But which 5?
Monthly Archives: January 2017
British government not tackling corruption
“The British government is failing to live up to promises to tackle corruption, according to the chair of the international development committee, Stephen Twigg.
On Monday the government rejected recommendations made by the international development committee (IDC) in the wake of a major anti-corruption summit hosted in London last year by the former prime minister David Cameron. These included the introduction of country-by-country reporting of multinationals’ profits and payments.
The government also disagreed with other recommendations made by the IDC in its October 2016 report, Tackling corruption overseas, such as reconsidering the role of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as the principle international forum for discussions and decisions on tax.
In its response to the report, the government rejected the assertion that it was failing to persuade UK overseas territories that they should create public registers to end tax secrecy. It insisted that almost all relevant overseas territories and crown dependencies have given their support to an initiative launched by the UK for the development of a new global standard on automatic exchange of beneficial ownership information between countries.
Twigg said that the UK Department for International Development (DfID) was working hard to respond to the challenges corruption presents in some of the most disadvantaged communities in the world, in places such as South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately, the wider government seems to be falling short of the promises it made at the anti-corruption summit last May,” he said.
“Progress on the overseas territories has stalled, with the government showing it has no intention to lobby further for public registers of beneficial ownership.
“It is also disappointing that the government will not be making public the information it holds on how much profit UK-headquartered multinationals are making overseas and what payments they are making to national governments. Without this, citizens of developing countries will continue to be left in the dark about the extent to which corporations are able to make vast profits without paying the appropriate levels of tax. … ”
Another guard not being guarded?
PCC Alison Hernandez has said she has not been national media trained.
But does PCC Hernandez need national media training to complete a general election expenses return correctly – or to consider whether appearing at an event with the officer who is the designated Devon & Cornwall police point of contact for the investigation into her alleged election expenses offence may not be the best of ideas?
Independent councillors take the lead in opposing NHS cuts
EDA Leader & District Councillor Cathy Gardner is due to take part in a live panel discussion this Thursday (19 Jan) on BBC Radio Devon, 1-2pm.
Also on the panel:
Dr Sarah Wollaston MP
Dr Tim Burke – Chair of NEW Devon CCG
and two clinicians (poss another GP? And a surgeon (retired?)
County Councillor Claire Wright (Independent) may also be on Spotlight the same evening.
No other councillors from East Devon seem to be concerned enough about the crisis to do anything meaningful.
Who guards the guards who guard the guarded guards?
From Save Our Hospital Services Facebook page:
“Question: The Case for Change document on which both the so-called ‘Success Regime’ and the STP are based was produced by a private-owned health service consultancy, Carnall Farrar which received £335,000 in consultancy fees
Is this the same company of which Dame Ruth Carnall is a founding partner and who is now the ‘independent Chair of the so-called ‘Success Regime’?”
Cost to EDDC of contract with Leisure East Devon
Response to a Freedom of Information request:
“1. Description of service provided – Outsourced to a local trust – Leisure East Devon (LED) – Is a leading charitable trust and runs sports and leisure activities as well as entertainment facilities and parks throughout East Devon on behalf of the council. The land and buildings are still owned by the council, but leased to LED who have centres in Axminster, Colyton, Sidmouth, Broadclyst, Exmouth, Honiton, Ottery St Mary and Seaton. Further information on all the sites can be found on our website at http://eastdevon.gov.uk/visit/attractions-in-east-devon/ and at https://www.ledleisure.co.uk/
2. Name of contractor – LED Leisure Management Ltd
3. Start date of contract – October 2006
4. Duration of contract plus any extension options – 30 years
5. End date of contract – Lease is until 2036″
6. Contract value (please make clear if the figure provided is the total contract value or an annual value) – The Budget for the LED contract payment for year 2016/17 is £893,720 and is paid quarterly.”
Devolution: one foot in the door or one foot in the grave?
“Councils are ‘keeping a foot in the door’ on Devon and Somerset devolution deal
Bid for devolved powers is ‘still on track’ but fresh concerns raised about amount of money being offered to take on new responsibilities.
Councils are still working together to broker a devolution deal for Devon and Somerset, according to North Devon Council leader Des Brailey.
Efforts to devolve powers to the two regions has hit a critical stage in recent weeks after the Government revealed its preference for an elected major – and after it emerged that Plymouth, Exeter and Torbay were exploring opportunities to launch a rival bid.
But speaking following a crunch meeting with other Heart of the South West (HotSW) partners in Cullompton on Friday, Mr Brailey said that while the rival bid had the potential to ‘weaken’ the HotSW bid, he thought the process was ‘still on track’.
“We agreed to set up a joint committee and continue working together to see how best we can look at the issues facing Devon and Somerset,” he said.
“Nothing is moving forward at the moment but I’d like to think we are still on track; it’s more a case of keeping our foot in the door.”
But Mr Brailey reiterated his opposition for an elected mayor and voiced fresh concerns that the money being offered to successful bids might not be sufficient.
“As we understand it the Government is offering £15million in other areas with an elected mayor and that’s clearly not a lot of money when spread between 22 authorities.
“Even if they doubled it to £30m it is still not a lot of money.
“The Government will say here is your money and these are your new responsibilities. That’s not a problem if the money matches the responsibilities and gives you an opportunity to run things better for the community.
“But I fear that the money won’t be sufficient for North Devon to carry out the Government’s wishes.”
And Mr Brailey said there could be even less money without an elected mayor.
“The stakes have changed very slightly,” he said.
“It’s now being suggested that without an elected mayor we won’t get a lot out of it.
“I think it would disenfranchise our area – there is no chance it would be a mayor from northern Devon.
“He or she will be able to make their own decisions that may or may not be of benefit to us. I believe we would be a poor relation.
“And we are talking about a fourth level of local government and clearly people are going to ask what’s going on – it’ll be another tier of government complete with an entourage.”
The devolution bid would see the creation of a new body to take decisions on issues such as transport, education and health at a regional level and not a national one.
Together, the 17 local authorities, both national parks, the local enterprise partnership and all three clinical commissioning groups submitted a Prospectus for Productivity to the Government last year.
In October, they gave their in-principle approval to set up a combined authority to support the deal and the creation of a joint committee is seen as a precursor to a new combined authority.
Also speaking following Friday’s meeting, Devon County Council leader John Hart said: “All the leaders agreed on Friday to ask their councils to support the creation of a joint committee to drive this plan forward.
“It was re-emphasised that we need a strong regional voice to ensure the Government delivers the resources we require to improve our roads, rail and other infrastructure so we can boost productivity and enhance the job opportunities and living conditions of our people.”
Radio 4 wants to hear about government cuts to rural services
You & Yours, Radio4 are asking people to email them today for tomorrow’s show about ‘services in rural areas’. Discussing reports that services in the countryside are patchy.
Contact them here:
“Government’s double whammy for rural communities”
“RURAL communities face a double whammy of higher council tax bills and fewer public services, the Rural Services Network has warned.
The warning is contained in the network’s response to the government’s 2017-2018 provisional funding settlement for local authorities.
The proposed settlement risks “crippling public services in rural areas” and forcing local authorities to raise council tax to a significantly higher level than urban areas, said the network.
It added: “The government’s plans are likely to make life for people across rural England extremely difficult, hitting hardest those most in need of public services.”
Grant cuts had been difficult for all local councils over the last five years, said the network. But until now, the axe had fallen reasonably equitably across both rural and urban areas.
Under the recent four year final local government settlement, however, rural areas would lose over 31% of their central government funding, while urban areas would lose about 22%.
The network said: “The provisional settlement just announced seeks to implement the second year of the four year settlement and, in addition, makes it even worse.”
The situation followed the chronic underfunding of rural areas by successive governments, said the network.
Rural areas were getting a raw deal – despite acknowledgement of the higher cost of providing services to remote communities and the lower than average incomes of rural people.
The network also criticised the government’s core spending power figures.
It said the figures took for granted that rural residents would have to pay even more in council tax than their urban counterparts.
“That is a cynical miscalculation which, has undoubtedly contributed to the present disaffection between rural residents and Westminster,” it said.
The network said it “fundamentally disagreed” with changes to the methodology for calculating the government’s revenue support grant, which was introduced in the 2016/17 settlement.
The inclusion of council tax in the calculation of RSG reductions had resulted in significantly higher reductions for rural areas than for urban areas.
It appeared that the government was content for rural people to pay more council tax from lower incomes and to receive fewer services than their urban counterparts.
“This is manifestly unreasonable and grossly unfair,” it warned. “The Rural Services Network cannot accept this position.”
The network’s full response can be downloaded here:
Click to access Response2017-18ProvisionalSettlement.pdf
Source: http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/services/double-whammy-for-rural-communities
Petition – take back local control of housing development
Petition to Government
Give communities back the right to decide where houses are built.
This petition calls for a parliamentary debate on government Housing and Planning policy over building on greenfield land and seeks community right of appeal on planning decisions and the removal of the presumption in favour of sustainable development.
Too many communities are now forced to accept large housing developments seeing the irreversible loss of valuable greenfields without the right of appeal. The failure of government planning policy has resulted in the loss of valued countryside and agricultural land and leaves communities forced to grow too fast without appropriate infrastructure. Major changes to planning legislation are required to protect established communities across the UK and deliver the right housing in the right places.”
Greenbelt at risk – again
“… The Government has vowed to build one million homes by 2020 which equates to 200,000 a year.
“Don’t kid yourself that this will make properties more affordable,” said Henry Pryor, independent buyer. “The undersupply that we have been racking up means that if we had the million homes by the end of this parliament it still would not be enough.” He recommended the reclassification of the greenbelt.
“We need supply to keep up with demand but it must be where people need it, while trying to avoid the situations where house price growth becomes unsustainably high and out of kilter with wage growth,” JLL’s Whitten concluded.”
EDDC to see drop in income which may affect relocation funding
EDDC has been relying on the New Homes Bonus ( which can be spent on anything) to partly fund their relocation expenditure:
“Planned changes to the New Homes Bonus will have an adverse effect on communities, shrinking funding and reducing the incentive for new housebuilding, the District Councils Network has warned.
Responding to the provisional local government finance settlement for 2017-18, the DCN said its members will see a 5.2% cut to core spending power. This is compared with average cuts of 1.1% across local government, it stated.
Introduced by the coalition government, the New Homes Bonus aims to encourage local authorities to grant planning permissions for new housing in return for additional revenue.
In the settlement, the government outlined plans to divert funding from the NHB scheme to upper-tier councils to fund a growing crisis in adult social care.
DCN chair Neil Clarke said the plan essentially “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. It will strip out £75m from district council revenues and “risk destroying the link between economic growth and the funding of local public services”, he said.
Clarke added: “It is clear that district councils are taking the largest hit in spending power reductions between 2016/17 and 2017/18.”
Government plans will see a 0.4% baseline for housing growth introduced, under which councils will not receive any NHB. Clarke called this “unfair” because the idea had not been included in the original consultation on the bonus and “could not have been predicted”.
Referall centres can delay GP referrals to hospitals
“Doctors are warning that NHS patients face “dangerous” treatment delays due to a 10-fold increase in referral management centres.
The centres act as a filter between GPs and hospitals.
About a third of health commissioning groups in England use the centres, but the number of patients being rejected has increased steadily in the last two years, often for administrative reasons such as information missing in a referral letter.
The British Medical Association, which represents doctors, described it as a barrier that takes decisions about patients away from GPs. The NHS said such centres helped ensure people got the right advice, care or treatment.”
Source: BBC Devon Live website
How many staff members does the LEP CEO supervise?
Reposted comment on the new that the CEO of our Local Enterprise Partnership is in line for a 26% salary increase:
“Two of the many things we don’t know about our LEP are: how many staff our £90,729 pa (current pay rate now under review) Chief Executive, Chris Garcia, manages? Or what the staff bill and administrative costs are? Nation Audit Office (NAO) believes median number of full time equivalent staff across the country is eight.
The initial intention was that LEPs should be self-funding from private enterprise. In the event these funds did not materialise for the first LEPs to emerge, but imagine the expectations this funding mechanism could have generated amongst the “donor” community.
In a 2016 report the NAO says: “The Department [Department for Communities and Local Government] provides LEPs with £500,000 in core funding for administrative purposes, subject to LEPs securing £250,000 in match funding from local partners. All LEPs received the same core funding, regardless of size or structure.”
So there is really quite a lot of cash in the kitty to spend on “administrative purposes” (maybe it is even ring fenced for such purposes and if the CE and staff don’t get it, it disappears back to the Treasury?).
One of the reasons the Coalition announced in their 2010 White Paper the eventual abolition of Regional Development Agencies and their replacement by LEPs was because the current system was not seen to be delivering. So it is slightly surprising to see that Chris Garcia is a one-time “Director of Enterprise and Skills at the South West Regional Development Agency”.
Grenadier and the Exmouth Creative Group – is there a connection?
Grenadier have launched new website:
http://grenadierestates.co.uk/
Interesting that the Watersports Centre no longer listed as one of their community projects. It has been moved to a Commercial project.
Was it therefore Grenadier and its hangers-on that was involved with the “Exmouth Creative Group” that Councillor Skinner seems to have forgotten he may have spoken to?
It says of “community projects”:
“We assess any impacts we believe we make as a business on the environment and community and pro-actively become involved with projects that do not necessarily provide an immediate financial benefit to the company, but instead promote positive social and environmental change.”
http://grenadierestates.co.uk/community/
which would fit the brief of the secretive “Exmouth Creative Group” perfectly:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/01/06/exmouth-creative-group-and-eddc-curioser-and-curioser/
Now, Owl is NOT saying that there is a connection – Owl is not even sure that such a group ever existed, only that, if it did indeed exist, there might be such a connection – indeed it would be surprising if there were not as such a group would surely want to influence all the “movers and shakers” in Exmouth. And the group’s members were said to include ” developers”.
It says of its commercial developments:
“Our work includes building new commercial developments from the ground up, converting existing buildings or sites and their use, and investing in new property that has the scope for additional development or income.”
Big difference isn’t it.
Owl will be happy to publish a response from Grenadier and/or EDDC and/or Councillor Skinner on this topic:
eastdevonwatch@gmail.com
Who suggested a 26% payrise for our LEP’s CEO and who pays for it?
We know it wasn’t Devon County Council- they are quoted as saying they will object. It doesn’t seem it is Somerset County Council as DCC mentions that it believes they will also object.
So, we have a very strange situation where the CEO’s of the two counties involved seem to have no power over the people who are supposed to work on behalf of the two counties.
If enough other board members (including our own Paul Diviani) agree, presumably the increase will go ahead.
Remember, this money will not come out of their own budgets but from us, the taxpayers – and we have NEVER been asked if we agree to this.
LEP CEO in line for a 26% payrise
“The leader of Devon County Council has criticised a proposed pay rise of more than 26% for the head of a government-backed regional business partnership.
Devon County Council will be voting against the pay rise for the chief executive of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership, which is tasked with bringing prosperity to the region.
Businesses, local authorities and universities from across Devon and Somerset are represented on the LEP board.
The vote at the partnership’s board meeting next Tuesday, January 17, will be on a whether to increase the pay package of Chris Garcia, the chief executive, from £90,729 to £115,000.
A spokesman for Devon County Council said they anticipated that the Somerset County Council representative at the meeting would take the same stance.
Devon council leader John Hart said his vote was not personal but was on principle.
“As a local authority subject to significant government cuts, I cannot support a pay rise of 25% for any high-level official,” he said.
“It is clear the CEO does a good job and the LEP has brought many millions of pounds into the Devon economy [not verified as no figures available]. But there has to be recognition of the tight financial times in which we live.”
The Heart of the South West LEP is a business-led partnership of four county and unitary authorities, 15 district authorities, four universities and 10 FE colleges across Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay.”
http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/lep-boss-in-line-for-26-pay-rise/story-30056532-detail/story.html
Important DCC health scrutiny committee meeting next week
“Devon County Council’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee will debate community hospital bed cuts, the sustainability and transformation plan and NHS Property Services, next Thursday (19 January) from 10am.
The sustainability and transformation plan (STP) will be debated from 10am, with the rest of the meeting’s business taking place from 2pm.
The STP sets out huge cuts for the NHS in Devon, with the worst impact being in North Devon. The leaked version of the document is very much more revealing than the officially published version….
Links to the agenda papers are here – http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=2292&x=1
and the STP can be found here – http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=1980&x=1
Anyone wishing to address the committee should register asap with Gerry Rufolo – gerry.rufolo@devon.gov.uk
The meeting will be webcast and can be watched live here – https://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/home
World’s richest people discuss inequality in front of servants packed 5 to a bedroom!
“Amid sessions on inequality, hastily bussed-in hotel workers will pack five to a room on bunk beds to serve the super-rich and powerful delegates.
Hundreds of chambermaids, doormen and cocktail waiters have been flown to Davos to cater to every whim of world leaders, business executives and the super-rich who will descend next week on the Swiss Alps town for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) celebration of capitalism.
While WEF guests, including Theresa May, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and South African president Jacob Zuma, will spend their nights in some of the world’s most luxurious hotel suites, the staff brought in to serve them will be sleeping up to five to a room in bunk beds.
The manager of the fanciest hotel in Davos – the Grandhotel Belvédère – said he had flown in 200 extra staff to work in shifts around the clock during the annual jamboree of the rich and powerful. “We normally have about 100 employees, but this week we have 300 to help us out,” Thomas Kleber, general manager of the Belvédère, said.
Kleber said the extra staff have been flown in from partner hotels across the world to help out during the Belvédère’s busiest week of the year, but because the whole of Davos is packed out with forum visitors there isn’t much space to accommodate the additional workers.
“We have a staff house, but at this time of the year it is getting cosy,” he explained. “We do have some different places with four or five people in one room. We have set up high beds with one sleeping on top and one underneath.”
Despite the contrasting sleeping arrangements, a key theme of this year’s conference will be rising inequality, which the WEF has warned is the biggest problem facing the world. The forum said the growing gap between rich and poor, which it said had helped trigger the UK’s Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory, had led the west to “a tipping point and might now embark on a period of deglobalisation”.
The WEF has organised six sessions for Davos visitors to discuss inequality, including one entitled “Combating rising insecurity and inequality”, to be introduced by the WEF’s chief economist, Jennifer Blanke. Another session will explore rising inequality through a “visual exploration that reveals the causes and consequences of fragility in cities now and through time”.
The extra Belvédère staff include “specially recruited people just for mixing cocktails”, as well as baristas, cooks, waiters, doormen, chambermaids and receptionists.
The Belvédère is the focus of most Davos action, including top-level diplomatic meetings, the signing of billion-dollar business deals and, of course, the best parties. The WEF organisers have taken control of 85% of the hotel’s rooms to host world leaders, business people and celebrities, who this year include Grammy award-winner Shakira and Jamie Oliver.
Not even Kleber knows the identities of his guests due to security concerns, but he said in previous years that Bill Clinton, David Cameron, Ban Ki-moon and John Kerry stayed at the hotel. “There are always a lot of big famous people, big business bosses and state visitors,” he said.
The Belvédère will host more than 300 functions over five days, with the first executive coffee bar meetings starting at 6am and the last of the late-night parties not turning out until 3am. “We have all kinds of functions from breakfast meetings, politician lunches to nightcaps and cocktail receptions in every corner of the hotel. Every company and every single party has its own individual needs,” he said. “Ice sculptures are always part of it.”
ILO warns of rise in social unrest and migration as inequality widens
Kleber declined to provide any details of what parties the hotel will be hosting this year, or how much the hotel charges for hosting events. Last year, a Silicon Valley tech company was reportedly charged £6,000 for a short meeting with the president of Estonia in a converted luggage room. The hotel has also previously flown in New England lobster, and provided special Mexican food for a company that was meeting a Mexican politician.
“I assume [the staff] get good tips,” Kleber said, but “most of them are not coming for the money – they are coming to be part of a once-in-a-year event … Of course it’s hard work, but it’s a lot of fun,” he added.
Theresa May will be the only G7 leader to attend this year’s summit, which clashes with Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th US president.
Downing Street refused to state which events or parties May plans to attend in her two-day Alpine sojourn. Last year, Cameron was photographed partying tie-less with Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kevin Spacey, at a lavish party hosted by Jack Ma, the founder of internet group Alibaba and China’s richest man with a $34.5bn (£28.5bn) fortune. Tony Blair, who also attended the Ma party last year, is also a regular at the glitziest events.
Travelling to Davos and finding anywhere to stay next week is very expensive, but not nearly as costly as getting an all-access pass to the schmoozing. Basic membership of the WEF and an entry ticket costs 68,000 Swiss francs (£55,400), and that will only grant access to general sessions.
To get access to all areas, corporations must pay to become Strategic Partners of the WEF, costing SFr600,000, which allows a CEO to bring up to four colleagues, or flunkies, along with them. They must still pay SFr18,000 each for tickets. All Strategic Partners have been told that at least one of their invitees must be a woman.
Strategic Partners are given access to all private sessions, and a car and driver with a special sticker allowing door-to-door pickup. Just 100 companies are able to become Strategic Partners; among them this year are Barclays, BT, BP, Facebook, Google and HSBC. Companies have privately complained about the cost of the exclusive access, which helped the WEF bring in record revenue of SFr228m last year, according to its annual report.
The most exclusive invite in town is to an uber-glamorous party thrown jointly by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and British financier Nat Rothschild at the oligarch’s palatial chalet, a 15-minute chauffeur-driven car ride up the mountain from Davos. In previous years, Swiss police have reportedly been called to Deripaska’s home after complaints about the noise of his Cossack band.
A former assistant to economist Nouriel Roubini has described Deripaska’s parties as “endless streams of the finest champagne, vodka, and Russian caviar amidst dancing Cossacks and beautiful Russian models”. Sandra Navidi, who was Roubini’s director of research, recalled her trip to Deripaska’s party in her book Superhubs: How the Financial Elite and their Networks Rule our World.
Many of this year’s guests, who include outgoing US vice-president Joe Biden, China’s two richest men, and London mayor Sadiq Khan, will travel on private jets to nearby airports before transferring by helicopter to escape the traffic on the approach to the picturesque town. So many jets are expected that the Swiss government has opened up Dübendorf military airfield, an 85-mile helicopter flight away, to accommodate them.
Adam Twidell, chief executive of private jet booking service PrivateFly, said there were 1,700 private jet flights in and out of nearby airports last year, and he expected about 10% more this year.
The increase in private jet flights – which each burn as much fuel in one hour as typical use of a car does in a year – comes as the WEF warns that climate change is the second most important global concern. In its annual global risks report the WEF noted that environmental concerns were more prominent in the paper, drawn from 700 experts, than ever before.
Twidell said a last-minute flight to Davos from London on a small private jet would cost about £7,860. “Clients we have booked so far include business leaders, heads of state and government individuals,” he said. “[But] it’s not just pure politicians and business people who are wanting to be seen at Davos. The parties there have become a place to be. Davos is now on ‘the circuit’ along with the Superbowl, the Champions League final and the Monaco Grand Prix. … ”
Exmouth seafront- another sorry tale involving EDDC
“An embittered disagreement has arisen between the owner of an Exmouth seafront attraction and the district council over whether he rejected an offer to be involved in its £18m redevelopment of the area.
East Devon District Council is pressing ahead with its ambitious but controversial redevelopment of a 3.6 hectare swathe of Queen’s Drive which has already resulted in the closure and demolition of several long-standing businesses including DJ’s Diner, the Arnold Palmer/Jungle Fun site, and the model railway.
Chris Wright and his family have been running Exmouth Fun Park for four decades. After months of negotiations, Mr Wright said the council made an offer to him involving a lease to run a golf operation, but this was subsequently withdrawn within weeks, without warning.
However, the council claims that Mr Wright rejected the offer before they withdrew it. Members were instructed of his rejection last April in a document entitled ‘Communicating about Queen’s Drive’. The spokesperson added that the council would have liked to reach a settlement with Mr Wright, “but he would not agree terms”.
This claim is vehemently refuted by Mr Wright who is adamant that he did not reject the offer made in September 2015.
A “costly” court battle then ensued regarding his tenancy, in which the council won the right to terminate the Mr Wright’s lease, “devastating” the family “financially and emotionally”.
In a Freedom of Information request (FOI) to the council, and a subsequent request for clarification after the response was only partially answered, the Echo asked for details about how Mr Wright rejected the offer, including the date and the means of rejection, such as verbally or in writing.
The council responded: “The offer was not accepted and was then withdrawn by EDDC on the 12th October 2015 prior to the trial commencing on the 2nd November 2015…there was no acceptance from Mr Wright and accordingly on the basis of legal principles relating to offer and acceptance, an offer that has not been accepted can be withdrawn by the party which made the offer,” the response continued: “There had been extensive negotiation between the parties’ legal representatives during the period between the offer and the date of withdrawal…”
In response to the Echo’s probing into whether the council took an absence of a reply as non-acceptance of the offer, and whether any effort was made to chase up the offer made, it responded: “…the offer was not accepted. There had been extensive negotiation between the parties’ legal representatives during the period between the offer and the date of withdrawal…”
Mr Wright, said: “On September 7, 2015, the council offered us a new 25 year lease on a subject to contract basis. We were happy with the terms of the offer and on the advice of our solicitors, we arranged to meet with council officials to clarify the details of the lease.
“On October 5, we met with an official to discuss the details. After the meeting the council’s solicitor wrote to our solicitors to confirm that an “understanding” had been reached. Our solicitors responded to confirm that if the concerns we raised were addressed, there was no reason an agreement couldn’t be reached imminently, as an understanding had been reached on other issues.
But the draft leases were not provided as the council had indicated they would be, and we received a letter from the council three days later saying they were taking further professional advice.”
Mr Wright said that he heard nothing further until the council wrote to his solicitors on October 12, saying: “It has now become apparent that there can be no agreement reached between the parties to settle the issues…The Council is unable to accommodate your client in the development at this time and therefore the Council is, as of today’s date, withdrawing from any further negotiations”.
As a result, Mr Wright took the council to court because under the Landlord and Tenant Act, he had the right to ask the court to grant a new tenancy, or a tenancy of a part of the new development. However, the council was entitled to oppose the grant of new tenancies on the grounds they intended to develop the land and that it would not be reasonable to carry out the development with us remaining in occupation. The court ruled in the council’s favour.
Mr Wright, said: “We spent a significant amount of time negotiating the terms for a new lease of a part of the development to avoid court proceedings. We were committed to being a part of the future of the seafront.”
He added: “Having traded on Exmouth Seafront as a family for some 40 years, far from being against investment, for over a decade we sought to do just that and submitted countless proposals to be part of the future. As a family this has been emotionally and financially devastating.”
A council spokesperson, added: “The council made a number of attempts, both formal/informal and in writing/face to face, to reach agreement with Mr Wright. This included an offer made in August 2015 by the council to Mr Wright for him to have a new and longer lease directly with the council and to stay on part of the site rather than leave. This offer was increased formally in a letter dated September 7, 2015 and remained on the table while further negotiations continued.
“By October 5, 2015, when a further meeting took place with Mr Wright, there was still no confirmed acceptance by him. During this period of negotiation his financial compensation expectations continued to increase as the trial date approached.
“Clearly negotiation was not working and the council needed to address the imminent court hearing. The council would have liked to reach a settlement with Mr Wright, but he would not agree terms, so the matter went to court and the council’s offer was withdrawn.”
Exmouth Fun Park will continue operating until August 31, 2017.”
East Devon Watch 