Daily Archives: 27 Nov 2018

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27 Nov 2018

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Environment (local), Green (local), Hinkley C, Local Enterprise Partnership

France reducing its dependence on nuclear energy, upping renewables …

….. while building Hinkley Cin the UK!

“… In a long-awaited speech on energy strategy, President Emmanuel Macron said France would reduce the share of nuclear in the power mix to 50 percent by 2035, down from 75 percent today, rather than the total phasing out planned by neighbour Germany.

The fate of EDF, long a symbol of French industrial might and a world leader in nuclear technology, is a politically sensitive issue in France. It has already led to the resignation of Macron’s former ecology minister, Nicolas Hulot, who accused the president of dragging his feet on nuclear power.

“I was not elected on a promise to exit nuclear power but to reduce the share of nuclear in our energy mix to 50 percent,” Macron said in an hour-long address, adding that 14 of EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors would be closed by 2035.

EDF shares fell up to 4 percent on news of the plans, which a source close to the president’s office said could involve the state increasing its stake in the company. By 1630 GMT the shares were down 0.25 percent.

Macron’s action plan is broadly in line with EDF’s desire not to close any reactors before 2029, besides the previously scheduled closure of Fessenheim’s two reactors near the German border. No further closures are planned before the end of Macron’s term in 2022

Another two will be shut down over 2027-28 and a further two could face closure as early as 2025-26 if there is no risk of jeopardising France’s power supply.

In his election campaign, Macron promised to stick to the former Socialist government’s target of reducing the share of nuclear to 50 percent by 2025. But he rowed back on the pledge a few months after taking office, angering environmentalists.”

In a long-awaited speech on energy strategy, President Emmanuel Macron said France would reduce the share of nuclear in the power mix to 50 percent by 2035, down from 75 percent today, rather than the total phasing out planned by neighbour Germany.

The fate of EDF, long a symbol of French industrial might and a world leader in nuclear technology, is a politically sensitive issue in France. It has already led to the resignation of Macron’s former ecology minister, Nicolas Hulot, who accused the president of dragging his feet on nuclear power.

“I was not elected on a promise to exit nuclear power but to reduce the share of nuclear in our energy mix to 50 percent,” Macron said in an hour-long address, adding that 14 of EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors would be closed by 2035.

EDF shares fell up to 4 percent on news of the plans, which a source close to the president’s office said could involve the state increasing its stake in the company. By 1630 GMT the shares were down 0.25 percent.

Macron’s action plan is broadly in line with EDF’s desire not to close any reactors before 2029, besides the previously scheduled closure of Fessenheim’s two reactors near the German border. No further closures are planned before the end of Macron’s term in 2022

Another two will be shut down over 2027-28 and a further two could face closure as early as 2025-26 if there is no risk of jeopardising France’s power supply.

In his election campaign, Macron promised to stick to the former Socialist government’s target of reducing the share of nuclear to 50 percent by 2025. But he rowed back on the pledge a few months after taking office, angering environmentalists.”

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-energy/edf-restructuring-expected-as-france-reduces-reliance-on-nuclear-idUKKCN1NW14A

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27 Nov 2018

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Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, Housing (local), Planning System

Local Government Association wants two affordable housing loopholes to be closed

“Permitted development rules allowing offices to be converted into housing without planning permission are exacerbating the nation’s housing affordability crisis and should be scrapped, the Local Government Association has said.

The LGA has also urged the government to drop proposed plans, contained in the Budget, to extend the rules to allow upwards extensions to be built without planning permission and allow the demolition of existing commercial buildings for new homes without planning consent.

The Association claimed that communities had missed out on more than 10,000 affordable homes in the past three years as a result of government rules on permitted development.

According to the LGA, latest figures show that since 2015, a total of 42,130 housing units in England have been converted from offices to flats without having to go through the planning system. “As a result, they included no affordable housing or supporting investment in infrastructure such as roads, schools and health services.”

The LGA added that while this amounted to approximately 7% of new homes nationally, in some parts of the country it represented a much higher proportion of all new housing. Office to residential conversions under permitted development rules accounted for 40% of new homes in Islington, Welwyn Hatfield, Mole Valley, Croydon and Derby in 2017/18.

A survey of councils in England has meanwhile found concerns about the rules, finding that:

Around nine out of 10 councils were concerned about the quality/design and the appropriateness of the location of housing as a result and almost six out of 10 were concerned about safety.

Around two-thirds thought that both contributions by developers to affordable housing and contributions for other infrastructure through section 106 agreements had reduced. A similar proportion (61%) thought that demands on local infrastructure/services had increased.

60% of councils said they were concerned about the demand being placed on health and social care services and school place planning as a result of homes being built through permitted development rules

Cllr Martin Tett, LGA Housing spokesman, said: “Permitted development rules are taking away the ability of local communities to shape the area they live in, ensures homes are built to high standards with the necessary infrastructure in place and have resulted in the potential loss of thousands of desperately-needed affordable homes.

“The loss of office space is also leaving businesses and start-ups without any premises in which to base themselves.

“Extending permitted development rules risks exacerbating these problems.”

http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php

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27 Nov 2018

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Accountability, Scrutiny, Sleaze, Transparency

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“‘Councils and crooks must feel relaxed’: why the loss of local papers matters” [and why blogs have to fill the gap]

Owl says: the article DOESN’T mention those local newspapers (they know who they are) which simply print council press releases, only supportive articles and “good news only” items from councils that keep them afloat by giving them a monopoly on printing their official notices and job vacancy adverts….. becoming quasi-council newsletters.

“This month, with the announcement that Johnston Press, the third-biggest group in the local news industry, had gone into administration, this building in Hendon, along with hundreds of other empty newspaper offices across the country, became a monument to the fragile and shrinking world of regional reporting. More than 300 titles and 6,000 journalists have been lost in a decade, creating what many see as a democratic deficit, never mind a future dearth of trained reporters.

The Times, part of the Newsquest group, still exists, but these days there is just one edition and much of the action happens online. Its webpage invites readers to send in their own news and photos, and the phone number for the news team is harder to find than the GRU’s in Moscow. When I do get through to a reporter, he is silent when I ask where he is. “Do you still have a base you can use in the borough of Barnet?” I persist, at which point he tells me to email his editor.

Newsquest, like Johnston Press, is at the centre of big changes in local journalism, not all of them bad, and it is more than anyone’s job is worth to speak off the cuff to the press. But as Barry Brennan, former group editor of the Hendon Times and my old boss, confirms, all coverage of the boroughs of Barnet and Hertsmere is now run from Watford.

“Councillors and crooks must surely feel relaxed,” Brennan says, “now that so few weeklies have sufficient space or journalists to cover councils and courts. It may sound trite, but we really are missing out on big chunks of knowledge, and that’s bad for a community.”

More cheeringly, Times reporters do still get to some Barnet Council meetings, although not many, according to Labour councillor Claire Farrier: “We don’t see them much any more; maybe when there is a big planning story. They do their best, but they often repeat the press releases we put out fairly closely – which we quite like, of course.” …

Perhaps when the Cairncross report comes out next year it will propose something radical: something akin to a series of tax incentives launched in Canada last week. Over a decade, more than 250 Canadian news outlets have closed and since 2012 newspaper revenues are down by up to 40%. Now the federal government has stepped in, offering C$600m (£350m) in new tax credits to the media industry for the next five years.

Whatever Cairncross recommends, her committee must bear in mind that it will always be hard to show exactly how local reporting aids democracy. Because you can never find out exactly what people have got away with when no one was looking.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/nov/25/why-local-papers-loss-matters-councils-crooks-feel-relaxed

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27 Nov 2018

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Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Housing (local), Section 106

“Property downturn could reduce number of affordable homes built by 25%”

“major downturn in the housing market could reduce the number of affordable homes built by a quarter, the property firm Savills has warned.

Savills estimates that about 100,000 new homes a year – a third of the government’s 300,000 target – need to be priced at levels below the going market rate, whether for rent or for sale.

However, only 43,498 such homes were built in England in the financial year 2017-18, albeit 10% higher than the previous year, according to government figures.

Many were built for so-called “affordable rent”, where rental costs are capped at 80% of local private sector rents.

Negative gearing report finds housing less affordable now than at height of the boom.

About half of affordable new homes, 22,000, were built through section 106 of the housing act, for social rent, affordable rent, intermediate rent and shared ownership.

Section 106 is a planning clause requiring developers to include a proportion of affordable housing in their developments, which is often sold to housing associations.

It accounts for 53% of all affordable homes built, passing the 50% mark for the first time in six years.

However, if there was a major housing downturn akin to the late 1980s, early 90s or 2008, when prices and the volume of transactions crashed, the number of section 106 affordable homes would be halved to about 11,000, Savills predicts.

A housing slowdown is also likely to lead to fewer of those homes being constructed. House prices have been falling in London and parts of the south-east for more than a year but values are still rising elsewhere in the UK.

Chris Buckle, Savills’ research director, said: “From the end of the last cycle in 2007-8, we saw a roughly 50% fall in section 106 affordable housing completions to fewer than 4,000 homes.

“Although we are not predicting a market downturn, the housing market is slowing and this could result in fewer section 106 affordable housing completions.”

The Savills analysis comes after official figures showed the number of new homes built for social rent has fallen by almost four-fifths in a decade – while more than 1 million families are stuck on waiting lists for council housing in England.

Only 6,463 homes were built in England for social rent in 2017-18, down from almost 30,000 a decade ago.

In London and southern England the affordable housing shortage is particularly acute. An estimated 42,500 households need homes priced below market rates every year but over the last three years only an average of 5,600 were built a year, leaving an annual shortfall of 36,900, Savills says.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/26/property-downturn-could-halve-building-of-affordable-homes-savills

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27 Nov 2018

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Education (local)

“Councils warn that schools are ‘running on empty’ after minister bets [with champagne] that they can still save more money”

“Councils have hit back after education minister Lord Agnew bet a bottle of champagne that he could identify waste in any school:

https://www.tes.com/news/minister-bets-champagne-schools-are-wasting-money

Representatives of local authorities today also warned the Commons Education Select Committee about increased pressure on SEND spending, and the impact of funding pressures on education standards.

The minister last week told the School and Academies Show: “I would challenge anyone here, if they want to have a wager with me, that I can’t find some waste in your schools. I will take you on.

“I will use the teams I’ve got at the DfE to win that wager. If I lose the wager, which is entirely possible, I promise to give you a bottle of champagne and a letter of commendation.”

Asked about the comments today, Paul Carter, of the County Councils Network, told MPs “the tank is running on empty”.

“Well, [schools] have delivered efficiencies,” he told the committee, which is holding an inquiry into school and college funding. …

Yolande Burgess, strategy director at London Councils, raised concerns about what some people may count as an efficiency saving.

She said a London Councils survey last year showed that 47 per cent of secondary schools had reduced the breadth of their curriculum, 70 per cent of primaries had cut the number of teaching assistants, and 63 per cent of all schools had cut spending on learning resources.

She asked: “Is that a cost efficiency?”

Anntoinette Bramble, of the Local Government Association, said there was a place for efficiency savings, but warned, “Let’s not conflate that with ensuring that we have the right investment in schools.”

She added: “If you have been a local authority or school that has taken that cost-efficiency journey, you are back to ‘we need to resource our schools and run our schools and we need the appropriate money in the system to do that’.”

Committee chair Robert Halfon asked the three representatives whether they agreed that “the efficiency argument that the minister has put is not really apt, but not really possible given the efficiency savings that have already been made”.

They said they agreed.

https://www.tes.com/news/councils-hit-back-over-lord-agnew-champagne-bet