Is Mid Devon another council with a “LINO-in-waiting”? This is all to do with Mid Devon cabinet agreeing to pull out of GESP only to find their Leader turns around and persuades the full council to stay with GESP. He then sacks the Lib Dems in the cabinet, replacing them with Tories.

Report of another extraordinary meeting by another of Owl’s Correspondents:

30th September extraordinary meeting: narrowly defeated vote of no confidence in the allegedly independent leader (ex Tory) Bob Deed. 

The abstentions were critical and while one of the Greens voted No Confidence, Green cabinet-member Liz Wainwright abstained. 

Communique From Mid Devon Lib Dems

“Tonight [30 September] the Liberal Democrat’s at MDDC called a vote of no confidence in the Leader. We didn’t call the vote lightly but following our original support to the Leader, we felt that we no longer had the trust and faith for him to carry out his duties.

We sadly lost the vote with 13 votes to 19, with 5 abstentions. He received less votes than he did when elected and even two of his Cabinet members abstained, obviously they don’t have 100% faith in him!

The Liberal Democrat’s will continue to hold the Leader and Cabinet to account.

We have grave concerns over 3 Rivers, which could cost millions to you the tax payer and also GESP – the Leader made it pretty clear tonight that we were sacked for being against GESP, it will raise its head again and we won’t let Mid Devon become the dumping ground for other areas with mass building above what we are legally required to build.”

Following the abrupt closure of the Bishops Clyst Parish Council Extraordinary meeting called to discuss the Winslade Manor planning application, Owl has been given a copy of a letter sent to the Chairman of the Council and Planning Chairman, written by committee members of Save Clyst St Mary Residents’ Association. 

Public confidence in democracy depends on full transparency  – Owl

Letter reads:

Dear Chairman,

Last night we were watching the online zoom meeting of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Bishops Clyst Parish Council (PC), when it was sadly hijacked by some ‘trolls’, which necessitated closing the meeting promptly for security purposes before any decisions could be made.

As members of the public, it was very apparent that there are conflicting views being voiced by parish councillors on whether to support or object to this application. The public perception is that some parish councillors have been unable to vote on this critical application because they own adjoining properties with Zone A, whilst others appear to be able to persuade, influence and vote without such impunity, when it is considered that they have equal conflicts of interests.

Although democracy is supported and everyone has the right to their own opinion – last night, one parish councillor denigrated and opposed the views of Charlie Hopkins who was specifically instructed (at a considerable cost to the Parish) to advise the PC on the planning considerations that are applicable to this complicated, vast application. He seemed ‘hell bent’ on supporting the entire application (warts and all) ignoring the views of the people of the parish that he, as a parish councillor, should represent.

Not having seen the report from this planning and environmental consultant, we can only speculate what Charlie would have advised – but feel sure he would have pointed out to the PC all the numerous conflicts with planning policies within National, Local and our own Neighbourhood Plans. It would be expected that this planning expert would have urged caution at this indicative outline stage and obviously as members of the Save Clyst St Mary Residents’ Association we continue to hold the view that there are too many inappropriate areas of this application to recommend anything but an objection at this stage.

Burringtons opted to include the green field and all new development within one hybrid application alongside the renovation and refurbishment of the redundant office block, knowing that the regeneration was supported by the majority of residents. However, there are over 200 objections (with a negligible amount of support) now published on EDDC’s planning website attached to 20/1001/MOUT, therefore we feel the PC must take into consideration the views of so many residents in this village who have taken the time to object to the current hybrid application.

Unfortunately, last night’s interrupted meeting made little reference to the incongruous, three-storey shipping-container residential design in Zone D, which could reach a height of between 13 and 15 metres, which will overlook our own property and also many other residents’ properties in Clyst Valley Road, throughout six months of the year when the deciduous cover of the woodland is lost and which the PC objected to at the previous meetings.

Our District Councillor commented that the perspective illustrations for Zones B & D in the recent amendments, may now be considered acceptable to Historic England (HE) but any comments from HE are still awaited and may equally not accept the Zone D inappropriate design model opposite the Manor House!! However, it must be stressed that HE are only concernd about the effects on the historic assets and not any detrimental effects on neighbouring properties in Clyst Valley Road, which is the responsibility of representations from the PC.

We would like to strongly reiterate that the Zone D design conflicts with planning policies in national, local and our own neighbourhood plan and is inappopriate and unacceptable and cannot be supported within this application, irrespective of whether the Developers are stating that the entire financial viability rests on the residential elements of this application. Hopefully, Malcolm McMillen (or someone equally qualified) can explore and evaluate JLL’s viability statements to ensure the best possible development in this village – this is a fantastic site and it deserves a quality re-development and that is what everyone in this village should be looking to achieve.

We support sustainable development and at present this application fails to meet this criteria in many areas and we consider that the new political administration at EDDC will refuse this application in its current form because it is outside of their own District Local Plan, the policies of the NPPF and indeed our own Neighbourhood Plan. We would wish the PC to ensure that any future meetings with Burringtons represent the residents’ views on Zone D as well as Zones A, C and K that were highlighted last night.

May we end, Rob and Ray, with our personal appreciation to you both for your fair-minded and even-handed representation and this is in no way a criticism of your much valued work for this Parish.

If you signed this on-line petition you will have received the following:

Dear ####

Parliament is going to debate the petition you signed – “To establish a Public Inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 EU Referendum.”.

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/250178

The debate is scheduled for 5 October 2020.

Once the debate has happened, we’ll email you a video and transcript.

Thanks,
The Petitions team
UK Government and Parliament

On the final day of consultation on “Changes to the current planning system” (which is all about how increasing building through the “mutant” algorithm will lead to more affordable homes); Owl has received this observation from a correspondent:

Correspondent writes:

Has any other eagle-eye observer noted that the first two of the planning applications validated by EDDC, week beginning 14 September, are for the reduction of affordable housing in Cranbrook?

Many of you may remember the time when the boast was that it was worth losing Grade 1 agricultural land because:

“Cranbrook is one of the most important housing and employment projects in the South West and is rightly recognised as a top priority by the Council.

It has taken a number of years and a huge amount of effort from all of the partners to get to this stage. During that time, no-one has lost sight of the importance of this project and its potential to deliver much-needed new and affordable homes. Cranbrook will be a high quality mixed-use settlement, close to new employment opportunities and will support local economic growth.” Steve Jackson, HCA area manager, March 2011

First application: Variation of S106 agreement to reduce overall affordable housing provision at Persimmon Phase 6 site (19/1013//MRES). 

On 29/12/2010 planning permission was given for a phase of building in Cranbrook of 235 houses of which SIXTY SEVEN i.e.28.68% were to be affordable. Now Thea Billeter, Cranbrook New Community Manager at East Devon District Council, appears to have “reached a position” in her pre-app advice that Persimmon Homes South West Ltd. can reduce the number of affordables to FORTY FOUR i.e. 18.12%. They just need a deed of approval from the Planning Committee.

But Strategy 34 of the EDDC current local plan – District Wide Affordable Housing Provision Targets –states

“Affordable housing will be required on residential developments in East Devon as follows. Within the areas defined below a target of 25% of the dwellings shall be affordable :….  f) Major strategic ‘West End’ development sites. Under this policy:…… 2 the major strategic West End development sites to which policy will apply are a) Cranbrook,”

Why this reduction to 18.12%? Perhaps it is that Persimmon’s profit will be reduced from annual profits of £1.091bn in 2019? What will happen to their profits this year at the time of Covid-19 with all its associated problems for industry? Will they be reduced so that Persimmon will be able to claim that the affordable housing on this site be reduced to Zero? 

Surely, the long term strategic provision of affordable housing should not be subject to short term economic headwinds?

The second application is 20/2018/V106.

The original 16/1826 proposal involved a total number of 19 new dwellings (the existing farm house being retained) and included the provision of 26% affordable homes. The development is located outside of the consented outline planning application and allocated site for Cranbrook, therefore EDDC planning policy required 50% site affordable housing provision. But of course a viability appraisal was submitted as part of this application which sought to justify the departure from the plan and 26% was approved.

Now this application seeks to reduce this to ZERO affordable homes, but the rub is there is no paperwork on the planning website two weeks on to justify this.

We have only to look at a previous piece on affordable homes on Goodmores Farm in Exmouth and in Evans Field in Budleigh Salterton to know that the only way for East Devon to provide affordable homes for the many locals who need them is to concrete over the entire district at the rate we are going.

 See also:

https://eastdevonwatch.org/2020/06/23/the-new-eddc-administration-inherits-a-poisoned-chalice-on-derisory-numbers-of-affordable-houses/

From a Correspondent:

The Pros and Cons of Virtual Local Government Meetings!

At this unprecedented time, when Covid-19 has halted so much of our normal everyday lives, the introduction of virtual meetings with friends, family, work colleagues and throughout our society has become a lifeline and has been hugely advantageous.  However, there is another darker side to this virtual world that we now have to encounter (even in the rural idylls of East Devon) which is neither beneficial nor worthy of any recommendation.

Zoom, Teams and Youtube have been welcomed into all our homes and have allowed the public an insight into the world of local politics and an opportunity to listen to the characters and qualities of those who have been elected to represent the people of East Devon.

Having previously viewed the farcical fiasco of East Devon’s Extraordinary Meeting in May this year, where a Tory councillor was heard swearing, during a YouTube video link, that was deemed so offensive and unpleasant that ‘the plug was pulled’ on the broadcast, before all the votes were cast to elect a new Leader – most people would think that it would be unlikely to see a repetition of inappropriate, online behaviour whilst viewing a local Parish Council meeting! Wrong!

Last night’s virtual Zoom meeting of the Bishops Clyst Parish Council at Clyst St Mary was interrupted after about one hour by ‘trolls’ shouting obscenities across this public forum, embarrassing both the councillors and public and culminating in the Parish Clerk having to rapidly close down the online meeting before it plunged into the abyss of more abusive profanities!!

Many of us have had to learn how to communicate in these virtual meetings and to acquire the knowledge of which buttons to press, whether to mute or un-mute and the skills of using a microphone to enable us to hone our expertise for live coverage!

There is, no doubt, that watching online contributors’ instinctive body language results in much greater transparency on their genuine beliefs, which is not so  discernible in face-to- face  public meetings, where we are more used to keeping our guard up! In a democracy, everyone is entitled to their opinion – but parish councillors are elected to represent the views of their community and over 200 objections from local residents have been submitted to this current application. However, the new change in the political administration at EDDC may curb the past ‘we build anywhere.com’ philosophy in favour of sustainable development and protection of green fields and flood plain areas!

This Extraordinary meeting (and it certainly lived up to that description!) had been mustered to discuss further developmental amendments to the vast Winslade Park, Clyst St Mary applications by Burringtons; in particular, the advice received from a planning and environmental expert with a view to submitting a response by the Parish Council to EDDC.

Furthermore, a financial viability statement from Burrington’s consultants, JLL, now states that the entire Winslade Park masterplan cannot proceed without the residential development on protected green fields. However, this conflicts with national, district and neighbourhood plans. Surely Burringtons had an awareness of the complexities of this site before they bought it?

Their proposals also incorporate an incongruous, three-storey shipping-container design for 40 apartments (replacing the supported 14 traditional dwellings shown at the Public Consultation) adjacent to the historic Manor House, which could reach a height of between 13 and 15 metres and encroach and overlook existing residents’ properties in Clyst Valley Road.

Unfortunately, because the virtual meeting had to be closed prematurely, there were no decisions made on any of these critical proposals. Consequently, another virtual parish council meeting will now have to be convened before the expiration date for parish consultees’ comments on this application.

We await this meeting with bated breath . . . . . . .