According to an East Devon spokesperson: “A particularly successful control has been the one which requires all dogs to be on leads on roads and pavements, and this has led to a decline in incidents where dogs worry walkers, runners and cyclists.”

Owl understands this but would like to point out that in the current pandemic crisis, walkers can also be worried by thoughtless runners and cyclists weaving in and out of them in well used pedestrian areas.

See: Lawrence Ostlere www.independent.co.uk   “Analysis of exhaled droplets in wind tunnels, conducted by universities in Belgium and Netherlands, concluded that the typical guidance to keep 2m apart is “very effective” when standing still, either indoors or in calm weather, but is inadequate when exercising in the direct path of other members of the public.

The paper, entitled Social Distancing v2.0: During Walking, Running and Cycling, found walkers should keep at least 4m clear when following others, runners should stay 10m from one another other, and fast cyclists should ride as much as 20m apart, in order to avoid passing through “droplet clouds” from others exercising.”

East Devon Reporter eastdevonnews.co.uk 

A dog ban has come into force on East Devon beaches today (Friday, May 1) – despite pleas for the restrictions to be suspended during coronavirus lockdown.

District council bosses say ‘a number’ of residents had asked for the move to be delayed, however, legislation does not allow for it.

They added that coastlines had been ‘very quiet’ during April and the views of those who do not wish to be bothered by canines also had to be considered.

Four-legged friends are now not allowed on parts of beaches in Exmouth, Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Seaton and Beer. 

The seasonal dog ban, which runs until September 30,  is part of East Devon District Council’s Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs).

These have been renewed as of today and will last for a further three years.

The PSPOs also prohibit the feeding of seagulls on beaches and seafronts and help police tackle antisocial behaviour in the centres of Exmouth and Sidmouth.

An EDDC spokesperson said: “A number of local residents have asked if parts of the orders can be suspended during the coronavirus lockdown, particularly the part relating to the beach bans.

“The council has considered this request, but the legislation does not permit suspensions and officers have noted that the beaches have been very quiet during April, when dogs are not banned.

“The council also must consider the view of the many members of the public who like to come to the beaches without worrying about being bothered by dogs.

“Therefore, suspending this part of the order would have no effect, and would lead to confusion when the lockdown is relaxed or lifted.

“Since the orders were introduced, the Environmental Health team has noticed a very high level of compliance and the numbers of enquiries about nuisance dogs, dogs on beaches, dog fouling and worries about seagulls have declined over the past three years.

“Where necessary, fixed penalty notices have been issued and formal legal action has been taken against three offenders.

“A particularly successful control has been the one which requires all dogs to be on leads on roads and pavements, and this has led to a decline in incidents where dogs worry walkers, runners and cyclists.”

Following President Trump’s “sarcastic” suggestions on injecting disinfectant, we have Vice President Pence threatening to punish the reporter who proved his office ignored the rule that he needed a mask to visit the Mayo Clinic.

Tom Porter www.businessinsider.com

US Vice President Mike Pence’s office threatened to punish a reporter who exposed that it knew Pence was supposed to wear a face mask for his visit to the Mayo Clinic on Tuesday.

Pence, who leads the White House’s coronavirus task force, has been widely criticized for flouting official guidance and not wearing a mask during his visit to the renowned clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Karen Pence, the vice president’s wife, has defended her husband, saying in a Fox News interview on Thursday that he was unaware of the clinic’s rule requiring visitors to wear a mask or face covering.

But in a tweet on Thursday, the Voice of America reporter Steve Herman said Pence’s office knew all along about the face-mask rule.

“All of us who traveled with him were notified by the office of @VP the day before the trip that wearing of masks was required by the @MayoClinic and to prepare accordingly,” he wrote.

Herman later told The Washington Post that the White House Correspondents’ Association told him Pence’s office had barred him from traveling on Air Force Two, the vice president’s plane.

The Post reported that Pence’s office alleged Herman had violated an off-the-record agreement by publicizing a planning document for the visit; for security purposes, such documents are not typically made public.

Pence’s office later told VOA that it had not finalized the ban but was considering imposing punishment if Herman or VOA did not apologize for sharing the information, The Post reported.

Brett Bruen, the White House director of global engagement in the Obama administration, tweeted that the planning information for the hospital visit was in the public domain and not off the record.

Amid the fallout from his Mayo Clinic visit, Pence was pictured wearing a mask during a visit to a hospital in Indiana on Thursday.

The UK’s longest serving Secretary of State for Health says the coronavirus pandemic has brought home the importance of social care to all.

Many people were aware of this before the pandemic, Mr Hunt, yet nothing was done.

inews.co.uk, 1st May 2020, 

As Jeremy Hunt took to the airwaves on Friday morning and praised care workers for looking after the 410,000 people who live in care homes, one can imagine what everyone working in the sector listening to his comments made of them.

When asked whether he would support increased spending in social care, Mr Hunt said: “I will certainly be asking for a proper settlement for the social care sector, because I think that’s something that we all recognise needs to happen, but I also think the Government will want to do that.”

Mr Hunt is, of course, the man who put “Social Care” into the Department of Health and Social Care, when it was renamed in January 2018 – in recent times it always has been technically responsible for social care but the change was supposed to be more than symbolic. As a result, he took over the preparation of the government’s policy paper (known as a green paper) on social care, announced in the March 2017 Budget and due in the summer of 2018.

In the UK, publicly funded social care is mainly paid for by local councils, not the NHS. Local authority spending on adult social care in England fell 8 per cent in real terms between 2009–10 and 2016–17, according to a report by the Institute for Financial Studies, but was protected relative to spending on other local authority services.

The population has been growing, so spending on adult social services per adult fell by 13.5 per cent in England over the same period. This does not take into account that the population is ageing, which will have put additional pressure on adult social care services.

‘Some cuts went too far’

In June last year, as Foreign Secretary and standing against Boris Johnson for the Tory leadership, Mr Hunt admitted during a live debate that “some of the cuts in social care did go too far”. Now he wants a “proper settlement” for the sector.

“One thing that this terrible crisis has brought home to us is the importance of the social care sector,” he said on Friday morning, going on to describe how care workers “put their lives at risk to do incredibly important work, often at very low pay”.

Many people were aware of this before the pandemic, Mr Hunt, yet nothing was done.

Is Boris following the same script? Haven’t we avoided the worst-case scenario of 500,000 dead by burrowing under the alpine mountain? Aren’t things definitely getting better? Lesson here for the Opposition.

Some of Owl’s followers will remember the Asian ‘flu pandemic.

Andy Beckett www.theguardian.com 

Harold Macmillan was British prime minister from 1957 to 1963. A charming Tory with a patchy record, he’s usually remembered for saying that during his government Britons had “never had it so good” in their standard of living. What has been forgotten, almost completely, is that he said this in the middle of a pandemic.

Macmillan made his claim on 20 July 1957, at a party rally in Bedford. Like Boris Johnson, he was a new premier with a preference for optimistic public statements. In 1957, the British economy was actually quite fragile, and Macmillan acknowledged this in his speech, but the idea that Tory rule kept Britain prosperous and safe was central to his premiership. As now, the party had already been in power for years, and needed to present a Labour government as a terrible risk.

The pandemic, of a new strain of flu, had started in China the previous winter. During the first half of 1957 it steadily moved across Asia and then the rest of the world, killing hundreds of thousands of people, to the alarm of the world’s media, including the British press. In June, the first cases appeared in Britain. Yet that month, and again in July, Macmillan’s health secretary, Dennis Vosper, refused to make a public statement setting out the threat the flu posed, arguing that it was not spreading in the UK.

By August, the virus was all over north-west England. Macmillan finally began to pay attention. He asked another health minister, John Vaughan-Morgan, for his department’s view of the situation. Vaughan-Morgan replied: “The general assessment seems to be that eventually [the flu] will affect up to 20% of the population.” But he insisted that the virus was more a public relations than a medical problem: “This is a heaven-sent topic for the press during the ‘silly season’.”

The government advised those with symptoms to stay at home, but otherwise took little national action as the flu spread right across the country during the autumn, instead leaving it to local medical officials to work out what to do. In some areas, schools were closed, but few sporting events or other mass gatherings were cancelled. In October, the peak of the outbreak in Britain, the Conservative party conference went ahead as usual. Macmillan’s speech didn’t mention the pandemic.

The outbreak continued into the winter, and ultimately may have killed more than 30,000 Britons. Senior medical figures were horrified at Britain’s performance. John Corbett McDonald of the public health laboratory service wrote to Ian Watson of the Royal College of General Practitioners: “Although we have had [over] 30 years to prepare for what should be done in the event of an influenza pandemic” – since the previous one in 1918 – “we have all been rushing around trying to improvise [solutions]. We can only hope that … at the end it may be possible to construct an adequate explanation of what happened.”

Many critics of Johnson over coronavirus are hoping for a similar reckoning. The government is expecting one, too, judging by its goalpost-shifting rhetoric, such as the prime minister’s highly selective boast this week that Britain had “defied so many predictions” about the impact of the virus.

But for Johnson’s critics, the fate of Macmillan’s government in the aftermath of the 1957 pandemic is not a reassuring precedent. During the later months of the crisis – not a point the government has reached yet – the Tories’ poll ratings did fall sharply. But by the time the next general election came, in 1959, the pandemic had receded. The Labour manifesto didn’t even raise the government’s handling of it. The Conservatives talked up their economic record instead, and won easily, increasing their Commons majority to 100.

In Britain, it remains disconcertingly easy – and a sign of how lopsided our democracy is – for Tory governments responsible for disasters to change the subject. The rightwing bias of the press, worse now than in the 1950s, as there are fewer left-leaning papers, is the obvious villain. But equally important is a reluctance from voters to face up to the sheer scale of what the Conservatives have sometimes got wrong.

The 1957 flu catastrophe came the year after the disastrous British military intervention at Suez – also under the Conservatives, and supported by Macmillan – which destroyed much of Britain’s credibility as a world power. Similarly, the British coronavirus failure closely follows the Tories’ chaotic Brexit U-turns and hugely counterproductive austerity. Yet in both eras, many voters have avoided coming to the unsettling conclusion that, quite often, their default ruling class simply isn’t up to the job. It’s more comforting to believe, as Johnson promised this week, that after its latest calamity, “the UK will emerge stronger than ever before”.

Our national myth often revolves around recovery from disaster. In this narrative, failures by the state – such as the second world war setbacks that led to Dunkirk – just create opportunities for future, greater successes. As a politician preoccupied by history, and not very good at governing, Johnson understands this well. His much-admired optimism is really a form of cynicism: as he blunders through the present, he keeps the possibility of better times for Britain in the future floating perpetually in the distance, like a mirage.

Can the Tories’ cynical optimism and evasions of responsibility ever be effectively pointed out? They can if Labour has a sharp enough leader. In 1957, Macmillan was mocked in parliament for his “never had it so good” speech by the shadow chancellor. With deft sarcasm, Harold Wilson called the speech “remarkable”. Wilson became Labour leader in 1963, as Macmillan’s supposed economic miracle finally petered out, and won four of the next five elections. Keir Starmer might do well to get some old tapes of him out.

The rock armour installed in the 1990s to help protect Sidmouth’s fragile coastline was exposed last week by the easterlies.

Time to call in King Canute or will Sidmouth have to make do with Stuart Hughes?

How Sidmouth seafront has changed to try and stop flooding and erosion

Daniel Clark – Local Democracy Reporter sidmouth.nub.news 

Easterly storm conditions over the Winter led to a drop in beach levels and saw shingle moved from the beach to completely cover the slipway at the York Steps, blocking access to the beach. The large boulders, installed in the 1990’s to help protect the sea wall, had subsequently become exposed.

Following storms in the early 1990s which washed away much of the shingle beach protecting the sea wall, the rock armour was part of a package of measures to protect the town from flooding and erosion, with two rock breakwaters, three rock groynes, and tons of pebbles were trucked in to replace the beach.

But the winter storms that caused the bizarre phenomenon and frequent cliff falls which have seen large chunks of the cliff at Pennington Point on the town’s East Beach give way have highlighted the need for more protection.

Plans are being developed to try and protect the cliffs and the town, with the preferred beach management scheme consisting of adding a new rock groyne on East Beach and importing new shingle onto Sidmouth Beach, as well as increasing the height of the splash wall on the seafront.

However, a £1m funding gap has still not been met – and if the funds cannot be found by August 2020 – or December 2020 at the very latest – a cheaper, and perhaps inferior scheme will have to be worked up instead.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service takes a look at what work has already been carried out to protect Sidmouth and what the future plans include.

The history of flood events and erosion on Sidmouth dates all the way back to the 1820s, with literature reviewed as part of the Devon Tidal Flood Warning Report showing Sidmouth was affected by the “great gale” that affected large parts of the south coast of England in November 1824; with both coastal erosion and flooding of properties reported at Sidmouth.

As a result, between 1825-1826, timber groynes and breastwork were built, and in 1835, the first seawall followed. Further work took place in 1917 where the seawall was repaired and extended, and the following year, the River Sid training wall was replaced with a structure that acted as terminal groyne, and in 1957, a seawall and promenade built to protect Connaught Gardens.

But in addition to wave overtopping impacts and associated flooding, coastal erosion has been a regular occurrence over the years, and along the Sidmouth town frontage, this resulted in the seawall failing at various times; including incidents over the winter 1989/90 which precipitated the construction of the 1990s current coastal defence scheme

Phase 1, in 1991, saw work on the Sidmouth Coast Protection Scheme begin, with the encasing of the old seawall, the building of a low level rock apron and removal of the timber groynes.

A rock revetment was placed along the frontage as emergency works in 1993, while 1994 saw the rock revetment placed in front of the 1957 Connaught Gardens seawall.

Then, in 1995, Phase 2 of the work began. This included the two offshore breakwaters, two rock groynes (York and East), and the Beach recharge which buried the rock revetment built in 1993 – the revetment that this week was revealed again.

The Clifton Walkway built which connects the main beach with Jacobs Ladder was built in 1999, and in 2000, Phase 3 was completed with the Bedford groyne and some beach sediment recycling along the frontage. More beach recycling took place in 2015 to re-distribute beach sediment along the Sidmouth Town beach.

But while, bar occasional instances of wave overtopping, the frontage of the town has been mainly been protected, the erosion at Pennington Point has continued apace with cliff falls aplenty.

A pair of massive landslips in the space of a few weeks in 2013 decimated around 15 metres of gardens along Cliff Road, while storms of February 2017 saw a garden shed fall off the cliff and smash onto the beach during a devastating landslip.

April 2018 saw five cliff falls in a week, while 2020 has seen ‘frequent and unprecedented’ amounts, according to Cllr Stuart Hughes.

Resident Paul Griew, of the Cliff Road Action Group, had previously said: “If Pennington Point goes another four or five metres, the River Sid will become the sea.

“If we then have a high tide and a south-easterly gale, water will rush over the river wall and flood across the Ham – and Sidmouth will be under water.

“It is estimated that such a flood will cause £72million of damage to people’s homes and businesses which won’t be able to run.

“Something needs to be done or Sidmouth is going to be flooded.”

WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE BEACH MANAGEMENT PLAN?

Along the East Beach part of the frontage, there are no existing defences, and as the erosion is now posing a risk to the eastern side of Sidmouth, the Sidmouth and East Beach Management Plan was developed.

It has three aims – to maintain the 1990’s Sidmouth Coastal Defence Scheme Standard of Service, to reduce the rate of beach and cliff erosion to the east of the River Sid (East Beach), and carry out them in an integrated, justifiable and sustainable way.

The plans would not stop cliff falls but would reduce the erosion from the toe of the cliffs, which would reduce the erosion rates.

The preferred plan for Sidmouth would involve beach replenishment, periodic beach recycling, a new rock groyne on East Beach, raising the height of the splash wall, and repairs to the River Sid training wall.

The groyne will help keep shingle from being moved eastwards away from the vulnerable cliffs and the higher splash wall will capture water coming over the sea wall to prevent flooding in the town centre.

The splash wall would have to be raised by around 1m, but local residents had called the initial stone wall design ‘hideous’ and ‘an eyesore that would mean the picturesque view of the Esplanade would disappear’.

As a result East Devon District Council had been exploring the possible use of a ‘glass sea wall’. The temporary glass panel was installed on Sidmouth seafront in February and survived both Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, but failed to survive ‘Storm Vandal’ when it was smashed with a sledgehammer.

A council spokesman said that the new act of vandalism jeopardises the trial and has implications for the installation of a glass panel along the entire seafront to help protect Sidmouth from coastal flooding.

They added: “The damage has been reported and we will work with the Police and seek a prosecution if possible.

“The trial of the panel is due to finish at the end of April and the glass appeared to be holding up well, having weathered the impact of three major storms. In light of its robustness to date it is therefore disappointing and immensely frustrating that it has succumbed to this malicious and destructive act.

“This new act of vandalism jeopardises an important part of the Sidmouth Beach Management Scheme, and sadly has implications for the installation of a glass panel along the entire seafront to help protect Sidmouth from coastal flooding.

“If a glass panel is going to be subject to repeated damage by vandals, then it will not be sustainable. We will now have to consider very carefully, whether the use of glass panels to minimise the visual impact of the splash defence is a material option that the council can take forward.”

Cllr Geoff Jung, portfolio holder for the environment at East Devon, added: “The test panel of glass may have provided a possible solution to the required protection for the Sidmouth and East Beach management plan that would have protected residents and properties from serious overtopping along the seafront.

“It is clear the panel was up to the task of resisting shingle and storms, but sadly failed to withstand vandalism. The vandalism of the panel now casts doubt on its use in the final scheme.”

WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK?

Constant Easterly storms over the winter, rather than the usual South-Westerly storms, had led to the breakwaters and rock groynes being less effective than planned and saw the shingle transported along the beach and up the slipway.

Over the weekend East Devon District Council officers had taped off the slipway, but access to the beach has since been restored following the StreetScene team clearing away shingle.

An East Devon District Council spokesman said what happened was as a result of a ‘natural process’ which had exposed the rock armour, but that they expected to see the shingle re-established on the beach.

Explaining what had caused the shingle to cover the slipway, the council spokesman said: “The shingle on the slipway was brought in during storms, which moved the shingle off the beach and up on to the concrete slipway.

“This natural process has exposed the rock armour, which acts as a secondary defence to protect the sea wall. Our StreetScene team moved the shingle this morning, so bar some stormy weather, we’re hoping the slipway should stay clear now.

“Over the winter shingle has been drawn down off the beach due to easterly storm conditions, which has resulted in a drop in beach levels. Now that the prevailing wind direction is returning to the normal south westerly direction, we expect to see shingle re-established on the beach.

“We urge people to take care when using the slipway to access the beach, as the shingle cover is still lower than normal and the rock armour is clearly in evidence.

“The long standing Sidmouth BMP is seeking to establish improved protection in the longer term Including some beach recharge.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The draft outline business case has already been prepared, but needs full funding information before it can be submitted, and a deadline of August 2020 was agreed by the Steering Group in which to source the outstanding finance.

After which time an alternative plan, involving only the town frontage, would be worked up and submitted for funding approval.

Costs for construction of the scheme are estimated at £8.9million, with around £1 million still needed to be found.

If the funding cannot be raised after December 2020, the council will have to review the project aims and possible management scheme options.

WHAT OTHER OPTIONS HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED?

Additional offshore breakwaters had been discussed as part of the project and although the breakwaters they may present a more robust solution technically, they would come at almost double the cost.

Two previous attempts for a rock revetment on East Beach had also been proposed but planning applications were subsequently withdrawn following recommendation for refusal.

Objections from multiple agencies, including Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Jurassic Coast Team and the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, had been registered, as the BMP has been undertaken to consider theoptions which are more likely to receive planning and marine consents.

Rock armouring had been considered and while the design itself of the rock armour may be simpler, it’s unlikely to significantly reduce the programme going forwards and there is the additional risk for a rock armouring scheme because the Outline Business Case may not be approved, as the Environment Agency may have insufficient confidence that the scheme would get planning (and marine planning) consent.

This is a post that might interest Owl’s followers in the USA – [Slapton Sands is on the South Devon coast but to the West of Owl’s normal hunting ground. However, Woodbury Common and Lympstone, locally, were used in WWII to train Royal Marine Commandos].

Tom Pyman www.dailymail.co.uk 

Two American amphibian landing ships that were sunk in an ill-fated D-Day rehearsal, covered up for years by military leaders, are to be protected.

More than 700 US troops were killed when they were intercepted by German E-boats off the Devon coast during Operation Tiger in 1944.

LST-507 and LST-531, which were carrying hundreds of American servicemen as well as tanks, vehicles and trucks, were torpedoed by the Germans and quickly sank.

They have been scheduled and added to the National Heritage List for England by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

It means recreational divers can still dive the wrecks, but the ships and contents are protected.

The US were practising manoeuvres on Slapton Sands, which had been chosen for its similarity to Utah beach where the Americans would land for D-Day on June 6 1944.

The bulk of the infantry had landed ashore when eight tank landing ships carrying engineers, quartermaster staff, signallers, medics, infantry as well as tanks, trucks, jeeps and equipment found themselves under attack.

A flotilla of nine German E-boats had been ordered to investigate unusual radio activity in the area and believed they had stumbled across several destroyers.

Vessels were bombarded and crews forced to abandon ship, many dying from shock or exposure in the early hours of April 28.

However, this was not public knowledge until around 30 years later, as leaders covered it up over fears the tragedy would have a disastrous impact on morale during the conflict.

Operation Tiger was a series of ill-fated missions aimed at preparing the US and British forces for the Allied invasion of Normandy.

The day before the Slapton Sands incident, around 300 troops were killed in a friendly-fire accident when they were hit by live ammunition as they invaded a beach.

Heritage Minister Nigel Huddleston said: ‘I am pleased that as we prepare to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, these important relics will be protected.

‘D-Day is one of the defining moments of the Second World War and preserving these wreck sites is a fitting tribute to all those who lost their lives in Exercise Tiger.’

Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, which recommended the designation, added: ‘The underwater remains of ships involved in the D-Day rehearsals are a tangible reminder of the sacrifices made in planning and delivering this huge military operation on a scale never previously attempted, 76 years ago.

‘By protecting the wrecks of two US landing ships we are remembering all of those who lost their lives in the struggle for liberty during the Second World War.’

D-Day, codenamed Operation Overlord, was the greatest combined land, air and naval operation in history.

It was a massive assault by the allies to invade Nazi-occupied Western Europe and saw 156,000 soldiers from Britain, US, Canada and France land on the beaches of Normandy together with thousands of vehicles and supplies.

Operation Tiger: The D-Day rehearsal that cost hundreds of American lives but was covered up for years to maintain morale

Preparations for D-Day began a year in advance of the famous landings themselves, with 3,000 people in the areas around Slapton, Strete, Torcross, Blackawton and East Allington in South Devon evacuated from their homes so the American military could carry out exercises.

The Slapton Sands area was chosen because of its similarity to parts of the French coast, which would ultimately be the location chosen for the war’s largest invasion by sea.

Ships and landing craft filled up the usually tranquil River Dart, while Nissen huts – quickly-built structures used as temporary housing –  appeared across Dartmouth’s Coronation Park.

The ships were torpedoed in an exercise around the Slapton Sands area, chosen for its similarity to parts of the French coast, to prepare for landings on Utah Beach later that year

Operation Tiger was designed to be as realistic as possible and was eventually launched in April 1944, as landing craft packed with soldiers, tanks and equipment were deployed along the coast. 

But the military were shocked when nine German E-boats – ordered to investigate unusual radio activity in the area – managed to slip in amongst them under a cover of darkness in Lyme Bay.

Two landing ships, LST-507 and LST-531, were torpedoed and quickly sank, while a third was badly damaged.

Many American troops had not been briefed how to don lifejackets and plunged into the Channel, where they drowned or succumbed to hypothermia before they could be rescued. 

The total death toll fluctuates in different reports, but the Ministry of Defence estimates 749 lives were lost.

However, this was not public knowledge until around 30 years later, as leaders covered it up over fears the tragedy would have a disastrous impact on morale during the conflict.  

Their deaths were not in vain, though, as the training at Slapton during Operation Tiger ensured fewer soldiers died during the actual landing on Utah Beach in Normandy later that year. 

Their sacrifice has since been marked by an art installation of their bootprints on the sand created by artist Martin Barraud, the man behind the WW1 ‘silhouette Tommy’ statues, placed around the country to mark the 100th anniversary of the Great War.

What a good idea – but where is the money coming from and how quickly?

The budget allocated £500 million a year over the next five years to tackle England’s 50 million potholes but this falls far short of the £11Bn estimated below.

Currently, Councils are strapped for cash.

Jack Wright www.dailymail.co.uk

Fix potholes while roads are empty, councils are told as breakdowns caused by them soar

• Department of Transport has told councils to start fixing roads during lockdown
• RAC research shows that 3,426 cars were damaged by potholes up to this March
• Britain’s road crisis was exacerbated by a period of heavy storms this winter
• Councils need to spend £11billion over 11 years to mend roads, research shows 

Councils have been ordered to fix roads while they are empty, as new figures show pothole-related breakdowns increased by nearly two-thirds this year. 

The Department of Transport has instructed local councils to go ahead with planned maintenance during the lockdown to clear a backlog of road repairs.  

Research by the RAC published today shows that 3,426 vehicles were damaged by potholes between January and March. The problems included distorted wheels, broken suspension springs and damaged shock absorbers. 

The Department of Transport has instructed local councils to go ahead with planned maintenance during the lockdown to clear a backlog of road repairs

This was up 64 per cent on the previous three months and 5 per cent on the same period last year, while drivers are 1.6 times more likely to break down as a result of a pothole than they were in 2006, according to the RAC.

Although last winter was relatively mild overall, severe flooding during major storms earlier this year caused damage to road surfaces in some areas.

The start of the coronavirus lockdown – which came into force on March 23 – means the latest data includes nine days when there were far fewer cars on the road than normal, which likely reduced the number of pothole-related breakdowns. 

RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said: ‘In his Budget in March, the Chancellor committed to funding our local roads and it is clear that the economic recovery as the UK emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic will need to be built on solid infrastructure – which of course needs to include good quality roads.

‘Moreover, it will also be interesting to see if lower traffic volumes during the UK’s lockdown will help prevent further deterioration of roads as fewer wheels going over weaknesses in the asphalt should contribute to less surface wear.’

He continued: ‘The last thing any driver needs on the way to do their essential weekly shop is to suffer a nasty pothole-related breakdown that puts their car out of action, especially with fewer garages open than usual.

‘This means the quality of local roads is, ironically, as important as ever.’

The Department of Transport is understood to have told councils – which will need to spend £11billion over 11 years to mend all roads – to do as much work now as possible during the lockdown as people are confined to their homes. 

David Renard of the Local Government Association called for devolved infrastructure and transport budgets to ensure funding is allocated in advance for five years.

“Going into lockdown was not, to the chagrin of statisticians, a controlled experiment. Ideally, it would have been very gradually imposed region by region, measure by measure. But in the panic to contain the virus we did not have time to, say, let Wales keep its pubs for a month while Oxfordshire lost its schools.

If we had, we would have a clearer picture of the effect of each intervention. We would know, for example, that closing schools does little while shutting pubs does a lot. Then, when it comes to reopening, we could start with schools and feel relatively safe.”

Tom Whipple, Science Editor www.thetimes.co.uk

From now on, it’s a numbers game. Boris Johnson made it clear that in the weeks to come all that matters in coming out of lockdown is a number known as “R”, the virus’s reproduction rate, and how much each relaxation measure changes it.

But if that sounds like it comes with the comforting certainty of mathematics, the modellers plotting our near future are keen to disabuse you of that idea.

“We don’t have high confidence at all,” says Seth Flaxman, from Imperial College London. “There is a lot of uncertainty.”

R is the reason a virus matters at all. It is a measure of how many people are infected by each new case. If R is above 1, then each new person with the disease infects more than one person and the disease slowly — or not so slowly — spreads. If it is below 1, then each new case results in less than one additional infection and the disease dies out. For measles, R is about 15. For the common cold it is 2.5.

The first problem for Dr Flaxman is that we have only the haziest idea what R currently is for the coronavirus. The second problem is that we have even less idea what effect each of the lockdown measures has on it. The third problem is that as we loosen restrictions, tiny fluctuations in either estimate can have massive consequences.

In February, before Britain had responded to the virus, the R of the coronavirus in the country was somewhere between 2.5 and 4.5, depending on whose estimate you believe. Today we are pretty certain that it is less than 1 — otherwise the NHS would be in a lot of trouble. How far below determines what we do next.

According to the government it is probably between 0.6 and 0.9. Any move out of lockdown will inevitably increase that number — what is crucial is that it does not tip it over 1. We have, to use the epidemiological term, an R budget of between 0.1 and 0.4 — a big uncertainty.

Testing and tracing will give us — again to use the epidemiological term — a bit, but not a lot, of “negative R” to increase the budget. When it comes to wiggle room, that’s it.

The question is, what do we do with it?

Going into lockdown was not, to the chagrin of statisticians, a controlled experiment. Ideally, it would have been very gradually imposed region by region, measure by measure. But in the panic to contain the virus we did not have time to, say, let Wales keep its pubs for a month while Oxfordshire lost its schools.

If we had, we would have a clearer picture of the effect of each intervention. We would know, for example, that closing schools does little while shutting pubs does a lot. Then, when it comes to reopening, we could start with schools and feel relatively safe.

But we did not have that luxury. Dr Flaxman and his team have tried to measure the effect of each broad intervention by looking instead at when they were implemented in each European country. Then from the later changes in deaths, they have backfitted an estimate for their effect on R.

This tells us, for instance, that banning public gatherings — typically involving ten or more people — reduces R by around 40 per cent. A full lockdown reduces it from this lower level by about 70 per cent again. Other measures have less effect. Social distancing cuts it further by between 0 and 25 per cent. School closures are, they think, between 0 and 10 per cent.

However, even if we are certain that these numbers were true at the time — and we aren’t — that does not mean that they are still true now.

Humans, again to the annoyance of statisticians, have a tendency not to be easily defined by numbers. Our behaviour now is different from our behaviour then. We are more careful — which is good. But we also have less to do. Closing schools may indeed have had a modest effect six weeks ago.

Today, though, dropping off their children at a reopened school would be the social highlight of the parents’ (and virus’s) day.

So how can we be certain we can get out of lockdown safely? The answer is we can’t. The truth is we have to view life as a statistician, and accept uncertainty: we open up gradually, then through testing carefully monitor R. If it tips above 1, we close down again.

And as to which of the many possible measures we might choose first, for this gradual opening? It’s a tough call. “On the record,” says Dr Flaxman, “I have no idea. Off the record, I have no idea.”

The NHS has begun feeding health workers’ use of personal protective equipment (PPE) into a “data store”.

The system is designed to identify which hospitals and GP surgeries are most at risk of running out of kit and address the problem before it occurs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52477758

By Leo Kelion BBC Technology desk editor 30 April 2020

High-level decision-makers should be able to start seeing the information via a computer dashboard within a fortnight.

NHS staff say their lives have been put at risk because of PPE shortages.

The government has said it is working “around the clock” to address the issue.

NHS Providers – which represents hospitals and other NHS trusts in England – told the BBC that supplies of gowns and visors remained an unresolved problem.

Health chiefs already use the dashboard system to help make decisions on how to redistribute ventilators, intensive care unit (ICU) beds and other critical equipment.

However, privacy campaigners have raised concerns about one of the tech firms involved in the project.

‘Dangerous levels’

The BBC first revealed in March that NHSX – the health service’s digital innovation unit – had hired several tech firms to help it make sense of the data it was collecting related to the pandemic.

This involved mixing together information from 111 and 999 calls, diagnostic test results, and use of resources across the NHS, social care and partner organisations – a full list has been posted online.

PPE was not originally included in the initiative. There are hundreds of different products involved – including a variety of aprons, gloves, surgical masks and eye protectors – and they are typically sourced directly by local procurement staff.

But after the British Medical Association warned earlier this month that supplies of some equipment were at “dangerously low levels” in London and Yorkshire, and hundreds of care home providers also sounded the alarm, efforts are being made to help track relevant data centrally.

The effort coincides with other changes to the wider scheme.

Until now, its focus has been to deliver “situational awareness” – showing the spread of Covid-19 and its impact on the NHS in “real-time”.

The next phase involves providing forecasts as to what happens next. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and other expert groups already do this on a national basis.

But the tech companies involved are working with Oxford University’s Big Data Institute (BDI) to provide forecasts at the level of hospital trusts, community hospitals and GP surgeries.

Although the BDI is also involved with NHSX’s coronavirus contact-tracing app, the two efforts are otherwise independent of each other, and there are no plans to mix information gathered via the app with that of the data store.

There is also an ambition to make the dashboards available to regional managers in the future.

Privacy questions

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are all involved in the data store project.

But two smaller companies are at its core.

Faculty – a London-based machine learning specialist – has developed the dashboards, models and simulations.

And Palantir – a California-based company that helps clients integrate and “clean” various sources of data, so that new connections and other insights can be discovered – is providing its Foundry software and staff to help NHSX pull all the information together. It is not charging for the work.

The involvement of the latter has proved to be a concern to privacy campaigners.

Palantir has been used by US immigration officials to track down undocumented workers, causing controversy among civil liberties organisations. It also has a reputation for secrecy.

On Wednesday, Privacy International, Big Brother Watch, Foxglove, MedConfidential and the Open Rights Group sent a joint letter to the company asking it to disclose more details about its involvement with the coronavirus data store.

NHSX has said that all the data involved remains under its control – and that Palantir cannot independently store, access or pass on any of the records. But the privacy groups say they still want to know if the company will retain any “insights gleaned”.

“It would be misleading and cynical for Palantir to offer services to the NHS without being fully transparent about how the company may benefit,” said Privacy International.
It is Palantir’s standard contractual policy that all insights and analysis undertaken with its software belong to its clients.

Plans to transform the shut United Reformed Church in Axminster into an art gallery, studio and residential accommodation have been withdrawn.

East Devon Reporter eastdevonnews.co.uk 

Proposals for the Grade II listed building, in Chard Street, were submitted to East Devon District Council (EDDC) in March.

Blueprints stated there is a ‘low probability’ the ‘redundant’ premises will be used as a church again and it would need ‘extensive modification’.

They had vowed every effort would be made to ‘retain the character of past use’ and to ‘achieve a modern interior that is synonymous with an art gallery design’.

No reason has been given in the withdrawal as to why the scheme – which would have seen a gallery and artists’ studio created on the ground-floor and accommodation on the first-floor – has been shelved.

Applicant Mr Neil Burford had asked for permission for a change-of-use and to convert the building.

The plans had stated: “The building is unlikely to be used as a church again.

“The opportunity now exists to convert the building to provide a gallery, studio and residential accommodation above. The new gallery and studio will provide a benefit to the local community.

“The building is currently redundant and should now have a different use.”

The application was withdrawn on April 21.

[The best bit from John Crace’s – the politics sketch]

Breathless Boris is left floundering as he faces foe he can’t outbluster 

John Crace www.theguardian.com 

…….Boris then breezed on to the R rate – AKA the reproduction rate. Here satire nearly died. For as scientists struggle to pin down the UK’s R rate to between 0.6 and 0.9, no one has the first idea of Boris’s own reproduction rate. We know its current level is at least six – though even Boris doesn’t appear to know if it’s more – and with every likelihood of adding to the score in the years ahead. If Boris were a virus he would be deadly.

On and on he bumbled. We would have to wait until some time next week for the government to make it clear it still had no real plan for ending lockdown. Things were definitely getting better but no one had a clue how to ease things while ensuring R remained lower than one. Even Vallance and England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, couldn’t help Boris out with that one. The only certainty was more uncertainty……

Otherwise, there was just more of the same. The scientists urging caution while Boris talked big about the economy bouncing back, avoiding the second peak and enforcing the wearing of face masks which only a month ago he had said were a waste of time. But deep down, Boris knows he’s met his match. Up till now, he’s never found a situation in his life which he couldn’t bluster his way out of. Now he’s come up against a power greater than himself; coronavirus is so far immune to almost everything. In a straight contest between coronavirus and bullshit, the coronavirus wins every time.

Matt Hancock faces a nail-biting day waiting to find out if he hit his target of 100,000 coronavirus tests on Thursday. The health secretary will lead the government press conference this afternoon to either drink in the victory of success or try to seize back the narrative after missing the bullseye. At the very least, a minister who staked his reputation on what sounded like an impossible mission is willing to face the nation no matter what the outcome. Respect to that. [From POLITICO]

Housebuilders, armed with foreign cash and backed by top lobbyists, keep property prices high. But author Bob Colenutt has brilliantly exposed the grip they have on Britain [introductory paras with link to full review of the book]

Oliver Wainwright www.theguardian.com 

If you want to see who influences the government, you can do worse than look at Whitehall’s neighbours. In a grand Victorian building opposite the House of Commons in Parliament Square stands the headquarters of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. With a history dating back to 1792, the RICS is an illustrious professional body, promoting the highest international standards in the valuation and development of land and property. But it has another side.

Its royal charter states that it exists to serve the public interest, yet most of its members’ fees come from landowners and developers, not the public sector. Through its Red Book, the RICS sets the standards by which land and property are valued, but it is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the development industry, representing the interests of landowners and developers at the highest levels of government. It directly advised on the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in 2012, which led to 1,300 pages of policy being reduced to 65 in a triumphant bonfire of red tape, and it has numerous committees influencing policy on all aspects of land planning and valuation. It describes part of its mission as “unlocking the inherent value held within the world’s physical assets”, but the question is, for whom is the value being unlocked? And who, consequently, is missing out?

In the eyes of Bob Colenutt, the answer is clear. In his urgent new book, The Property Lobby, he identifies the RICS as one of numerous actors in a complex network of landowners, housebuilders, financial backers, professional bodies and politicians who are engaged in propping up the status quo to ensure that their interests prosper – at the expense of everyone else. The housing crisis is no accident, he argues, but the calculated product of an elite group who have no reason to fix it.

 Many books have attempted to explain the roots of Britain’s housing crisis, but Colenutt is better placed than most to unpick the mess. His career in community planning and local government regeneration has taken him from campaigning in Southwark, south London (helping to lay the foundations for the community-led Coin Street housing project on the South Bank) to battling the development of Docklands and working for various London councils, before moving into academia. In 1975, he co-authored The Property Machine, a book whose message was nicely summed up by its cover illustration of a fat-cat developer gobbling up people’s homes. Then, the big developers were office builders, backed by insurance companies and pension funds. Now, they are housebuilders, armed with an unimaginable arsenal of global capital. Many of the themes remain the same, but, in the intervening years, through successive takeovers, intensive political lobbying and close integration with the finance sector, the leading developers have swollen into an unstoppable force………..

Full article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/apr/30/fatcat-developers-created-our-housing-crisis-heres-how-to-stop-them?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

• The Property Lobby: The Hidden Reality Behind the Housing Crisis by Bob Colenutt, is published by Policy Press.

Press release: published 29 April

Latest results from Professor Tim Spector’s team at King’s College from the Covid-19 symptom tracker app.

COVID-19 prevalence and severity higher in urban and most deprived areas ‍covid.joinzoe.com 

London, UK – COVID-19 is disproportionally more common and more severe in people living in urban areas and regions of higher poverty, a new study from King’s College London reports.

These results come from the analysis of the health data logged by more than 2 million people over 24 days on the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker app in the UK.

The team also found that COVID-19 cases and severity has decreased since the lockdown began.

These results illustrate how data from symptom tracking apps can be used to successfully monitor the pandemic over time, helping to identify areas that need more support and healthcare resources to cope.

As part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at King’s College London and healthcare science company ZOE developed the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker app. More than two million UK users nationwide are now using it to report daily updates on symptoms, healthcare visits and COVID-19 testing results.

The team studied 2,266,235 unique app users reporting daily on COVID-19 symptoms, hospitalisation, COVID-19 test outcomes, demographic information and pre-existing medical conditions over 24 days immediately following the introduction of major social distancing lockdown measures announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 23rd March 2020.

On the link between COVID-19 and poverty, lead researcher Dr Cristina Menni said:

“This could reflect that individuals in more deprived areas are more exposed or vulnerable to the virus.  It may be that they work in jobs requiring work out of the home, where they are more likely to be exposed to circulating virus. We know from previous research that deprivation is closely linked with increased health issues and disease burden; our results suggest that COVID-19 is no exception.”

Dr Claire Steves, joint senior author said:

“This finding is important for allocation of resources in this pandemic.  Areas with higher rates of poverty will need greater supply of PPE and more hospital capacity.  This is likely to continue to be important when the social distancing measures are eased.”

The full research paper with the full findings is available in non-peer reviewed archive format at the medRxiv site here. [as pdf – Owl]

MS ID#: MEDRXIV/2020/076521  

MS TITLE: Geo-social gradients in predicted COVID-19 prevalence and severity in Great Britain: results from 2,266,235 users of the COVID-19 Symptoms Tracker app