and reducing homelessness, in the face of growing demand. This means having less to spend on many of the other services people value, such as filling potholes and funding leisure facilities like pools, gyms and parks, libraries and museums.
“The next few years will continue to be a challenge. While extra council tax flexibilities will help some councils offset some of the funding pressures they face, it will not prevent the need for further cutbacks to local services. Many will continue to have to make significant reductions to local services to plug funding gaps.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman defended the decision to spend 0.7 per cent of foreign aid, noting how money had been used to help tackle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Asked about the failure of other rich countries to reach the 0.7 spending level, the spokesman said they should “step up to the plate” and meet the commitment.
“A decade-long study of Westcountry coasts has revealed that protecting beaches could also help to stop the cliff erosion that is threatening homes, roads and coast paths around the region.
A dedicated team of scientists from the Plymouth Coastal Observatory has been painstakingly monitoring the tempestuous storms, devastating floods, 50ft-high waves and cliff falls along the coast.
The observatory is responsible for reporting on the effects of time and tide on 1,600 miles of coast from Beachley in Gloucestershire to Portland Bill in Dorset, via Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly.
Now the public is being given a chance to see for themselves how the processes which form our ever-changing coastline work, and how scientists study and measure the changes.
A free event is being held at Plymouth University – where the Plymouth Coastal Observatory is based – to showcase the work of the regional monitoring programme and its partners.
The link between beach and cliff erosion was established during nearly a decade of monitoring changes to cliffs at Sidmouth in East Devon. The Plymouth Coastal Observatory first commissioned aerial photography of the area in 2007.
The scientists are also regularly seen on the beaches of the region, physically charting the changes taking place due to erosion and deposition, natural coastal processes caused by the weather and tides.
At Pennington Point they found that the levels of the beach have fallen – in some places by more than a metre – since 2007.
Coastal process scientist Emerald Siggery from the Plymouth Coastal Observatory said: “There have been a number of cliff falls at Pennington Point in recent years.
“Our data, which includes aerial photography, topographic surveys and LiDAR, has given us accurate measurements of the changes.
“All our rich data also shows that erosion of the beach is contributing to the erosion of the cliffs, so if action is taken to manage the beach erosion that should contribute to managing erosion of the cliffs as well.”
The observatory’s scientists gather beach measurements accurate to around an inch, and commission and interpret high-resolution aerial photography and LiDAR (laser) imagery, as well as surveys which map the entire range of coastal habitats of the South West.
They also provide real-time information on the region’s waves and tides.
Coast South West 2016 will be open to the public from 10am to 3pm on Wednesday, April 20, in the Rolle Marquee on the main Plymouth University campus at Drake Circus. …
EDDC chose to remove itself from the Devon BDUK contract negotiations to go-it-alone with a government grant application which was recently refused.
“People living and working in isolated rural areas may miss out on taxpayer-funded broadband despite a Government pledge to roll-out “universal” superfast speeds, the UK minister responsible for the telecoms sector has warned.
Ed Vaizey told a gathering of MPs, “I’m not going to guarantee to you that every single premise is going to get 10 Mpbs but it should be potentially possible.”
Last year, the Government promised that everyone should have the legal right to request a 10 Mbps connection by the end of this Parliament, no matter where they live. Mr Vaizey said then that this could come into force as early as 2017.
But when MPs on the culture, media and sport committee asked if this could be truly universal, he suggested limiting the amount of public funding available on hard-to-reach properties.
Mr Vaizey also admitted to “significant delays” in the DCMS’ Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK ) unit, which hands out subsidies to make delivering superfast broadband in rural areas economically viable.
He said BDUK is currently “on track” with its target to cover 95pc of Britain’s geography with superfast broadband by 2017, which it defines as achieving minimum speeds of 10 Mpbs.
But he blamed delays in rolling out internet on local authorities, saying that councils took too long to negotiate contracts. Negotiations were “extremely time-consuming and significantly delayed the project,” he said. “I should’ve intervened much earlier.”
This latest hearing comes one day after Sharon White, Ofcom’s chief executive, faced the same group of MPs, who asked about the regulator’s plans to reform BT Openreach.
Ofcom has proposed sweeping changes to further distance Openreach from BT, for example, by giving the division control over its own finances, but Ms White said discussions with BT are still in their “early stages” and may not reach a voluntary agreement.
Ms White did not set a deadline on negotiations but said that a timescale of when to expect changes would be available later in the summer.
Gavin Patterson, BT’s chief executive, also faced a grilling from the cross-party committee last month during which he admitted that Openreach misses 1,000 repair appointments a week.
The committee is due to present its final report to the Government in the summer.”
“Taxpayers have been left with a £17,000 bill for every household that signed up to the Government’s failed flagship energy efficiency scheme, the Green Deal.
Ministers wasted a total of £240 million on the ill-fated programme, which was launched in 2013 with the intention of upgrading Britain’s entire housing stock, a damning National Audit Office report found.
The Green Deal was supposed to encourage households to take out loans to fund the cost of installing measures such as insulation or double glazing, with the cost paid back out of the resulting savings on their energy bills.
Yet the scheme was eventually abandoned in July last year after just 14,000 households signed up, taking out loans worth just £50 million – on average less than £3,600 each.”
“Fears over slowing sales at Persimmon, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, have caused a sharp drop in its share price.
In a trading update on Thursday morning ahead of its annual meeting at York Racecourse, which could involve protests over executive pay and other issues, Persimmon said sales revenues had risen 8% to £2.15bn since the start of the year. Weekly private sales per site were 6% ahead of last year as the company sold 7,598 new homes, with an average selling price of £220,000, up 5.8%.
Analysts said the numbers suggested sales had slowed in recent weeks. Charlie Campbell, of Liberum, said: “Persimmon has seen a good start to 2016, with sales rates up 6%, but this implies that growth has moderated in the last seven weeks, to around 2.5%, as comparatives have strengthened.”
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He added that margins were peaking “as selling price inflation moderates and build cost inflation persists”. Persimmon shares fell nearly 6% to £19.07 in early trading.
At the same time, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors warned that the EU referendum in June and recent changes to stamp duty had created a climate of uncertainty that could lead to falling sales and prices in the housing market.
Shares in other housebuilders were also down, with Berkeley Group falling nearly 4% and Barratt down 2%.
Persimmon reiterated that housebuilding was being held back by planning delays. So far it has opened 75 of 100 new sites planned for the first half of the year.
The company’s AGM is one of the first of the AGM season.
Shareholder groups have issued warnings over a share scheme set up in 2012 that could hand an estimated £600m to 150 directors by 2022 – one of the most generous bonus schemes in the City. A retiring senior executive, Nigel Greenaway, who has led Persimmon’s southern division, could pocket up to £9.4m.
Some are also unhappy over Persimmon’s appointment of Nigel Mills as a non-executive director, questioning his independence due to his links with the housebuilder’s financial advisers, Citi.
The company sought to defend the share plan by saying that since the launch of its new strategy in early 2012, it had delivered a 56% increase in new homes built, invested more than £2.2bn in new land, and returned £1.071bn to shareholders – £550m more than was originally planned.”
“… The poll will be on Wednesday, April 20, between 4pm and 9pm.
All Exmouth residents on the electoral register can vote. There are no polling cards for the poll.
Most voters should go to their usual polling station – if they are unsure where this is, recently sent out polling cards for May’s unrelated Police and Crime Commissioner election should have the details.
There are the following exceptions to this. Voters who usually go to Liverton Copse Community Centre should go to St John the Evangelist Church Hall, Withycombe. Voters who usually go to Littlemead Methodist Church Hall should go next door to the church itself.
There is also a new station for the poll at the Kennaway Centre, 10-12 Victoria Road, which is for voters who live in Alexandra Terrace, Alston Terrace, Beacon Hill, Beacon Place, Bicton Street, Bicton Place, Camperdown Terrace, Chapel Hill, Church Street, Cleveland Place, Clinton Square, Criterion Place, Elm Grove, Esplanade, Fore Street, Harbour Court, High Street, Imperial Road, King Street, Little Bicton Place, Lower Fore Street, Magnolia Walk, Mamhead View, Manchester Road, Manchester Street, Montpelier Road, Morton Crescent, Morton Crescent Mews, Morton Road, Pier Head, Point Terrace, Pound Street, Queen Street, Queens Court, Rolle Road, Rolle Street, Rolle Villas, Sharps Court, Shelly Reach, Shelly Road, South Street, St Andrew’s Road, The Beacon, The Strand, Tower Street, Trinity Road, Union Street, Upper Church Street and Victoria Road.
Other polling stations are All Saints Church Hall, Brixington Community Church, Clayton House Community Centre, Holy Ghost Church Hall, Littleham Community Hall, Palmer House, and Withycombe Rugby Club.”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/final_details_released_for_exmouth_seafront_poll_1_4492528
Less than a week before the poll and still confusion. Head(s) rolling? Hmmm.
East Devon Watch 