The sleazy way that Sidford Business Park was sneaked into the Local Plan at the last-minute will make scenes like this even worse.
Full (grubby) details here:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2018/06/18/sidford-business-park-a-grubby-
history/
VOTE INDEPENDENT FOR CHANGE
“The government have no idea how many food banks have opened in the UK since 2010, a minister has admitted.
Former Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain asked the Department for Work and Pensions how many emergency food centres had opened across the country since the Tories came to power.
It revealed it didn’t collect the information.
In a reply to the written question DWP minister Baroness Peta Buscombe said: “There is no official data or record of the number of food banks in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.”
She then suggested that Lord Hain contact the food bank charity the Trussell Trust for figures.
The Labour Peer told the Mirror: “It is outrageous that Tory Ministers haven’t a clue about the disastrous impact upon local communities of their cuts.
“They don’t seem to care what’s going on in the country.”
This isn’t the first time the government have caught failing to record data around food banks.
Last year the It emerged that Jobcentre staff were being ordered not to count how many desperate people they sent to food banks.
The Trussell Trust handed out 1.3million food parcels in 2017 – up from 61,000 in 2010.
Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust said: “Our network of 1,200 food bank centres is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of highlighting the record levels of poverty across the UK.
“Our data is clear that Universal Credit is driving people to food banks.
“That’s why we’re urging the Government to end the five-week wait on Universal Credit to help create a future without food banks.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-minister-admits-government-no-14188254
If you don’t want “more of the same” fusty, mostly male, mostly old Tory councillors and you haven’t registered to vote, please do – it takes less than 5 minutes. And you could change East Devon by voting for Independents!
“The deadline is looming for people to register to vote in upcoming town, parish and district council elections.
Residents who are not already registered at their current address have until midnight on Friday, April 12, to be able to vote in the elections taking place in May.
On Thursday, May 2, registered voters will go to the polls to have their say on who will represent them on their town, parish and district councils.
Mark Williams, electoral registration officer for East Devon said: “These elections are an opportunity to make your voice heard and have a say on who represents you on issues that directly affect your day-to-day life.
“If you recently turned 18 or moved home, it is particularly important that you act to ensure that you are registered to vote.
“It takes just five minutes online and means that you can take part in this important election.”
The deadline for applications to vote by post is also approaching at 5pm on Monday, April 15. To request a postal vote ring 01395 571529.
https://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/east-devon-elections-vote-registration-deadline-1-5959793
“The UK’s biggest companies are facing pressure to impose caps on bosses’ pay as part of recommendations to tackle “corporate greed”.
The report by the business, energy and industrial strategy committee of MPs highlighted “huge differentials” in awards at top firms following a string of pay rows, such as those at Unilever and BT.
The most high profile was a backlash against £85m for Jeff Fairburn when he led housebuilder Persimmon – a reward that ultimately led to him being forced out of the door.
MPs argue it is time to break what they regard as a heavy reliance on overgenerous, incentive-based executive pay that is deliberately made complex to shake off shareholder opposition.
The report says failing remuneration committees should face action from the regulator formed to replace the Financial Reporting Council, which has been ridiculed by the committee for its role in the collapse of Carillion.
It said the new Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority must be “more robust and proactive in bearing down on excessive executive pay”.
The MPs recommended pay committees “set, publish and explain” an absolute cap on pay for executives in any financial year.”
https://news.sky.com/story/mps-demand-executive-pay-caps-and-profit-sharing-to-tackle-greed-11675321
Mark Williams (EDDC CEO), Paul Diviani (then Leader) and Hugo Swire (current MP) illustrate their cosy relationship.
Diviani quote after success in previous election:
“EDDC Leader Paul Diviani’s pledge when he took office in May 2011:
Turning to his own vision for the future and his style of leadership, Councillor Diviani said: “Some call it safe, clean and green – to which I would add seen.
“Safe comes through good design at the planning stage, through working with the police, fire and rescue and all the other services that deal with our society’s well-being, with particular emphasis on the vulnerable of whatever age.
“Clean is the public realm – paths and pavements on which we travel, the quality of our parks and pleasure grounds, efficient and convenient services, such as waste recycling and collection.
“Green will come as no surprise! Two-thirds of our district is nationally designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which makes East Devon such a fabulous place to live, work and play.
“Seen is about perception and reality and is all about effective communication. All too often we read that EDDC doesn’t listen, doesn’t care, sits in an ivory tower – the list goes on. The cynical view of the last government – decide, consult, do it all anyway – is not my approach.”
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2014/07/18/clean-green-seen-or-pale-male-stale-you-decide/
“At least one multimillion-pound housing development in London is segregating the children of less well-off tenants from those of wealthier homebuyers by blocking them from some communal play areas.
Guardian Cities has discovered that developer Henley Homes has blocked social housing residents from using shared play spaces at its Lilian Baylis Old School complex on Lollard Street, south London. The development was required to include a mix of “affordable” and social rental units in order to gain planning permission.
Henley marketed the award-winning 149-home development, which was built in 2016 on the site of a former secondary school, as inclusive and family-friendly. It said the “common areas are there for the use of all the residents”.
But the designs were altered after planning permission was granted to block the social housing tenants from accessing the communal play areas. …”
Scarily similar to East Devon! Maybe we should twin!
“Nick Meekins, mayor from 2010-11, has aligned himself with a group of former Tories who are to challenge for seats on Fenland District Council as independents.
Mr Meekins, who also wants to return to Wisbech Town Council, said those who had already left the Tory Party “confirmed my decision because the reasons they cited for leaving were almost identical to my thoughts”
He said: “I don’t think my opinions of the Tory leadership on Wisbech and Fenland Council should come as a surprise to anyone who reads the local press.
“In my view there are a small group of uber Tories who dominate the party locally, holding as they do key positions and ruling by selecting sycophants as candidates and threatening deselection to any Tory who may not completely toe the line, and being abusive/aggressive to non-Tory councillors.”
He said so far as Wisbech Town Council was concerned he felt it was a “poor decision and against professional advice” to take over Wisbech Castle.
Taking over public toilets and closing some of them was wrong, he said, and support for “hare brained schemes” was another issue. He cited the water clock and children’s playground for the market and the glass ‘watchtower’ in High Street as projects he disagreed with.
“Surely the town council should be working at realistic schemes that come within their remit that will actually benefit the town,” he said.
He also criticised “a Tory biased questionnaire using the town council staff to publish it. This is probably illegal” and “disrespecting the Union Flag” over the town hall as another reason.
Mr Meekins said he remained angry over the funeral last year of former mayor Patrick O’Dell when the town council did not send a representative.
At the time town clerk Terry Jordan said: “The council received no notification of any funeral arrangements. Notice of the funeral was given simply by way of a public notice in a local newspaper.”
He added: “I am fairly sure that the majority of the current Wisbech town councillors, who did not serve on the council at the same time as him, would not have known Mr O’Dell. Those who had served with him could make their own decision as to whether to attend the funeral.”
Cllr Steve Tierney, who is co-ordinating publicity for the Tory local election campaign, dismissed the rise of the independents – and others -in a blog he published at the weekend.
“Well it’s that time again,” he wrote. “The time when we all go out and ask people to come vote for us.
“The time when the opposition and the Usual Suspects start sneering, lying and slating the Conservatives – while claiming that it is the other way around. “The time when the Wisbech Standard begins its weekly campaign to get somebody, anybody, elected who isn’t a Conservative.
“The time when people nobody has seen in their ward for the last four years turn up and start pretending that they are a better alternative than the people who work all year around.” [Too true – but this applies to individuals of ALL parties!]
He added: “Never mind. The sun is shining. The air is fresh. And the people I am meeting in my ward as I canvass are very pleasant and very positive.
“I have every faith that the people in Wisbech broadly know the truth, no matter what smears the collective opposition try to run with.
“As ever, it will be what it will be. We shall see.
“See you all soon, on the doorstep. Looking forward to it!”
Another correspondent has added more information on that (now looking rather dodgy) questionnare being circulated by our local Conservative party. Perhaps time for a rethink on it Tories?
Owl is no expert on this but it seems a couple of experts agree! But then again Tories (ie Michael Gove) don’t like experts!
“As someone with 25+ years experience in IT and with specific knowledge of data protection, I would say that your correspondent is spot on with their analysis except for the following respects…
When you are collecting the data you need to provide a Privacy Policy which states explicitly which of the 6 legal bases you are relying on to legally store and process the data, and if you are relying on the Legitimate Interests basis, then you have to state explicitly what the legitimate interests are.
Whatever legal basis you are using, you need to be explicit about the purposes for collecting the data and the uses to which you are putting it. Future use of the data must be limited to the specific purposes you have declared when collecting the data.
If you are not relying on any of the 5 legal bases which do NOT require explicit consent, then you need to collect and retain proof of explicit consent having been given for the SPECIFIC uses you will put the data to.
It seems to me to be impossible for the Conservative Party to use 4 of the 6 legal bases: Contract (no contract being formed), Legal obligation (i.e. required by law), Vital interests (life saving) or Public Task (i.e. by a legally official role for a legally official purpose – example would be for processing Council Tax).
“Legitimate Interests” generally would be those interests clearly implied by e.g. the survey i.e. to statistically analyse the survey. However, collection of personally identifiable information does not seem to be necessary for the statistical analysis of the information, so that would not seem to be a Legitimate Interests for storing that. In any case, GDPR clearly states that if you are relying on Legitimate Interest then you have to state clearly in the Privacy Information accompanying the data collection exactly what your Legitimate Interest is.
Finally, political data (which this rather obviously is) is considered to be “Special Category” data, and this requires a far stricter interpretation of legal basis as defined in Section 9(2) of GDPR which has much tighter requirements for implied consent, and stricter requirements on gaining explicit consent.
My personal opinion, therefore, is that the collection of this personal data is illegal under GDPR for several reasons, and the Conservative Party should immediately be reported to the Information Commissioner for illegal processing of data.
P.S. “Special Category” data is also likely to require especially attention to security to avoid the risks of it being stolen or inadvertently shared (or indeed accessed by even authorised people for uses beyond that for which it was collected), both during the initial collection of the data and in the subsequent storage and processing.
Indeed GDPR requires the Data Controller to have explicitly considered the security requirements for the data, and to be able to demonstrate this regardless of whether any data was lost or inadvertently processed.
It is possible that Conservative Central Office provides specially constructed IT infrastructure to allow the secure collection and processing of personally identifiable political data, but if not, then I would suspect that the local Conservative Association is very unlikely to have either the knowledge / skills / money to create such a secure environment, in which case they would be guilty of a further GDPR offence.”
EDDC made it onto Radio 4’s ‘You and Yours’ this morning – complaints about price hikes for green spaces maintenance in Cranbrook…
An EDW blog reader who stresses they are NOT a lawyer or data protection specialist, but who has extensive knowledge of the subject, has this to say about the questionnaire currently being circulated by the local Conservative party as part of their electioneering:
“Your story on the East Devon Conservatives’ questionnaire led me to take a look at their privacy policy available here:
https://www.eastdevonconservatives.org/privacy
If you have contact with anybody who knows about GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you might like to get them to take a look. My knowledge is better than average but not complete. However, I think the policy is dodgy:
Item 3 says ‘All processing is carried out by consent’. The problem here is that Consent cannot be assumed to have been given. It MUST be a positive action on the part of the data subject so in the case of the questionnaire that you mention, there must be a means by which respondents can give their consent to having their data stored and processed.
Item 3 adds ‘or public interest’. This isn’t a lawful basis for storing and processing data. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has a list of the 6 permitted lawful bases here:
There are 6 lawful bases:
Consent (as I say this MUST be given by a positive action – it cannot be assumed to have been given or be ‘given’ by means of a pre-checked tickbox. Contract (e.g. if you buy something from an organisation, they can store your data in order to complete the contract).
Legal obligation (can be used if the organisation needs to store and process personal data ‘to comply with a common law or statutory obligation’. Vital interest (to be used if the data must be processed in order to protect somebody’s life so passing medical history to A&E if you have an accident falls under this one).
Public task (The ICO says that this one ‘can apply to any organisation that exercises official authority or carries out tasks in the public interest’. It would be interesting to see whether the ICO would consider the Conservatives’ distribution of election material to be in the public interest).
Legitimate interests (is a catch-all category but the ICO says ‘It is likely to be most appropriate where you use people’s data in ways they would reasonably expect and which have a minimal privacy impact, or where there is a compelling justification for the processing’. This is one that’s used, for example, by membership organisations because a member would expect the organisation to retain and process members’ details. Again, it would be interesting to see this one tested with the ICO in the case of the Conservatives.)
Overall, I think it could be argued that the Conservatives should be relying only on Consent when it comes to campaigning activities. Obviously Legitimate interest is the the correct lawful basis in the case of members of the Association. However, if they’re relying on Consent, the questionnaire must include a checkbox that respondents must tick in order to give their consent to having their data stored by the Conservative Association.
Item 6 relates to Special category data which includes some of the data identified in your story viz. ‘ethnic origin, political opinions, and religious, philosophical and other beliefs’. The Data protection legislation says that this data requires special handling. This is a complex area but it doesn’t look as if the East Devon Conservatives have understood it.
Item 8 is their data retention policy. They appear to be saying that they may hold the data for up to 10 years ‘two election cycles’. For ordinary voters who are not members of the Association, this looks to me to be excessive.
Item 10 appears to say that they’ll share people’s data with a surprisingly wide range of organisations: ‘entities of Political Party associations, federations, branches, groups and affiliates’. I doubt that this permitted under the legislation without specific consent.
Item 11 says, amongst other things, ‘you have the right to object to certain types of processing, such as direct marketing’. They appear to be confusing the Data Protection Act 2018 with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). This sits alongside the DPA but isn’t part of it. PECR governs the use of personal data for electronic marketing e.g. email, text messaging, telephones etc.
Item 11 also says ‘you also have the right to be subject to the legal effects of automated processing or profiling’ [my emphasis]. This looks like a typo.
Item 11 also says you have the ‘Right to judicial review:’. This seems to be a curious and confusing way of telling people that they have the right to complain to the ICO which is dealt with in Item 12.
I think one of the difficulties of this privacy policy is that it is trying to cover all instances of gathering, storing and processing of data by the Association. If somebody contacts their local Councillor or MP with, for example, a housing problem, then Legitimate interest would apply. The same is true of somebody applying to join the Association. However, to collect, store and process personal information gathered through the type of questionnaire you describe is probably (and I emphasise probably) in breach of the legislation.”
“… In January the government unveiled its much-awaited Long Term Plan for the NHS. It caused quite a stir. In the runup to the NHS’ 70th birthday, the Prime Minister committed to a real term annual 3.4% increase in funding for frontline care between 2019/20 to 2023. The “plan” reaffirmed this commitment. However, the problem with this commitment is that it simply doesn’t meet the needs of the NHS.
For a start, all independent experts including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Health Foundation, Kings Fund and the Nuffield Trust have stated that this amount will only allow the NHS to continue providing the same level of care it is currently providing. In short services, won’t and can’t improve with this level funding.
In fact, it is more likely that performance will deteriorate once we take into account the context of an ageing population with long-term, complex and chronic conditions. All of the aforementioned commentators agree that a 4% increase is the bare minimum required to even begin improving services.
What’s more, none of this funding will be going towards public health initiatives. Historically, local authorities have funded services providing sexual health services, alcohol services, drug services and other public health services through the Public Health Grant.
A grant from central government to local government. But this grant has been butchered by the Conservatives. Between 2014/15 and 2019/20 it has suffered a real term cut of £700m. That amounts to nearly a fall of 25% per person across the entire country. As a result, improvements in life expectancy are now stalling – according to the Health Foundation think tank – for the first time in 100 years.
Similarly, the funding won’t be going towards capital expenditure. This is what allows NHS Trusts to spend on core infrastructure, both physical and digital. As well as medical equipment and medical devices such as scanners for cancer and ambulances. Between 2010/11 and 2014/15 capital spending was subjected to a 17% cut. In more recent years, its budget has been consistently raided in order to prop up social care and the day-to-day running of front-line NHS services. In 2018 Jeremy Hunt raided £1bn from the budget to go towards funding social care.
Not only is such an action perverse in light of the fact that the Conservatives have subjected social care to an overall cut of £7bn since 2010, it was also a brazen example of the short term thinking which has led to the breaking down of ambulances during last years “winter crisis”, the breaking down of CT scanners, blocked drains and sewage leaking into clinical facilities, leaks from ceilings going onto active operating tables and even the collapse of an entire floor of an NHS hospital. …”
https://www.redpepper.org.uk/theresa-mays-nhs-long-term-plan-spells-more-cuts-and-privatisation/
News reaches Owl that flamboyant businessman Nicholas (Nick) Spysnyk, who for a time owned the still-derelict Seaton Heights site (and also owned Stoneleigh Holiday Park near Branscombe), has been declared bankrupt:
https://m.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3216025
Owl is not sure whether he still had involvement in either business up to the date of his bankrupcy, as ownership has seemed to change very frequently, sometimes including Mr Spysnyk and sometimes not. However (at least for the time being, it appears not!
Planning permission for an ambitious holiday venue was granted at Seaton Heights, but despite many promises, the different owners never seemed able to progress them. Subsequently, a Premier Inn opened in the town centre.
The Local Tories are asking the electorate at the 11th Hour! (A BIT TOO LATE!).
Why?
Because they know they have let us down, while Independent councillors have been fighting our battles, not them!
Whilst our Independent District Councillors have been listening and dealing with local people’s issues and concerns for years the “East Devon Conservative Association” may be waking up to the fact that rather than follow their Central Offices National Policies, they maybe should listen occasionally to what is happening in their local area!
A questionnaire is being distributed by the East Devon Branch of the Conservative Party, just 5 weeks before Local Parish Town and District Elections asking for local people’s thoughts!
There is however a “health warning” on the leaflet in very small print!
“The types of information we may collect about you, will probably include your name, address, and contact information and information about your ethnic origin, political opinions, and religious, philosophical and other beliefs. The data you provide will be retained by the Conservative Party, its Candidates and its MPs”.
Nice to know the Tories want to collate a database on us!
The questionnaire first asks several questions about the ward and then asks
“Are there any local issues or concerns you would like to raise?
Then they ask which of 14 issues are the 3 issues that should be prioritised. Looking at the list most local people would hope that their Councillors were concentrating on ALL of them, but at least the local Conservatives MIGHT spend some time on 3 local issues which is a start!
On the second page it becomes even more amusing!
Q: What Conservative commitments are the most important to you?
“Make a success of Brexit”
(guessing the leaflet was planned some time ago!)
First one on the list is Not really a local issue, but the you would not think that the turmoil in Parliament and Brussels was anything like a “success”!
Q: “Cut the Deficit and deal with our country’s debts.”
This could be translated as: Do you approve of austerity and the selling off of public assets.
Again, not much of a local concern, except for the closing of local hospital beds, reduction in funding for all local services, no spending on our local infrastructure but the Government spending billions on HS2 to connect London and Birmingham and Cross Rail connecting one part of London to the other!
Q:“Continue to increase housebuilding and support home ownership”.
East Devon is already building more than 950 new houses per year, but the Tories want more and more! What local people want is “the right houses, built to the right quality, in the right place, at the right time”. Not what we are getting which are large, expensive housing estates that look like “everywhere land!”.
Q: Cut income tax by raising personal allowances.
If you earn enough to pay tax that’s fine, but the less well off become even further left in crisis with the cutting of social services! And what about all those billionaire donors – some paying no tax in this country at all!
Q: Ensure that pensions continue to rise annually.
Anything to keep pensions in line with inflation is good but reducing public services for the elderly affects their quality of life! And “rising annually” is no good if increases are below the cost of living and savings earn nothing and then go to fund home or nursing home care.
Q: Ensure the welfare and benefit system is fair and rewards work.
Just one comment here “Universal Credit! It’s NOT working!
Q: Continue to increase NHS spending.
Local NHS spending has been and is being cut and all our services at breaking point! Nine hours for an ambulance to turn up for a pensioner with a broken hip in Exmouth! And a CCG that has said it will cut HALF A BILLION pounds more in the next few years.
Q: Control and reduce immigration.
They cannot control migration if they cannot sort out a Brexit deal! And SOME immigration (such as health care workers) is urgently needed. And they have already confessed that immigration will now come from India and the Phillipines rather than the EU!
Q: Protect spending on schools.
Only this week our largest secondary school in the district asked parents to contribute to the funding! And academy schools pay their heads and directors hundreds of thousands of pounds – and then often go bust!
Q: Invest our National Security and defence.
It is a known fact that we are spending less on our armed forces and the police. These cuts can be seen with less police on our streets, crime seemingly increasing and less arrests and weaker sentences for those that are apprehended!
This is Our governing Political Party and our governing East Devon councillors asking these ridiculous questions!
You are asked to tick which 2 are important to you! Again, most people would say they are all important!!
You are then asked what party you voted for last time and which party you may consider voting for this time around, and finally asking you if you want to help or even join the Conservative Party! Remember, all this data on you is kept for later use (or sale).
What’s the alternative?
This questionnaire graphically demonstrates how out of touch this national and local political party is!!
Don’t reply to add to their already large database on you but elect a local INDEPENDENT candidate, already in touch with the electorate and already fighting on your behalf!
“Private companies will be banned by a Labour government from running services that deal with vulnerable people and their rights, under a far-reaching plan to restrict outsourcing.
The party has drawn up the plan in response to what it describes as a series of “outsourcing disasters” involving services handed to private firms – from testing for sickness benefits to the operation of some NHS cancer services.
Under the plan, contracts that deal with people deemed to be “at risk”, and contracts that infringe on human rights or entail the use of “coercive powers” can not be outsourced. People “at risk” are defined as those who rely on state protection, be they prisoners, hospital patients or benefits recipients. The new rules would kick in when current service contracts expire or are terminated.
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Exceptions will be built into the system. The new rules will not apply to contracts of less than a certain value, or where it can be shown that “at risk” people are best served by an existing private contractor. State bodies will be able to argue that they do not yet have the capacity to carry out the service.
The plan comes after a series of high-profile outsourcing rows. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has criticised the privatisation of cancer-scanning services in Oxford, with doctors warning that this could damage patients’ health. The private company InHealth has been given a contract to deliver positron emission computerised tomography (PET-CT) scanning in the Thames Valley. The service was taken away from the NHS trust’s Churchill hospital in Oxford.
The plan is likely to be backed by unions, but could cause concern in councils under financial pressure after years of cuts.
Last summer, the Ministry of Justice was forced to take control of Birmingham prison from the contractor G4S, after inspections found that prisoners were regularly using drink, drugs and violence, and corridors were littered with cockroaches, blood and vomit.
The party has repeatedly criticised the outsourcing of assessments for Personal Independent Payments and for Employment and Support Allowance, saying that this has led to a breakdown in trust between disabled people and their health assessors.
Both central and local government would have to follow new statutory guidance under the plan, which would see a major increase in the services run in-house by councils and Whitehall departments.
Andrew Gwynne MP, the shadow communities secretary, said that the public had “paid the price for outsourcing”.
“The Tories’ dogmatic commitment to markets at all costs has delivered sub-standard services at inflated prices,” he said. “And when they fail, as they often do, it’s the taxpayer who picks up the bill. Labour is proposing a radical new settlement that gives people the power to end outsourcing and decide for themselves how best to deliver the services they need.
“For too long this country has been run by, and in the interests of, a few who are all in it together. It’s time to bring democracy and accountability back to government, and put power in the hands of the many.”
The plan is likely to be backed by unions, but could cause concern in councils already under financial pressure after years of cuts. The plan is part of a wider Labour strategy to return services to public hands. It marks an attempt by Labour to show that it is serious about implementing major changes to the economy, while gaining distance from party splits on Brexit.”
Owl says: Do you think this applies to Tavistock? Dream on!
“Auditors have blown wide open failings in the way plans were cooked up for a sprawling Premier Inn development in a leafy Devon town.
West Devon council chiefs have been criticised for the way they led multi-million plan proposals to build over a key car park in the heart of Tavistock.
A damning new independent dossier reveals how Invest to Earn – a team of three councillors tasked with leading the project – lacked crucial knowledge of the property market and received no training to ensure they knew every risk before taking decisions.
A lack of communication between elected members about the gravity of the development, ‘hostility’ on social media and a failure to access key documents online all inevitably brought down what many deemed a pipe dream, the public file reveals. …”
[read on for more shocking information how bad decisions got worse]
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/premier-inn-tavistock-report-findings-2665718
“With Britons increasingly turning to digital payments, consumers aged over 55 and those on low incomes “risk being left behind” by banks, according to new research.
The findings come in the wake of a major report earlier this month that says more than 8 million UK adults would struggle to cope in a cashless society.
According to the survey of 3,000 consumers, three-quarters (74%) of those aged 55-plus never use mobile-banking apps, while the figure for low-income earners was 57%.
In addition, in both these categories, one in four (26%) of those surveyed said they never used online banking via a computer.
But at the same time, the research from management consulting company Accenture found that only 10% of UK consumers visited a bank branch at least once a week – falling to 7% of people aged over 55.
With banks increasingly focusing on their digital platforms, it is important for them to adapt their offerings to ensure certain groups of consumers “are not left behind in the digital revolution”, says Peter Kirk, managing director of financial services at Accenture. “Our research shows that low-income earners and those aged over 55 are using branches less, but they’re not using digital channels either,” he adds.
However, the survey indicated many of these people would like some help with using mobile or online banking. When it came to in-branch services that would appeal to them, 58% of over-55s and 55% of low-income earners would find in-branch education sessions appealing to help them improve their digital skills.
With bank branches and ATMs closing, a report published by the Access to Cash Review earlier this month said companies and organisations providing essential services should be required to ensure that consumers can continue to pay with notes and coins.
The review found that cash is still king across large parts of the UK economy, with more than 80% of people in Britain saying they pay taxi drivers, newspaper sellers, window cleaners and gardeners with notes and coins.
The report warned the country’s “cash infrastructure” – which costs £5bn a year to run – was on the verge of collapse because of its declining profitability, and said the government, regulators and banks all needed to take action. The review was funded by the cash-machine network Link, but was independent from it.
The report’s authors said the UK was not ready to go cashless and that despite the runaway growth of contactless and mobile payments, a “significant number” of people – about 2.2 million – were using cash for all their day-to-day transactions.
Last year, debit cards overtook notes and coins as the most popular form of payment in the UK for the first time, and the report predicts cash could fall to just 10% of all payments in the next 15 years.”
“A major new investigation by the Bureau Local and HuffPost UK revealed austerity’s dirty little secret: massive funding cuts have been, in part, offset by a mass sell-off of public land. But what’s not being examined is who is buying that land, and what they are building on it. If used appropriately, surplus public land could be an important first step towards solving the housing crisis, but the present fire sale is, if anything, making it worse.
The Bureau’s research uncovered 12,000 public spaces sold into private ownership since 2014/15, ranging from grand metropolitan libraries to small patches of scrub land. Guy Shrubsole and Anna Powell Smith, in mapping landownership in England, discovered that £100million worth of the land sold-off by councils between 2017 and 2018 went to offshore companies. Earlier this year, Brett Christophers revealed that 10% of the UK’s land has transferred from public to private hands since 1979. In 2016, our own work at NEF revealed an alarming spread of sales from central government departments in recent years. The government itself claims to have sold 25% of the ‘core’ property holdings government departments since 2010.
Why are we offloading land at all? Ostensibly it’s to meet the government’s target: 160,000 new homes on previously public land by 2020. But the murky reality is that local authorities, like other public bodies, are selling land to fill the vast funding gaps driven by austerity. And it’s because of this fact that selling public land won’t generate the affordable homes that we desperately need to solve the housing crisis.
Local government funding has been cut in half between 2010/11 and 2017/18, so when government policy dictates selling surplus land, it’s no wonder that councils are using their land assets to plug the holes in their budgets. Birmingham City Council has used £53million from asset sales to balance its books, more than any other local authority in England, with as much as £26million of that revenue used to fund redundancies (also a result of austerity) at the council.
As NEF have shown, a key driver of the housing crisis is the price of land. When the incentive in selling public land is to raise cash to keep vital services afloat, councils inevitably sell to the highest bidder, as quickly as possible. While local authorities are technically allowed to sell at slightly less than the highest value (although many don’t out of financial necessity), central government departments are actually prohibited from selling land at lower than the ‘best consideration reasonably obtainable’. Developers cannot both build affordable housing and make a profit, because the price of land is prohibitively high. Expensive land leads to expensive houses. In this upside-down system, the price paid for land ultimately dictates what gets built when it should be the other way round.
This theory is laid bare in the planning documents that sit behind the sites. In our research on the central government sell off, we’ve come across countless examples of developers securing planning permission with promises of affordable housing, only to wriggle out of their commitments a few months later by claiming they can’t afford to.
Take Runwell Hospital in Wickford. Chelmsford City Council’s affordable housing plan requires that 35% of homes on new developments are affordable. Yet the site’s initial planning permission required only 20% affordable housing provision. Even so, the developer later submitted an application to reduce this further to just 10% on the grounds of affordability – just 61 of 575 homes.
Our research in 2017 revealed that:
Only one is five of the new homes to be built on sold-off public land is likely to be classed as ‘affordable’ (which, at 80% of market rates, is still largely unaffordable to those who need it most).
As little as 6% of new homes are likely to be social housing, and in some cases developments comprise solely of luxury properties.
New homes on formerly public land are dramatically behind schedule. At the current rate, the government’s target of building 160,000 homes will take until 2032 to achieve, 12 years later than promised.
Releasing land into the private market is not delivering the quantity or quality of affordable homes we need. As more land is sold, there is less opportunity to reverse these trends.
The sell-off of public land for hole-plugging cash receipts is not only economically short-sighted and unsustainable, it’s also driving the housing crisis. There is a clear tension between disposing of land to plug funding gaps and developing high-quality, genuinely and permanently affordable housing and other infrastructure. This year we are continuing to get to grips with the effect of the public land sale on the housing crisis. First up is a close look at NHS sites sold in the last year, then in the coming months we will be bringing together central government and local authority land sales to get a truly national picture of the sell-off. Only then can we build a picture of an alternative to the fire sale of public land, that results in the supply of genuinely affordable homes.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/housing-crisis-public-land_uk_5c811055e4b0a135b5199d5d
“… If you live in a rural environment your chances of being successful in life are very much linked to your early years. I live in rural Worcestershire, and went to college from rural North Yorkshire. I remain the only degree educated person in my family and the reasons are clear – opportunities in rural areas are not as abundant for young people as they are in cities. As a result, our countryside has become a social mobility coldspot, with my local council of Wychavon rated 310th out of 324 councils in a recent government report. If your parents are plumbers or cleaners, bakers or builders, the chances are you will follow in their footsteps. For some, through choice, but for others, it is because options are limited.
It is easy to hide social mobility in the countryside. My town of Pershore is generally a well-off and affluent area. House prices and wages are above the national average, the town is a great place to raise children and the schools are generally good. But if you are from a working-class background and work in the service industry the average house prices of £300,000 quickly make the experience of living in the area unsustainable. And the recent revelation that house prices have been forced upwards by the government’s Help to Buy scheme, just adds to the issues people face. With housing unaffordable, people are struggling to help their children access opportunities to increase their chances in life.
Education is the key to success. Education opens doors to all, regardless of backgrounds. But in a rural area, education opportunities can be very limited. Schools have the added pressures of large catchment areas, with children travelling from a wide area. Class sizes can also be small and, in the current educational climate, unsustainable. So schools have to focus on traditional GCSE and A level subjects, limiting their students’ knowledge of other, potentially inspiring minority subjects. Similarly colleges focus on qualifications aimed at the local economy. In Pershore, our local college is an agricultural centre so, if a young person wants to study ancient history or geology, electrical engineering or photography, they must travel to neighbouring towns. This commute requires time and the money, and is also restricted further by the continued reduction of bus services in the area.
But it is an even bigger issue for the local economy if young people decide to go to university. As young men and women move into cities to study at university, they create a rural brain drain. This results in a drop in the 18-30 year old population, which further limits the opportunities of those who remain as it keeps job opportunities in traditional low paid professions. New industries rarely emerge and there are few incentives for young locals to return after graduation. With limited public transport and sluggish roll-out of high speed broadband graduates find no drive to return to their childhood homes. …
… Of course not everything is perfect in major cities, but it is clear that opportunities are more accessible and education is the driving force that helps students from more deprived environments succeed in life. Wychavon, however, is struggling to keep up with the pace, with education opportunities limited and access to transport becoming ever more a problem. Has social mobility stopped? Certainly not. But if you live in a rural area, your chances are being constrained, and maybe we need to seek alternative approaches to help our rural young people succeed.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/countryside-poverty_uk_5c7da47de4b060c5e078048c
“The government has said it remains committed to passing a law that could allow tax exiles the right to vote and donate to political parties for life, after it failed to pass through the House of Commons.
MPs, including the serial filibusterer Philip Davies, tabled dozens of amendments to the overseas electors bill for debate on Friday, resulting in it being dropped after parliamentary time to discuss it ran out.
Under current law, British expatriates can remain on the electoral roll, allowing them to vote and make donations, for 15 years after they leave the UK. The overseas electors bill proposed removing the time limit, giving all expats the right to vote and donate for life.
Speaking on behalf of the government, the cabinet office minister Chloe Smith told the House: “The government remains committed to scrapping the cap.” The Conservative party pledged to bring in the law in its 2017 manifesto.
Anti-corruption campaigners and Labour MPs had expressed alarm at the bill. Margaret Hodge, the former chair of parliament’s public accounts committee, described the bill as “shocking” and warned it would “increase tax haven billionaires’ influence and allow dirty money donations to political parties”.”
“Concerns about poor standards of house-building by big developers in East Devon have been raised by councillors in a strongly-worded letter to the Government.
East Devon District Council has written asking housing minister Kit Malthouse to fulfil the Government’s pledge, announced in February 2018, to introduce a simpler system for making complaints against shoddy builders.
The proposal to write the letter was unanimously supported by councillors during a meeting on Wednesday, February 27, when the problems facing many East Devon residents were discussed.
In February 2018 the Government said it would introduce ‘as a priority’ a new property ombudsman to streamline complaints against shoddy builders.
But the Liberal Democrat councillor for Axminster Town, Douglas Hull, told the full council meeting the situation with new house-building in the district seemed to be getting worse, with many people buying new homes which turned out to be of a second-rate standard.
He proposed that ‘we call on the Government to fulfil its pledge to provide this much-needed remedy for homeowners, as a matter of the highest priority’.
The motion was seconded by fellow Liberal Democrat Eleanor Rylance, representing Broadclyst. She said tenants of new-build properties were suffering from sub-standard housing, and were worried about complaining to their landlords for fear of losing their tenancy. She added that, even when complaints were made, issues remained unresolved.
The letter to the housing minister, signed by the council’s chief executive Mark Williams, says: “I think there is now a general view that quality of construction come a very poor second to the pursuit of profit by volume housebuilders. We have know for some time about the failures, both locally and nationally, of the NHBC (National House Building Council) and the House Builders Federation to ensure that all new homes are consistently built to a standard that people buying them can have full confidence in.”
Mr Williams’s letter quotes the motion agreed by the council, and asks Mr Malthouse to ‘let me know what the Government’s intentions are in terms of introducing the promised ombudsman for hard-pressed new home owners’.
A spokesperson for East Devon District Council said there has not yet been a response to the letter.
https://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/housing-minister-urged-to-act-on-poor-house-builders-1-5953911
East Devon Watch 