An art gallery is encouraging Exmouth residents to join a new project which hopes to rejuvenate a section of the Exmouth seafront.

Owl curious how “The Abode of Love ” got its name – a rare gap in Owl’s local knowledge.

“The job of monitoring how the outbreak plan is implemented will fall to Team Devon, the Local Outbreak Engagement Board which is headed up by council leader Councillor John Hart.”

Owl thinks this is the best way to control the epidemic and that there should have been much greater devolution of management much earlier. As Leader of Devon County Council, John Hart is the individual with the authority to head this. But Owl can’t forget his weak approach to flooding in February when “Self-help, he said, is going to be the order of the day.” From now on the “order of the day” will require a much more pro-active approach.

[E.g.Tim Spector’s new calculations, using his tracking app, estimates 80 current prevalent cases (rising) in Torbay]

A Channel Islands airline is to take over a number of former Flybe routes after landing a loan of up to £10million from the Government of Jersey.

An Ottery town councillor has resigned after nearly 10 years in the post.

Kerbside cardboard recycling has doubled in East Devon since the coronavirus lockdown and households are asked to be patient while the backlog is collected.

“The chief executive of the hospital that serves Boris Johnson’s constituency, which has shut its A&E unit after an outbreak of coronavirus, has blamed staff for flouting the rules by not wearing masks at work.”

However: “In April the trust was criticised by a healthcare assistant who quit when managers at the hospital refused her permission to wear a surgical mask to protect herself and her patients.” [One she had bought herself].

[Hillingdon’s infrastructure has long been recognised within the NHS as a problem and the trust has developed plans for it to be replaced.]

If you signed this petition you will have had the response posted below. This seems to say that because Covid-19 is a “new” virus you should expect an “omnishambles” and the Government shouldn’t be held to account, certainly not just yet and, possibly, never.

The petition has reached 20,000 but needs to get to 100,000 to trigger action.

Petition: Hold a Public Inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 crisis petition.parliament.uk /petitions/30257

History tells us that the stamp duty holiday could have a negative impact on the market, argued London tax barrister Patrick Cannon.

 

He compared the change to the stamp duty holiday introduced in 1992 from Norman Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister John Major.

The change could result in vendors raising their asking prices, falling house prices when the cut ends, and people falling into negative equity.

Cannon said: “If anyone remembers Norman Lamont’s ‘stamp duty holiday’ for eight months in 1992, they’ll recall that he raised the stamp duty threshold from £30k to £250k to get the house market moving in a time of recession.

“Sound familiar? It had a negative impact, because vendors raised their asking prices by roughly the same amount as the tax saving. It therefore worked out as a subsidy to sellers, at the cost of the taxpayer.

“Also, when the holiday ended, prices fell to reflect the re-imposition of the tax. Buyers who had bought at the higher prices then got burned as values fell with some put in to negative equity.”

He added: “An FOI request to HM Treasury found that Mr Lamont’s holiday eventually forced a collapse in the number of transactions, and prices fell sharply.

“The announcement of this fall in house prices further discouraged potential buyers.

“The stamp duty holiday, which had been intended to bring forward a recovery in the housing market, ended up further undermining the confidence that was essential to recovery.

“When the government reintroduced stamp duty, the holiday had cost £400m.

“Shortly afterwards, the pound tumbled out of the exchange rate mechanism on Black Wednesday.

“My concern is that a stamp duty change will not benefit first time buyers, and it could have repercussions for years to come.”

An area of countryside and green space almost the size of Cornwall has been lost to development over 25 years, a study has revealed. See:

https://www.ceh.ac.uk/press/almost-2-million-acres-gb-grassland-lost-woodland-and-urban-areas-expand

Kent had the largest increase in built-up area, with 136km² (52.5 square miles, 33,606 acres) developed between 1990 and 2015. Essex had the second biggest rise, gaining 113km² of urban area, followed by West Yorkshire with 110km² and Surrey 100km².

The built-up area in Great Britain increased by 3,376km² over the 25-year period, according to the study by the UK Centre of Ecology & Hydrology.

The vast majority of the newly urbanised area was in England, with 2,639km² developed, compared with 440km² in Scotland and 298km² in Wales. The proportion of Great Britain that is built up rose from 5.8 per cent in 1990 to 7.3 per cent in 2015.

Researchers calculated overall changes in land use and found that there had been a net reduction of 7,689km² — 1.9 million acres — in the amount of grassland and playing fields. That includes woodland areas, which grew by 5,236km², with Scotland accounting for two thirds of the increase. Trees covered 10.3 per cent of Great Britain in 1990 and 12.5 per cent in 2015. This is still only a third of the EU average of 38 per cent. The Committee on Climate Change has said that 17 to 19 per cent of the UK should be woodland by 2050 to help meet a commitment to be carbon neutral by then.

Dr Clare Rowland, who led the research, said: “We have been able to produce the most reliable picture to date of the changes across the British landscape in recent years.

“Our data show the scale of grassland loss in Great Britain not only to make way for urban development but also woodland expansion. This information on how land cover in Great Britain has altered is crucial for understanding the impact of these changes on our environment, and helping us plan for the next 25 years.”

Dr Daniel Morton, who developed the software for the new UKCEH maps, said: “Producing land cover maps annually will enable the tracking of the UK’s progress towards the net zero emissions target by 2050 and the success of national tree planting initiatives, as well as give us greater ability to monitor vegetation responses to climate and land use changes plus extreme weather events.”

Tom Fyans, campaigns and policy director at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said that it was “worryingly easy” for developers to build low-density housing estates “that unnecessarily gobble up our precious green belt, local green spaces and grasslands”.

Research by CPRE and UCL found that low-density schemes were more likely to be poorly designed than those that fitted more houses into the same area.

Mr Fyans said: “We can tackle the housing crisis without unnecessarily concreting over precious grassland.”

Hilary Newport, director of the Kent branch of CPRE, said that the government was focusing too heavily on the southeast to meet its housing targets despite the region already being at risk of water shortages.

Meanwhile, a global study by the National Geographic Society and Wyss Foundation has found that meeting a UN proposal to double the area of land and quadruple the area of sea that is protected — to a total of 30 per cent of the world’s surface — would yield £280 billion in annual benefits in terms of improving mental health, preventing climate change and reducing pollution. The report said that that would outweigh the costs by at least five to one.

[Note added by Owl from study reference: The top 3 grassland losses were in: Argyll & Bute (-739 km²), Devon (-508km²), Wiltshire (-325 km²)]

Devon County Council is going to spend an extra £27 million on the county’s roads this year, making it the largest ever annual investment in Devon’s road network.

www.radioexe.co.uk 

Devon County Council is going to spend an extra £27 million on the county’s roads this year, making it the largest ever annual investment in Devon’s road network.

Sidmouth and Exmouth beaches have been ranked among the best in the country by an environmental charity.

“BSTC mistakenly believed the necessary consultation had taken place, this was not so, and recognises it is the responsibility of the council to ensure all is done correctly.”

Ooops! – looks like the Budleigh Town Council, supported by Conservative District Councillors Alan Dent and Tom Wright (“For the greater good”- see link below) have decided on a major change to traffic and parking in the High Street without properly consulting the traders (and, from what Owl hears, the public).

Owl understands their concern over social distancing but questions whether this is so great a problem in Budleigh as to merit taking any risk with High Street trading.

The decision has to be agreed by Devon County Council.

Budleigh businesses ‘angry’ at council’s temporary one-way system sign ‘scrap it’ petition

Becca Gliddon eastdevonnews.co.uk 

A huge expansion of council housing, including using the green belt, will be needed to meet Boris Johnson’s “build, build, build” commitments, a government infrastructure adviser has said.

Three months on, the data science team at ZOE and King’s College London behind the COVID Symptom Study app have taken the decision to update the way prevalence is calculated.

New tabulation for the four Seaside districts Owl is following posted below indicating 70 prevalent cases in East Devon. (Owl’s personal view is that this is most informative Covid-19 tracking data in UK. It just seems to Owl be following the classic scientific approach, unlike many of the others.)

LocalGov.co.uk – Your authority on UK local government – Millions of voters missing from electoral registers, report warns

Revision: [Owl should have linked this to this previous post]

“In response to an earlier post from a Correspondent commenting on the GESP and asking –

“Is the Watch readership so gobsmacked with this plan that there is a great silence (no comments posted so far) or are they happy that East Devon will take the lion’s share of the GESP growth?”

Your correspondent need not fear that the lack of birdsong from flocks of native species within the East Devon resident bird population in any way reflects any apathy or acceptance of such inappropriate development of our East Devon countryside that has been proposed in the recently published GESP Draft Policies and Site Options document.

Many of Owl’s feathered friends have chosen to settle in small, rural nesting places within East Devon and these bird populations remain territorial, watchful and perched in anticipation to defend their valued homes.

There has already been much tweeting, screeching, crowing, cawing, clucking and hooting in East Devon around the Clyst St Mary, Farringdon, Woodbury, Sowton, Clyst St George, Clyst Honiton and Aylesbeare areas concerning the indicative minimum number of homes (totalling around 17,000) plus substantially increased employment use on agricultural, green fields at Higher Greendale, Hill Barton, Oil Mill Lane and around the M5! This deafening, cacophonous sound of those defending their village environments and countryside must have reached the ears of those wise birds as far afield as Blackdown House, who are now sitting on strategic, high branches of control.

We are confident that the new breed of decision makers will protect our special rural environment from those predatory, vulture-like species, whose aim appears to be the total annihilation and destruction of our valued East Devon natural environment, primarily to feed their own self-sustenance. This raptorial flock (commonly known as “The Feather Their Own Nests Birds”) has already received suitable culling but their voracious, insatiable appetites have the potential to cause the ruination of many distinct, valued habitats throughout East Devon.

Hopefully those who hear this birdsong will listen and understand the significance of protecting our East Devon stunning countryside and idyllic villages because once our rural, green areas are subjected to build, build build – they are lost forever! 

 With a GESP public consultation due in September, we must ensure that birds of a feather will flock together to protect their special environment because their collective birdsong has the potential to be so momentous 

that it can effect change.

An Eagle-Eyed Feathered Friend “

Sky News Daily podcast: Careless words from the PM on social care in England?

Although the interview with Cathy Gardner starts around 3 min 40 sec, it is worth listening to the whole podcast obviously prompted by the latest Boris Johnson comments.

Her crowdfunding site can be found here.

news.sky.com 

“Is the Watch readership so gobsmacked with this plan that there is a great silence (no comments posted so far) or are they happy that East Devon will take the lion’s share of the GESP growth?

As I have written before “Has not East Devon sacrificed enough Grade 1 agricultural land to build Cranbrook? Were we not told that this sacrifice would be EDDC’s contribution to housing need?” Now if this plan were to go through we would lose more such land.

The EDDC Local Plan and GESP are based on a jobs led scenario. In EDDC’s case this assumed the creation of 950 jobs a year. Since the start of the plan job creation has been around a quarter of that. Now, with the pandemic recession it will take years to get our jobs back to what they were at the start of the plan in 2013.

Our focus now should be on the economy and job creation opportunities. We do not need to plan any more houses until that has been achieved.

The only people to win if this goes ahead are the landowners.

I urge our Council to see sense and firmly reject the GESP”

Owl recalls that the referenced post mentioned the enthusiasm of Conservative Cllr Philip Skinner for a “network of linked villages being built in the North West Quadrant area of East Devon. (Poltimore, Huxham, Clyst St Mary, Clyst St George, Ebford, West Hill, Woodbury​, Woodbury Salterton, Exton and Farringdon).

Last October EDDC’s  Strategic Planning Committee  unanimously recommended to the Cabinet that East Devon supports the Exeter and East Devon garden communities status (part of another Exeter driven development scheme).

Cllr. Philip Skinner was appointed by “Independent” Leader, now Conservative ex-leader, Cllr Ben Ingham to lead strategic planning with Independent Cllr Susie Bond.

See response: “Birds of a Feather will flock together”