Independent groups have sprung up all over the south-west – there must be a reason …..
You know it makes sense – and so do an awful lot of other people!
Monthly Archives: April 2019
“Beware far-right candidates posing as ‘independents’ in local elections” [or even as Tories] …
This is in Yorkshire but may easily have East Devon parallels. And in East Devon, you also have to cope with Tories calling themselves Independent too!
Check credentials – REAL Independents will have a good track record of community action over a long period – not just since the last election!
10 days to local elections – today’s picture
Persimmon – making more than £70,000 profit per house
Taylor Wimpey – making just under £70,000 per house
Privatised companies going bust after massive payouts to bosses
Multi-national companies avoiding any tax anywhere
Social media oligarchs manipulating people for mega-bucks
East Devon house prices bucking trends and rising by double regional and national figures (see post below)
Time to change from the bottom up … vote Independent
“Land Registry statistics say house prices in East Devon increased by 18.4 per cent in the two-and-a-half-years since the Brexit referendum”
EAST DEVON’S DEVELOPERS REAP THEIR STRATOSPHERIC REWARDS – DOUBLE REGIONAL AND NATIONAL FIGURES
“The growth of house prices since the Brexit referendum has bucked the national and regional trend, statistics show.
In the two-and-a-half years before the UK voted to leave the EU, the average house price went up by 9.1 per cent from £251,778 to £303,162, Land Registry figures show.
In the same time period after the vote, prices went up by 18.4 per cent.
This is in contrast the regional and national picture.
House prices in the South West increased by 17.7 per cent in the two-and-a-half years before the referendum but only grew by 7.7 per cent in the same period after the vote.
This downward trend is matched nationally, where property prices prior to the referendum grew by 19.6 per cent and in the 30 months after, growth fell to 6.1 per cent. …”
https://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/post-brexit-house-price-growth-1-6004876
“Housebuilder Persimmon faces new investor revolt over ‘highly excessive’ pay”
“Housebuilder Persimmon is braced for a fresh revolt over its controversial bonuses after shareholder advisers urged investors to vote against the company’s ‘highly excessive’ pay.
Advisory group PIRC has instructed investors to oppose the pay report for a second year running at the annual meeting early next month.
Last year, the FTSE 100 company narrowly escaped defeat over its bonus scheme for top bosses, but still suffered a major rebellion.
The scheme included a bonus worth more than £100million for former boss Jeff Fairburn that was trimmed to around £75million after a public backlash. The bonus pot was boosted by the taxpayer-funded Help to Buy scheme.
Persimmon, led by new chairman Roger Devlin, has attempted to draw a line under the scandal by trimming the overall payouts, ousting Fairburn, ensuring that all staff are paid more than the living wage, and making steps towards improving the quality of its homes.
Two other advisory firms Glass Lewis and ISS have both backed changes made by Devlin.
A Persimmon spokesman said the company understood ‘the need for pay restraint and spent 2018 working to ensure Persimmon’s future remuneration is clearly aligned with best practice’.”
If only Owl could tell you … voters please ask awkward questions!
Owl has such wonderful correspondents but sometimes their information, whilst being terribly important to voters, just can’t be used – though some if it could and will be used at a later date should the pecuniary interests of some current and prospective councillors not be fully dealt with in future deliberations.
[Sorry, the information reaching Owl is only about Tories – other information may be available, Owl is happy to receive it].
People with contractual relationships with each other involving council projects, a very long-serving councillor who spends a very great deal of time in Somerset and very little in his ward … these things totally legal (for now) but perhaps somewhat ethically debatable and politically awkward …
Really, voters should be asking ALL councillors:
Do you live here the vast majority of your time? If not where (roughly) do you live.
Do you have any business relationships with other councillors?
What have you achieved (or will you pledge to achieve) for your ward if elected?
Do you have any political relationships or enthusiasm for groups which would be considered outside the mainstream for your party or group and which might affect voter perception of your party affiliation – if so, what are they?
Do you own any land or property that is, or may be, of planning or development interest to the council? If so, what and where?
But, unfortunately, almost no-one will ask these questions.
11 days to local elections – today’s picture
Obscene inequality
Children in abject poverty
Massive increase in food bank need
Schools without resources
NHS privatised and on its knees
Global warming inaction
Potholed roads
Austerity: a political choice that favours the rich and punishes the poor.
There are things WE can do about these issues at a local level – but not by being whipped by the parties causing them.
Vote Independent …
Your vote – for Cambridge, East Grinstead or East Devon? Does it matter?
Why have East Devon Tories had to recruit candidates who have more links with other parts of England, far, far away from East Devon?
We already have stories of an (admittedly locally educated) student who must spend the vast majority of his time at his university in Cambridge standing in Sidmouth Sidford and a person in Seaton who seems to have a much greater link to West Sussex than East Devon.
And we have the odd spectacle of old-timer and former Leader Paul Diviani deserting his home turf (Yarty, Blackdown Hills) after many years to stand in Broadclyst, still giving his address as Yarcombe. Go figure!
And around 30 candidates (mostly Labour but some Tory and Lib Dem and one independent – Harv Sethi in Ottery) refusing to say exactly which part of ‘East Devon District’ they live in.
Are there more?
But just these few examples show that, in particular, East Devon Tories are really, really desperate – they do NOT have any truly local replacements for candidates standing down.
Does this matter? Yes. We need to know just how active and interested candidates are in their chosen (chosen for them) seats. What motivates them? Their ambition or their community?
Fortunately, there is a solution. ALL East Devon Alliance Independent candidates have been locally-active and locally high-profile in their respective communities for years.
Cambridge, East Grinstead or East Devon based – make your choice wisely.
Global warming: a local initiative
A correspondent has sent the following email to EDDC CEO Mark Williams:
“Dear Mark,
Back in 2006 you supported me in a move to show Planners the Al Gore film “The Inconvenient Truth’ about climate change. You allowed staff a half hour of work time on top of their lunch break to enable the departments staff to watch that film. Thank you!
Tonight I was reminded of this event and your support while watching David Attenborough s documentary ‘Climate Chsnge: the Truth’.
What is scary for me is that the film tonight was so similar to that of Gore’s almost 15 years ago. Pleasing in that Attenborough verifies all the fears that Gore postulated then with our increasingly sophisticated technology. But the reality is the same.
In what way have we changed our practices to respond to our pending oblivion on this planet. ? The answer: not enough.”
12 days to local elections – today’s picture
Public land owned by EDDC sold off during the time of the current Tory majority:
“Power plant plans for [Carter family?] land on outskirts of Exmouth”
A planning application has been submitted to provide 20 self-contained generators on land south of Woodbury Business Park.
Enquiries seem to point to Woodbury Business Park being the instigators. Woodbury Business Park is owned by Zoe House and her husband. Zoe is the sister to Robin and Rowan Carter and therefore an an aunt to William Carter, who is a Conservative candidate for Woodbury and Lympstone at the coming district council election on 2 May 2019.
“A new power plant could be built on the outskirts of Exmouth, new plans have revealed.
A planning application has been submitted on behalf of Plutus Energy Group for 20 self-contained natural gas engine-driven electricity generators on land South of Woodbury Business Park.
The application has already drawn two objections with one saying it contravenes both the National Planning Policy Framework and the other calling it ‘totally inappropriate’ for this part of East Devon.
However, East Devon District Council’s environmental health department has said the power plant would have a ‘low impact’ on the nearest residential properties.
Woodbury Parish Council is set to be consulted and the deadline for consultation is Friday, May 10.
East Devon District Council will make the final decision.
https://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/power-plant-plans-for-woodbury-1-6004231
Leader of large district council explains why he’s not standing as a Tory this time: party-political tribalism at its worst
“York council leader Ian Gilles is not standing for re-election on May 2. He told STEPHEN LEWIS why
IAN Gillies has never been one to mince his words. But the former policeman turned Tory leader of City of York Council has to bite his tongue to keep his frustration about the state of local politics from spilling over.
Owl says: BUT this is the kind of I dependent to be Very wary of! if there is a REAL i dependent to vote for – no brainer!
“It can be very tribal,” he says. “Very… challenging.”
We’ve met over coffee to talk about his reasons for deciding not to stand in next month’s council elections: a decision which means that, from May 2, he won’t even be a city councillor, let alone council leader.
He took over as leader of a fractious Tory/ Liberal Democrat ruling coalition early last year, when previous Tory council leader David Carr sensationally quit the Conservative Party, accusing some within the council’s Conservative group of committing an ‘act of betrayal’ against him.
Cllr Carr is one of a number of former Tory councillors who will be standing as an independent on May 2. But it’s not exactly all sweetness and light in the city’s other political parties, either. Former Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors will also be standing as independents this time around.
Cllr Gillies, a former Conservative group leader and one-time Lord Mayor, was clearly seen as a safe pair of hands when he took over as head of the Tory group and as council leader last year.
But, while he insists he’s perfectly willing to try to work with members of other political groups in the interests of getting things done, he admits it has been hard work.
“The Liberal Democrats are not natural bedfellows for us,” he says. “And the situation in my own group has been very challenging.”
He says that when he took over as group and council leader last year, he intimated to other group members that it would only be until the next election.
But it is clear his frustrations run deep.
A couple of years ago he even thought of setting up a new centrist party in York, so as to escape some of the traditional party tribalism and infighting. It would have been effectively a collection of independents – none of them ‘extremists’ – whose viewpoints were similar enough for them to work together to get things through, he says.
That never happened, and he ended up leading the Tory group again and becoming council leader.
But he has begun to seriously question whether party politics should have a place in local government.
“Do we really need political parties in local government? No. I’m a Conservative: that’s what I am. But as far as this city is concerned, what matters is what is best for the city. Whipped party politics (ie a system where councillors have to obey their party line) isn’t really necessary in a local environment.”
What you need, he says, is intelligent, able people from all kinds of backgrounds who are willing to work together to get things done. “Is that Utopian? I don’t see why. You’d still have debates and arguments. But it wouldn’t be so tribal.”
Party politics isn’t the only thing that has frustrated him to the point of persuading him not to stand again, however.
The glacial pace of the move towards Yorkshire devolution has also got to him.
He places the blame for that squarely at the feet of Whitehall.
Sheffield has gone its own merry way. But council leaders in Leeds, Bradford, North Yorkshire and York all want to have a single tier of government for Yorkshire, with an elected mayor at its head, he says.
That would mean more money for the region – and more powers for regional decision-making on things such as transport. Yorkshire could become a real financial powerhouse. “I want that for Yorkshire and for York,” he says.
A proposal for such such a devolved regional government is now sitting with the Treasury. But the government has been slow to respond, and keeps drip-feeding suggestions that it would prefer smaller devolved authorities, such as one for West Yorkshire and one for York and North Yorkshire, he says.
He believes there’s only one reason for that. A regional government made up of West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, York and Humberside combined would have a population bigger than Scotland, he points out. “I think the government is scared of the size of Yorkshire.” …
And what about the prospects for York Conservatives at the election?
He chooses his words carefully. “I don’t want to decry them,” he says. “But I think there will be a lot of people who won’t vote in the local elections.” Who knows? in other words.
His own part in local politics is over, at least for now. And once he ceases to be a councillor and council leader, he will also give up his place on various other local and regional bodies – as a director of the York BID, for example, and as vice-chair of Transport for the North. But he’s not ruling out a return to public life altogether. …”
Some Tories don’t appear to know where they live!
It seems some Tory party candidates are not sure where they live. And as they don’t seem to be canvassing in person – just sending their leaflets through the post – there’s no-one able to draw their attention to the problem, so Owl is letting them know …
[Leaflet refers to “Otter St Mary]
13 days to local elections – today’s picture
Credit: Guardian
Another reason to vote Independent in local elections.
Party members have to be loyal to their parties. Voting Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem means you really have no idea what you are voting FOR. Labour and Conservative are each split down the middle (or several middles!) with ideological issues (anti-Sematism, Islamophobia, Brexit, privatisation, nationalisation) with little or no time to think about local needs or local issues. The Lib Dems will have a new Leader soon who may decide to take the party in directions very different to those of current leader Cable. (Not to mention they certainly don’t seem to be able to keep their house in order in Seaton where the disgraced ex-Mayor Burrows is being allowed to stand for them again).
You CAN be sure your (real, of course, not phony “just left my party’) independent councillor has only one aim – representing YOU at district council.
“End of Right to Buy set to increase demand for affordable housing”
“Affordable housing output needs to be increased as the Help to Buy scheme is wound down, according to property consultancy Savills. The Help to Buy scheme has been a major factor in helping young people to afford their own home in recent years. However, its eligibility criteria are set to be tightened in 2021 with the future of the scheme up in the air.
[Take this with a pinch of salt – those “affordable” homes are, on average £33,000 more expensive than they ought to be]:
‘Help to Buy’ costs first-time buyers an average £33,000 extra
A report by Savills said that housebuilding in England may need to increase by up to a third between 2021 and 2025 to make up for the end of the current Help to Buy scheme. Emily Williams, associate director for residential research at Savills, said: “Private sector housebuilding for market sale has underpinned the rapid expansion in housing supply since 2013, including affordable housing delivery through Section 106. But that growth is slowing against market headwinds.”
http://www.room151.co.uk/brief/#end-of-right-to-buy-set-to-increase-demand-for-affordable-housing
“Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population”
“Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian which seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.
The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.
The figures show that if the land were distributed evenly across the entire population, each person would have almost an acre – an area roughly the size of Parliament Square in central London.
Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several large grouse moor estates, and the entrepreneur James Dyson.
While land has long been concentrated in the hands of a small number of owners, precise information about property ownership has been notoriously hard to access. But a combination of the development of digital maps and data as well as pressure from campaigners has made it possible to assemble the shocking statistics.
Jon Trickett, Labour MP and shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, hailed the significance of the findings and called for a full debate on the issue, adding: “The dramatic concentration of land ownership is an inescapable reminder that ours is a country for the few and not the many.”
“It’s simply not right that aristocrats, whose families have owned the same areas of land for centuries, and large corporations exercise more influence over local neighbourhoods – in both urban and rural areas – than the people who live there.”
“Land is a source of wealth, it impacts on house prices, it is a source of food and it can provide enjoyment for millions of people.”
Guy Shrubsole, author of the book in which the figures are revealed, Who Owns England?, argues that the findings show a picture that has not changed for centuries.
“Most people remain unaware of quite how much land is owned by so few,” he writes, adding: “A few thousand dukes, baronets and country squires own far more land than all of middle England put together.”
“Land ownership in England is astonishingly unequal, heavily concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite.” …”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author
“HMRC reveal Devon workers rank among lowest paid in UK”
Owl asks: Who is “growth” FOR? Developers definitely, privatised company bosses too – but ‘the workers’ – hhmmmm.
“The figures from HMRC show the average employee in East Devon took home £19,100 before tax in the 2016-17 financial year, £100 more than their counterparts in North Devon who made £19,000 before tax.
That’s significantly lower than the £23,600 median income across the UK.
Workers in the City of London have the highest median salary in the UK at £54,300, while employees in Boston, Lincolnshire, have the lowest, at just £17,600.
HMRC uses the median, the middle number in a series, instead of the mean average, so the figures are not distorted by extreme highs and lows. The data does not cover people who are self-employed. …
East Devon workers also faired lower than others across the South West, with Stroud, Gloucestshire, recording the highest income in the region at £22,800. West Somerset employees have the lowest at just £18,000. The median is £20,800.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a poverty and social mobility charity, urged the Government to focus on strengthening the economies of poorer areas in the UK. …”
Why vote Independent in local elections?
A response to today’s post on retiring EDDC Councillor Roger Giles:
“When I first moved to OSM and had a leaflet from Roger through the letterbox, I could tell immediately that he was the best councillor you needed no money to buy. I voted for him without any hesitation, and I have never been disappointed in the decision.
(Ditto for Claire Wright but that is another story.)
More importantly it was also the beginning of a journey for me, to understand what genuinely Independent councillors do that makes them so different from the Party clones, and to understand the depths of the dodgy behaviour perpetrated by EDDC’s Conservative / Liberal Democrat regime.
Unfortunately I have now moved away, but I do hope that Roger’s shoes are filled by a new crop of fiercely independent-minded Independent councillors who will fight for the rights and needs of local residents against the elite powers-that-be and who will continue Roger’s fight to shine a spotlight and hold the council leadership to account on both the decisions made by them and the process by which those decisions are reached.
To anyone considering standing as a genuine Independent in any of the roles Roger has until now held, I urge you to take the plunge – the last thing East Devon / Devon needs is yet another Conservative / Liberal Democrat clone who will vote as directed in a totally non-critical brain-dead manner.
To anyone voting, equally I urge you to AVOID candidates from the national parties (or indeed any candidates who until recently were associated with national parties and who have decided to stand as Independents even though we can see through this ploy) and to support your genuinely INDEPENDENT candidate.”
“12 questions to ask local Tories who turn up on your doorstep pretending to be your friend”
14 days to local elections – today’s picture
Today, something a little different. Above is a photo of Ottery St Mary Independent councillor (town, district and county at different times) Roger Giles.
Roger is a role model for what a good independent councillor must be – passionate about his community, principled, straightforward, eco-friendly, green, living and working in it all his life. He has been a councillor for 24 years and he has put his community first for all that time.
He claims almost no expenses (probably less than £ 100 in those 24 years), he cycles or walks as much as possible, tends his allotment and is approachable, available and active for EVERY member of his community who seeks his help.
Roger does not suffer political fools gladly! His firm but fair chairmanship of EDDC’s Scrutiny Committee and his forensic investigation of its planning omnishambles that helped to lead to the downfall of the much-maligned East Devon Business Forum and its disgraced chief, the notorious Councillor Graham Brown (more about him later in this series) have been recent highlights of his many achievements.
And why is he standing down? Because he believes the younger people of East Devon should have their chance to fill his (not inconsiderable) shoes and make their mark on the district.
Roger nurtured potential MP and councillor-warrior Independent Claire Wright and wants to see more like her in positions of influence in East Devon.
Enjoy your well-deserved retirement Mr Giles – local independents have a hard act to follow but will benefit from your great example.
Luckily, Mr Giles will remain a town councillor for Ottery St Mary if enough (sensible) people vote for him on 2 May 2019.
East Devon Watch 