Andrew Lloyd Webber composes a tribute

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This has to be seen as an historic planning failure, hopefully the last legacy from the “Old Guard”. It is a good example of how a council’s hands are tied once it grants outline planing permission. Seeking outline planning permission has become common practice- Owl

“The scheme won’t win awards for the layouts”

“Of all the sites, this is the runt of the litter” 

“It is everywhere houses in an everywhere town.” 

“This flagship new housing development says to many younger people seeking a first house, ‘You are not welcome here’.”

Daniel Clark eastdevonnews.co.uk 

Plans to build 303 new homes in Exmouth have been given the go-ahead – despite being branded ‘disgusting’, ‘unexciting’ and a ‘missed opportunity’. 

The scheme for Goodmores Farm, off Hulham Road and Dinan Way, also features land for a new primary school and employment and commercial use.

East Devon District Council’s (EDDC) Planning Committee today (Wednesday, February 10) approved the reserved matters application – which features 16 ‘affordable’ dwellings – by 11 votes to one.

Members heard the layout ‘won’t win award’ and were told the project offered ‘everywhere houses in an everywhere town’.

Eagle Investments Ltd secured outline permission for up to 350 homes on the plot in July 2018.

It also secured the go-ahead for five-and-a-half acres of the site to be utilised for mixed-use employment and commercial purposes, and three acres for a primary school.

The application approved today detailed the layout, scale, appearance and landscaping of the project.

Five per cent of the homes will be ‘affordable’.

And while councillors were unhappy the number is far below its 25 per cent policy requirement – they said there was nothing they could do as the principle of the development had already been agreed.

The proposals for 303 homes at the Goodmores Farm site in Exmouth.

EDDC development manager Chris Rose had recommended approval and told the meeting: “The scheme that has been submitted provides for a development that is well-balanced and does not impact unreasonably on its surroundings, the trees on site, existing watercourses, highway safety or the amenity of nearby residents.

“The scheme won’t win awards for the layouts, but, because of the constraints, we have what we have, and I think the application has either mitigated the concerns or come up with good reasons why they cannot go further.”

Councillor Ben Ingham, who represents the Woodbury and Lympstone ward, said: “Of all the sites, this is the runt of the litter and the reason it has taken so long to come forward is because it offers the greatest challenges for the development and the least amount of profit.”

He said the scheme was of ‘great benefit’, adding: “Only 300 homes, not 350 are to be built on the plot, so we should grab this.

“There are so many merits that weren’t on the table five years ago, so it would not be good to reject this.”

Fellow ward member Cllr Geoff Jung branded the proposals ‘a missed opportunity for right development in the right place’.

He added: “What we are getting is a 300-home housing estate that is unexciting and hardly advanced on energy saving from 50 years ago.

“It is everywhere houses in an everywhere town. The proposal will not deliver a high-quality healthy place and therefore should be refused.”

Exmouth Halsdon ward member Cllr Paul Millar said: “Exmouth is dire and urgent need of more affordable homes.

“This makes a mockery of the spirit of the Local Plan and Neighbourhood Plan where the target is 25 per cent, but to see just 16 affordable homes out of 303 is an insult and doesn’t provide any benefits to Exmouth.

“This flagship new housing development says to many younger people seeking a first house, ‘You are not welcome here’.

“There is a high need for affordable housing that will grow even further and you have to ponder how the passing of time made this inappropriate and unbalanced.

“This application in its current form is disgusting.”

The development plot at Goodmores Farm in Exmouth.

Exmouth Brixington representative Cllr Maddy Chapman described the scheme as being one that should read ‘could do better’.

Exmouth Town ward member Cllr Olly Davey said the proposals were a missed opportunity, adding: “This was a chance to create a forward-looking, fit-for-the-21st-century housing estate here with open living spaces, green spaces, provision for active travel, clear walking and cycling routes, but that doesn’t appear to be provided.

“We have a similar housing estate to much of what exists in Exmouth already and lacks infrastructure.

“This lacks vision and we have a 20th century site with a loss of biodiversity, doesn’t relate well to the context of the site and provides poor amenity to residents.”

Cllr Philip Skinner said: “It is a very difficult site to come out of, but we have to balance to get a scheme that is going to work along with what people want to see.

“If you play too hardball, you can end up with not a lot at all – and while this may not be totally satisfactory, it may be what we end up with.”

Cllr Mike Howe added: “We can’t change history or rewrite it.

“The Local Plan was made and formed with all the local knowledge, but we have to live with the outcomes and understand the context decisions were made in at the time.

“It is regretful that we end up with five per cent affordable housing, but that is a fact of life that we can’t change and, if we want more, then viability means we will lose out on something else.”

Cllr David Key said: “This will have to go forward as we wouldn’t stand much chance at an appeal.”

Another contender emerges as East Devon’s very own Handforth – Owl

Council agrees to broadcast virtual meetings after ‘fiasco’ over accuracy of minutes

Francesca Evans seaton.nub.news 

Colyton Parish Council has agreed to record and broadcast its virtual meetings in future, following a request from a member of the public who described recent meetings as “a fiasco”.

The December meeting of the parish council descended into an ill-tempered debate over the accuracy of the minutes of the previous meeting in November, when the controversial Neighbourhood Plan had been discussed.

The minutes reported that a decision was made to withhold all comments submitted during the public consultation on the draft Neighbourhood Plan, until the consultation period was over, and they would then be shared with parish councillors and members of the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee at the same time.

Council chairman Andrew Parr said this was not what was agreed by the council; he understood that parish councillors would not see the comments until after the consultation period had ended, but the steering committee members would receive them so they could continue with their work.

After much heated debate on the subject, a vote on whether or not to amend the minutes was split, with Cllr Parr giving his casting vote in favour of changing them.

Cllr Howard West then put forward a motion of no confidence in the chairman, but this failed with four votes to five.

Throughout the meeting, several members of the public argued that they had listened to the November meeting and the minutes had been correct.

Now a resident has called for all future meetings, currently held via video conferencing app Zoom, to be recorded and broadcast to the public to ensure similar confusion does not happen again.

Speaking in support of the proposal during the public forum at this week’s meeting, Rob Kenyon said: “I’d like you to consider formally recording your sessions in a more accurate way, whether that’s visually or visual and audio after the fiasco of the meetings in November and December.

“I think this would be beneficial to whoever is taking the minutes and for people to reflect back on to get clarity on what was said and what was not.”

Addressing Cllr Parr, Mr Kenyon continued: “Me and other members of the public witnessed that particular meeting and that isn’t what we heard, so why you then chose to change those minutes and proceed with other councillors to try and get them formally changed is beyond me.

“To cut out all that aggravation, it would be far better if you had a system to recall what was said fully and accurately and then all this animosity would be resolved.”

Cllr Paul Arnott, who is also leader of East Devon District Council, said most other local authorities were already recording and broadcasting their meetings.

Referring to a video clip of Handforth Parish Council in Cheshire, which went viral last week due to the dysfunctional nature of the meeting, he joked: “I don’t think any of us fear we’re the next Jackie Weaver!”

He continued: “It’s a little bit embarrassing for us because so many tiny parish councils are doing this and why aren’t we?

“All that would happen is that this Zoom meeting would simultaneously be put out either on YouTube or a Facebook link, which could be done in about 30 seconds.

“We may get one person watching, we may get 50, but at the moment we’re in no man’s land because people are having to login to our Zoom meetings when they could just be watching it via their own Facebook account or something.”

Cllr Ray Watts argued that the council was not being asked to broadcast the meetings, but just to record them for their own use to check accuracy.

However, clerk Ian Haines said the initial request from the public did ask for the meetings to be broadcast, which by default meant they would also be recorded for future reference.

Cllr Arnott said: “It’s almost perverse not to do both, you just press one button.”

But Cllr Watts pointed out that this would involve setting up a parish council Facebook account or something similar, and proposed the meetings be recorded only on a three-month trial basis.

One member of the public then interrupted, asking: “What are you frightened of?”

Cllr Arnott commented: “Just because about every other town and parish council in East Devon are doing this, we should record it and make it available for transmission on the internet. ‘Broadcast’ is a really loaded term, all we’re doing is putting it on the internet.”

Cllr Crispin Denny added: “Absolutely, this is the 21st century and this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.”

On Cllr Arnott’s proposal, it was agreed to record and broadcast future meetings.

During the silent hours a night owl “clicked” on an East Devon Watch post creating an historic moment …………….the MILLIONTH hit!

To mark this significant milestone “Old Owl” has written three reflections on what led to the creation of the blog, what has happened since it started, culminating with the “changing of the Guard” in EDDC last year.

Appropriately this milestone has been reached just as we prepare to embark on the County Council elections. Are the people of Devon in 2020 [oops should read 2021] ready to follow the example of the East Devon electorate who voted for local change in 2019?

“New Owl” will be posting these timely reflections on successive days.

Observations by “Old Owl”

Part One – Why?

When this blog started in 2014, never did OA think that it would last this long, let alone reach its milestone birthday of ONE MILLION hits!  So, OA looks back at how this came to be.

Many years ago, during the 1990’s, OA had its first inklings that all was not well in East Devon, and particularly at East Devon District Council.  It became obvious to anyone with half a political brain that the district was being run by a cabal (“A cabal is a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by intrigue and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group) of highly influential councillors (Conservative) and officers (under the savvy leadership of one Mark Williams).  It was further obvious that this group expected (and had hitherto been correct) that this state of affairs would long continue.

There were so many things to point to.  The rather opaque way Cranbrook was foisted on an unknowing population, rewards of official posts to those who toed the strict line that the ruling group maintained (paid offices, promotions, new jobs).  It was too easy to identify these people, but they made it impossibly difficult to follow their trails.

Towards the end of the 1990’s there began to be murmurings amongst the voting populations that these issues existed but very little idea about how to go about changing things.  With alarming regularity the “same old” group went about its business almost unseen.

In the early 2000s and the decade that followed, it became impossible to ignore that this group was not only highly influential but also had many conflicts of interest.  Planning applications directly and indirectly connected to these individuals seemed to sail through the planning process, developers of large housing schemes being particularly welcomed, especially if they had good connections already in the area. While those of people not connected to them floundered endlessly. There were flagrant breaches of trust and manipulation of events.  One such event springs to mind: Councillor Malcolm Florey, who moved permanently to France but who was considered to be perfectly capable of taking decisions about East Devon from there:

https://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/budleigh-ward-member-defends-move-1-687241

Evidence slowly began to mount that things were in a desperate situation – action was needed.  The council was basically run at this time by the leadership of East Devon Conservatives (the notorious Sarah Randall-Johnson followed by Paul Diviani and a small group of trusted Tory councillors) and a smooth partnership of Mark Williams (CEO), Karim Hassan (director of Regeneration and now Chief Executive of Exeter City Council) and the no-less redoubtable head honcho of Planning – Kate Little.  Ably assisted by highly development supporting councillors such as disgraced ex-Councillor Graham Brown.  This group was effectively a developer-friendly team, working for the most part in the shadows.  Karim Hassan was eventually replaced by the now also departed Richard Cohen who easily stepped into Hassan’s shoes.

At about this time, a young woman from Ottery St Mary decided enough was enough and mounted a campaign to flush out the information that people so desperately needed.  A number of highly-publicised demonstrations were led by her at The Knowle (EDDC HQ) and the ruling group began to get VERY nervous.  When she easily succeeded in obtaining a district council seat at Ottery St Mary, the nervousness VASTLY increased.  She had defeated the then Leader of the Council (Randall-Johnson) and the writing was well and truly on the wall that change was about to come.

Here OA must once again stress that Claire Wright NEVER has any involvement in East Devon Watch (no matter what those who would like it to be so think), which has ALWAYS been run by independent authors).  It just so happened that EDW proved to be just about the only outlet at that time that gave her campaign wide publicity – local newspapers simply parroting the propaganda of the leading group.

It is fair to say that Ms Wright had a baptism by fire.  Never had an independent councillor been subject to so much vitriolic and misogynistic behaviour from Conservatives on the council.  She was treated with total disdain and attempts were constantly made to destroy her and her reputation.  She responded valiantly and fearlessly – and in time, as she found her feet, scored notable successes in bringing transparency to the long-concealed machinations of the Conservative majority.

And what machinations they were …

Times were about to change …