Just to prove that Owl is really quite serfistucated and nice and not at all vile as Swire has intimated, take a look at the blog of one of its cousins in Bristol – where problems are eerily similar to those dealt with by Owl but where said cousin is somewhat more less polite:
Daily Archives: 18 Jul 2017
“Cranbrook expansion plans for 1,200 new homes opposed by Cranbrook town council”
“Cranbrook town council voted on Monday night to object to plans for the southern expansion of the new town. Two new applications for the southern expansion of Cranbrook have been submitted to East Devon District Council for the outline planning permission for 27.2 hectares of residential development, 9.2 hectares of employment development, a new primary school, a local community centre, and sport pitches and tennis courts as part of a sports hub.
The plans includes 1,200 new homes, a new primary school, a sports hub, a petrol station, and a site for travellers and were a revision of plans that had been outlined in 2015 but had been deferred while the Cranbrook Development Plan Document was being finalised.
The revised plans would see a reduction of 350 homes, a reduction in employment space by 5,000 square meters to 35,000 square meters, enhanced sports and play areas with all-weather facilities, floodlighting, changing facilities and children’s play, community uses as well as the possibility of gypsy and traveller pitches as an alternative to employment land.
But concerns by the council’s planning committee were raised about the fact that the proposals added land for housing on the eastern edge of the original proposals between Parsons Lane and the Country Park boundary immediately opposite the existing homes in Post Coach Way which front the B3174, and they requested further clarification on the gypsy and/or traveller allocation being provided.
The committee said: “Broadly the planning proposals being considered are in line with East Devon District Council’s Local Plan 2013-2031, which precludes development within the Neighbourhood Plan areas of the surrounding villages. By reducing the application to 1,200 homes, the proposals maintain an acceptable density per hectare and respect the Neighbourhood Plan areas of the two immediate parish neighbours.
“The Committee considered that density of 45 dwellings per hectare as acceptable and reiterated that parking issues associated with that level of density were well recorded.
“The Committee felt that the applications ignored previous pledges about the green wedge contained within East Devon District Council’s Local Plan 2013-2031. Councillors were anxious to preserve the green wedge between Cranbrook and Rockbeare and considered the proposed wedge too narrow.
The proposal added land for housing on the eastern edge of the original proposals between Parsons Lane and the Country Park boundary immediately opposite the existing homes in Post Coach Way which front the B3174 which may raise concerns about visual impact from the village of Rockbeare.
“The inclusion of the “gypsy and traveller pitches” required clarification.The Town Council always maintained a position that it is acceptable for Cranbrook to accommodate a proportionate and reasonable number of pitches particularly to provide permanent homes for gypsy and/or traveller families and this provision should be within the allocation of affordable homes within the scheme.
“The indicative site was, however, shown as an alternative to employment land and had close proximity to the airport. This site was not suitable for settled gypsy or traveller families to be located because of its proximity to the airport and the Committee felt that a possible transition site should be located nearer the main arterial routes and the M5 and not in a residential area
“The Committee also reiterated that there was a need to separate between sites for each group and, traditionally both genuine gypsy and genuine traveller families were not usually content to share sites with new age or caravan travellers.”
They resolved to object to the planning applications.
Since the build of the new town in East Devon began in 2010, 3,500 homes, a railway station, St Martin’s Primary School, play facilities, the neighbourhood centre, local shops, the education campus, the Cranbrook Farm pub, while construction of buildings in the town centre and the sports pitches are underway, while plans for the ecology park in the town have also been submitted.
The application for the southern expansion for Cranbrook would see the town get an additional 1,200 homes, but also a petrol station, a residential care home, employment land, a new primary school, and an all-weather sports facility.”
Oh, please NO! Police and Crime Commissioners can take over Fire and Rescue service
“Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority members have objected to plans from the area’s police and crime commissioner to take over its responsibilities.
Authority chair Kevin Reynolds said the commissioner’s proposal arose from a business case, which authority members had unanimously concluded “did not contain sufficient evidence to prove the case for what could be a costly and unnecessary change in governance arrangements”.
Members did though agree to offer a voting place on the fire authority to the commissioner.
Cllr Reynolds said one of the benefits cited by the commissioner for merging the services was better use of shared estates. “Evidence shows this collaboration is already happening not only between police and fire but also between fire and a whole range of public sector partners,” he said.
“The cost savings cited from a governance change in the business case also do not appear to have enough evidence behind them to support any change.
“We question whether a potential and unsubstantiated saving of £14,000 per year is a strong enough reason for wholesale change.”
Cllr Reynolds said the authority saw no “beneficial fit” with the police as they had “different cultures and accountabilities”.
Commissioner Jason Ablewhite had earlier cited new legislation enabling police and crime commissioners to take over fire and rescue services where they can make a case to do so.
He said PA Consulting had assembled a business case that showed “there are many advantages to be gained if I take on responsibility for governance of the fire service”.
Mr Ablewhite said: “My proposal is not a takeover of fire and rescue services, or a merger of the roles of police officers and firefighters. The distinction between operational policing and firefighting will be maintained.
“I believe that by taking over the governance arrangements from the council-run fire authority, I can provide greater accountability and transparency of both police and fire services and can maximise front-line resources and improve public safety.”
“Tory minister changes law retrospectively – to hide name of DUP donor”
“If this wasn’t such a serious matter, the thought of a retrospective law being changed retrospectively would be quite amusing. But it isn’t, because it is about so-called “dark money” that was funnelled to the Tories’ new playmates the DUP.
Last year, that party paid for a £282,000 advert promoting the Leave campaign in The Metro newspaper, a free publication that doesn’t even reach the DUP’s constituents – using cash from a £435,000 donation from the Constitutional Research Council (CRC). This group is chaired by Richard Cook, a former Scottish Conservative Party vice-chairman and businessman. This is all public knowledge.
But the original source of the cash is a mystery – and will continue to be, despite the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014.
The Act received Royal Assent on March 13, 2014 and became law on May 5, 2016. Part of its scope was to end a rule allowing donors contributing £7,500 or more to parties in Northern Ireland to remain secret – as the purpose of that rule was to protect those funding political parties from becoming potential targets for terrorists during the Troubles.
As enacted by Parliament, the date from which party donors should expect their names to be released was January 1, 2014 – prior to the date in which it was passed, meaning that it was intended as a retrospective Act.
But Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire announced earlier this month that he was making a (retrospective) change and the amendment would only apply from 1 July 2017. So the period of the exemption has been shifted forward by three and a half years and now covers two general elections, two Northern Irish Assembly elections – and the EU referendum campaign for which the DUP received all of that Scottish money to spend on English newspaper adverts.
Mr Brokenshire said he “did not believe it right to impose retrospective regulations on people who donated in accordance with the rules as set out in law at the time”.
In the case of the DUP donation, this is nonsense as the law at the time made it perfectly clear that the identity of any donors would have to be published.
And Mr Brokenshire did this while claiming to be a champion of “full transparency”!
Now, This Writer is not one to go bandying unfounded accusations around, but I think we can all accept the following:
The decision to hide the original of the DUP’s donated cash casts suspicion on the Conservatives, the DUP and on Mr Brokenshire himself – and the stain won’t wash out until satisfactor answers are provided.
John Crace, Guardian (humourist) columnist – but actually far, far too close to the truth.
“Left hand meet right hand. Just weeks after the prime minister insisted there was no extra spare cash for schools, the education secretary came to the Commons to make a statement on how she had miraculously found more money for schools.
Being a minority government is proving to be a very expensive drug habit for the Tories.
As is traditional with any U-turn, Justine Greening began by saying that everything was basically running brilliantly. Teachers had never been happier, pupils had never been happier.
Then came the but.
But she had listened to the concerns that people had raised during the election and had managed to come up with an extra £1.3bn over the next two years to offset any unfairness in a system that was definitely, totally fair.
“Let me be clear,” she said. “This is additional funding.” She had gone head-to-head with the chancellor, and Freewheelin’ Phil had blinked first. She’d tipped him upside down and a DUP-sized bung had fallen out of his pockets.
Only she hadn’t. At this point, Greening’s triumphal tone became more of the mumble of a remedial reading class. Barely audible were the words “efficiency savings”, “no cost to the taxpayer” and “transparently”.
So much of Greening’s statement had been barely audible that it took a while for the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, to actually make any sense of what had been said.
Justine Greening raids free schools budget for £1.3bn education bailout
It was only after mistakenly welcoming the “new money” that it dawned on her that nothing about the money was new. She hastily corrected herself and inquired where the savings were going to be made. Had the government finally admitted that its free schools programme was a bit of a waste of money?
“We’re not cutting the free schools programme,” Greening replied. The very idea. “It’s just we’re financing it in a different way.”
In a way that it would have £200m less. Even some of her own backbenchers had the grace to look embarrassed by this. Either the education secretary didn’t understand basic maths or she didn’t understand basic English.
Conservative Robert Halfon, the new chair of the education select committee, was quick to spot that, even after cutting £200m from the free schools budget, there was still £1.1bn of savings unaccounted for. Did she have any idea what other programmes she would need to cut?
Not really, Greening replied. There were a lot of different programmes and sooner or later she would get round to working out which ones were pointless and then she’d make the cuts accordingly. All she could promise for now was that the savings would definitely come in at £1.3bn in total.
It was quite some admission, as Greening rather fancies her chances of taking over from Theresa May.
Telling parliament she had been presiding over a government department that has been happily wasting £1.3bn a year, without feeling the need to do anything about it up till now, might not be the smartest job interview. There again, she isn’t up against the stiffest of opposition. The gene pool of available talent in the Conservative party is vanishingly small.
Having basically informed everyone that she wasn’t particularly good at her job, it was little surprise that everything rather went downhill for Greening from then on.
Labour’s Lucy Powell and the Liberal Democrats’ Ed Davey tried to help her out.
Let’s not worry about whether the £1.3bn was new or old money, they said. They understood that difference might be too nuanced for her. Let’s concentrate instead on the fact that £1.3bn is still going to be at least £1.7bn short of the figure the National Audit Office had said was required to maintain funding at its current levels, given rising costs and pupil numbers.
“Er …” Greening struggled. Er … All she could say was that under the new arrangements schools would be getting £1.3bn more than they had been getting an hour ago – apart from those whose budgets had been cut to provide the extra money for all the others – and it would be a big help if people could just be a bit more positive about the announcement.
Not even her own backbenchers could go along with that, and one after the other stood up to inquire if the unfairness in the funding formula would be addressed in their own constituencies.
Greening didn’t seem to have the answer to this. Or anything much. The government is now so weak that even what are intended to be good news statements are going down like a cup of cold sick.”
East Devon Watch 