Owl spotted this article. It explains why the attractiveness of Barnstable has enabled it to encourage very high tech businesses. Do you remember years ago we were promised that if we concreted over Grade 1 agricultural land for Skypark and Cranbrook we would get this sort of employment here?  Also, Is it such a good idea for EDDC to turn its back on the joint National Park initiative with Dorset when lifestyle and proximity to a National Park feature so prominently in attracting high paid jobs? 

www.thetimes.co.uk /edition/business/levelling-up-is-not-just-about-the-north-fn65w0bmr

Peter Evans in the Sunday Times writes:

One of the apprentices at Applegate Marketplace takes a week off each spring to help with the lambing on her family’s farm. Such is life in a cutting-edge technology business if you are based in Barnstaple, north Devon, an hour’s drive from Exeter.

“It’s a real advantage not to spend your life in broken-down trains or traffic jams,” said chief executive Stuart Brocklehurst. He gave up a City career six years ago for a more bucolic life running Applegate, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to match buyers with suppliers in the public and private sectors.

“I come to work with my dog; I go out walking on Dartmoor every weekend,” said Brocklehurst, 46.

While these lifestyle factors are undoubtedly alluring, building a business outside a recognised hub can be tough. Last week, The Sunday Times published the inaugural KPMG Best Places for Business supplement, listing the top 20 cities and towns in Britain for fast-growing companies. Among the locations were international powerhouses such as London and Edinburgh, along with rapidly evolving hotspots such as Leeds and Manchester.

But what of the places that did not make the list? Before his shock resignation as chancellor last week, Sajid Javid repeatedly promised to “level up” the economy by boosting the regions. If his successor, Rishi Sunak, is to pursue a similar agenda, the towns and cities that have been left behind will require the most attention. Places such as Barnstaple — not to mention Gloucester, Plymouth and Portsmouth — struggle with poor infrastructure, lack of investment in their centres and low retention of skilled workers to boost growing companies.

Bringing greater prosperity will require more than a glib political slogan.

A recent report by the CBI found more than half of Britain’s cities ranked among the 25% least productive in Europe. While projects such as the Northern Powerhouse have started to deliver results for the big conurbations in the north of England, there is a growing fear that a tier of towns in other parts of the country will be left behind as the Tories try to satisfy the voters who handed Boris Johnson victory in December’s general election.

“It poses a risk for places in the south that don’t do well,” said Paul Swinney, a director of the think tank Centre for Cities. “There is a question about whether they get overlooked.”

Focusing on certain parts of the country also risks undermining those places that have performed strongly, Swinney added, because cities require constant investment to keep functioning. “The challenge for their economies is not about getting growth going, it’s about dealing with the cost of success.”

One of the biggest challenges for the cities outside the top 20 is attracting workers — both graduates and experienced professionals — with the skills to take companies to the next stage of growth. London, Edinburgh and Manchester can be cripplingly expensive, but firms open offices in these places because they offer access to the best talent.

There are ways to buck the trend, though. Experts say a thriving city centre is a significant factor in attracting companies and workers. Councils play a big part: cities such as Sunderland and Coventry have moved much of their local government workforce into buildings in the centre, improving footfall for retailers and custom for pubs and restaurants.

Companies based outside the economic hubs are finding innovative ways to attract staff. Applegate employs 35 people, including nine apprentices, all of whom are working towards a degree-level qualification in management. The apprentices are offered up to £10,000 towards a house deposit if they can match the funding. This year there were 284 applicants for three places.

Such perks help persuade young workers to stay in the area and support those unable to afford university — and Barnstaple is not such an unlikely place for an AI business as it sounds. Exeter University’s Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence provides access to the latest research and a stream of qualified staff.

“It’s a distributed hub,” Brocklehurst said. “We’re not on top of each other, stealing each other’s staff, having rent go through the roof. We’ve got space to breathe and build our own community.”

Another strategy is to generate large-scale investments without relying on central government. ..

…However, business owners in the south say they have suffered from being lumped in as part of a prosperous bloc dominated by London. In reality, the coastal towns of Devon and Dorset and the former mining communities of Cornwall are among the most deprived in Britain, yet many politicians still talk of a north-south divide as if there were a neat distinction between the two.

The Great South West is an attempt to build a southern answer to the Northern Powerhouse. The initiative claims £45bn of economic growth could be generated for Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset through a focus on sustainability and the “marine economy”. MPs have requested £2m in the budget to start the programme [£45M in total Owl] — and had been hopeful of receiving it before Javid’s resignation.

Whether the Great South West project and other areas absent from Best Places for Business receive funding will be a test of how serious the government is about “levelling up” the whole country.

Analysis suggests 96% of average earners in England would still not be able to afford a house under government’s new plan.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/16/first-homes-scheme-unaffordable-most-buyers?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A high-profile housing scheme offering first-time buyers discounted homes will be unaffordable to the vast majority of workers on average or low incomes, it has emerged.

The First Homes scheme has been described by ministers as “genuinely life-changing for people all over the country”. However, new analysis suggests it will be out of the reach of average earners in 96% of England. The fresh concerns follow claims that the scheme will exacerbate the housing crisis by cutting the amount of scarce, more affordable social housing.

The scheme, which would see successful applicants given 30% off new-build homes, is aimed at military veterans and key workers such as nurses, police officers and firefighters, who will be given priority access to the properties.

But research by the charity Shelter found that, in almost all parts of England, someone on an average salary or lower could not afford to buy one of these new-build homes. It also shows that almost two-thirds (63%) of private renters in England have no savings at all for a deposit. New-build properties in England cost £314,000 on average. A 30% discount would offer a saving of £94,000, but would still require a significant deposit.

Writing for the Observer online, Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, warned the scheme was “a comfort blanket only, providing nothing for the people at the sharp end of the national emergency our housing crisis has become.

“At a time when we desperately need properly affordable housing, policymakers are looking to give a lucky few a 30% discount on what are still going to be incredibly expensive homes. And let’s be clear about who the lucky few are. Not those facing a monthly struggle to afford their rent.

She adds: “For those earning above the average, or with a helpful inheritance – people already on the cusp of home ownership in other words – this may get them over the line. There is nothing wrong with that, but it becomes a massive problem if it comes at the expense of social homes.”

The outline of the scheme was first announced during the election campaign. The Conservatives pledged that the discount would apply to about 19,000 homes by the mid-2020s. About 240,000 new homes are currently being built each year. However, a recent consultation on the programme did not contain any targets for the scheme.

Charities and unions have already raised concerns that it will end up reducing the amount of more affordable types of housing. The programme will be paid for through “Section 106” agreements, which require developers to build certain types of affordable housing as part of their building plans. Building more new-build homes for sale through this method could cut the amount of affordable homes for rent.

The supply of social housing, which is more secure than private rented accommodation and has rents on average 50% of the market rate linked to local wages, is already very low. Just 6,287 were delivered last year, with Section 106 agreements accounting for 57% of them. More than 1.15 million households are currently waiting for a social home in England.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “First Homes will give tens of thousands of people the opportunity to buy a home in their local area with a saving of up to £100,000, turning the dial on affordability. The government has invested £9bn in affordable housing through our Affordable Homes Programme, which we are committed to renewing, and since 2010 has delivered over 464,000 new affordable homes.”

Just over 1% of government infrastructure spending in England will go towards flood defences, analysis by BBC News has found.

www.bbc.co.uk /news/uk-england-51463267

Current figures show nearly £5bn is due to be spent on flood defences up until 2026, with a third of the money spent in London and the South East.

MPs in northern England said flood defence funding needed reallocating.

The government said it was investing “record” amounts in new flood defences that would protect 300,000 homes.

And it said in terms of money spent per home at risk of flooding, the North received more than the South……….

The latest infrastructure spending figures published by the Treasury showed nearly £5bn was earmarked to be spent on flood defences in England over the next six years.

The money was due to be spent on more than 1,300 projects.

But flood defence spending makes up just 1.5% of the total £317bn set to be spent on all infrastructure across England, which includes upgrading roads and railway lines……..

Ramblers wants Owl and Owl’s followers to take their phones for walks to make sure lost footpaths are added to the oficial register before it’s too late. 

An estimated 10,000 miles of historic footpaths are thought to be missing from the map in England and Wales.

People are being urged to pore over old maps to help identify thousands of miles of lost footpaths before time runs out to add them to the official register.

The Ramblers has launched a website with historic and modern maps of England and Wales. It wants thousands of “citizen geographers” to compare the maps to detect lost paths.

The walking charity believes there are 10,000 miles of paths missing from modern maps. If not claimed by the government cut-off of 2026 they can no longer be added to the official map after and the public’s right to access them could be permanently lost.

It can take years of research to prove the case for adding a path to the official map. The Ramblers wrote to the government last year asking for the deadline to be extended but has not received a reply.

The Ramblers believes that many of the lost paths were not included on modern versions which are based on maps councils were required to draw up in the 1950s.

https://dontloseyourway.ramblers.org.uk/

The Don’t Lose Your Way website divides England and Wales into 150,000 1km squares. The Ramblers said: “Users simply select a square, do a quick ‘spot the difference’, mark on any missing paths and click submit. It takes just a few minutes to check a square.”

Some of the lost paths are still in use, despite not showing up on modern maps, including a well-used track near Knightwick, Worcestershire, while others have become overgrown and unusable, such as a “missing mile” of the Markway in Hampshire, which vanished when a Hurricane fighter base was built in the Second World War.

Jack Cornish, manager of the Don’t Lose Your Way campaign, said: “Our paths are one of our most precious assets. They connect us to our landscapes — ensuring we can explore our towns and cities on foot and enjoy walking in the countryside — and to our history and the people who formed them over the centuries. If we lose our paths, a little bit of our past goes with them. This is our only opportunity to save thousands of miles of rights of way and time is running out.”

Stuart Maconie, the Ramblers’ president, said: “Public rights of way are our birthright and genuine national treasures. We must find and record and walk these sometimes ancient ways and preserve and protect them . . . for ourselves and generations of walkers to come.”

Now to the phones.

 The Pathwatch app

https://www.ramblers.org.uk/advice/pathwatch-report-path-features-and-problems.asp

“We’ve   built an entire app that allows you to report features on the go – straight from your pocket.

Using the app you can report positive and negative features, send us photos and even share your discoveries via social media. Using GPS and your phone signal, the app can locate you on OS maps and will allow you report what you’ve found with the press of a few buttons.

The app also works offline and allows you to download OS grid square maps for your walks in England and Wales.

Pathwatch online 

You can report features directly through the online version of the app.

It’s slightly different to the app but still gets us all the information we (and local authorities) need. It also syncs up with the features you record on the app, so you can view all your reported features. Online, you can also report features anonymously and won’t need to register or login.

Just like the app, you can scroll around Britain on OS Map data to find the location of the feature you’re reporting.”