Of 46 UK domestic routes operated by Flybe at the time of its demise, 42 will be flown this summer by Loganair and six other airlines, comprehensively and successfully safeguarding the UK’s domestic connectivity.

William Telford www.business-live.co.uk.

The UK’s largest regional airline is to launch a new air route between Norwich and Exeter.

Loganair’s new service, which starts on July 12, will operate a four flights per week across the summer season on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday – moving to Monday and Friday flights from September onwards. The 70-minute flight on Loganair’s 49-seat Embraer 145 jets will compete against a 320-mile road journey.

Fares start from £49.99 one-way including all taxes and charges. All Loganair fares include a free checked baggage allowance, and tickets are on sale already.

The service links existing Loganair destinations. Norwich is already served from Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Jersey, and Exeter from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle.

Scottish-headquartered Loganair has also brought forward the resumption date of its Edinburgh-Norwich services, originally planned for September 2021, to recommence on July 12.

The new service adds to the restoration of domestic connectivity from Exeter lost through the collapse of Flybe in 2020 – between the four routes now flown by Loganair, those flown by its partner airline Blue Islands to Manchester and Jersey, and other airlines’ services to Belfast and Guernsey.

Of 46 UK domestic routes operated by Flybe at the time of its demise, 42 will be flown this summer by Loganair and six other airlines, comprehensively and successfully safeguarding the UK’s domestic connectivity.

Loganair chief executive Jonathan Hinkles said: “We are very pleased to expand our commitment to Norwich and Exeter with this direct service, connecting two important UK business and leisure locations.

“We’re sure this new connection will be warmly welcomed by customers travelling for work reasons and by those – just as soon as they can – travelling to visit friends and family.

“The need for domestic connectivity has been clearly recognised by the UK Government with its stated intention to reform Air Passenger Duty on domestic flights.

“There is no doubt the high level of APD has historically rendered such links as Norwich to Exeter economically difficult to sustain.

“The fact that 42 of Flybe’s 46 lost domestic routes have now been restored also shows the resilience and the importance of supporting the UK’s domestic airlines and this ‘team effort’ across the industry is something of which we should we all be proud.”

Exeter Airport operations director Stephen Wiltshire said: “It’s marvellous that Loganair is re-establishing the link between Exeter and Norwich, which is a key route for business, tourism and reconnecting family and friends kept apart by the pandemic.

“Importantly, this launch fills another gap left by the collapse of Flybe, with almost every domestic destination from Exeter now being restored by Loganair and other carriers over the coming months.”

Norwich Airport managing director Richard Pace said: “We’re delighted Loganair is re-establishing the link between Norwich and Exeter. We also welcome Loganair’s decision to restart the route to Edinburgh in July.

“In launching these routes, Loganair is putting its trust in the UK Government to deliver on its promise to reduce domestic Air Passenger Duty which is critical to the recovery and sustainability of domestic flying.”

Why do so many public contracts end up with friends of Dominic Cummings? Like us, you might have wondered. But, although reporters pick these stories up, nothing ever happens. Well, this time it’s different.

(Awaiting the reserved judgement – Owl)

goodlawproject.org 

On 3 March 2020, the Cabinet Office shook hands with Public First, a small privately held polling company. There was no formal contract, prior advertisement, or competitive tender process. It just made what procurement lawyers call a ‘direct award’. It formalised it retrospectively on 5 June 2020 and publicised it a week later. The total contract value is £840,000.

The directors and owners of Public First are Ms Rachel Wolf and Mr James Frayne. They have close connections with both the Minister for the Cabinet Office (the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP) and his long time colleague and Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister who works in the Cabinet Office (Mr Dominic Cummings).

We believe that money for your mates, on a handshake, formalised later, is unlawful. 

This is why Good Law Project has instructed Rook Irwin Sweeney and leading procurement lawyers Jason Coppel QC and Patrick Halliday. You can read our formal pre action protocol letter to Mr Gove and Mr Cummings here and the proceedings here.

To ensure value for money, to protect public funds, to guard against cronyism and bungs, one must put public contracts out to tender. And there was no exception here to that rule.

It is only with your support that we can continue to hold Government to account. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

Timeline:

30th July 2020: Witness statement of Jolyon Maugham QC: available here

30th July 2020: Witness statement of Rook Irwin Sweeney LLP: available here

13th August 2020: Amended court bundle: available here

19th August 2020: Defendant’s Summary Grounds of Resistance: available here

24th November 2020: Order from Court granting Permission for application Judicial Review: available here

21st December 2020: Detailed Grounds of Resistance: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Dominic Cummings: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Lee Cain: available here (Government was unable to produce a signed version of Lee Cain’s witness statement and so it was not relied upon in the hearing)

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Helen Stratton: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Nicola Westmore: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Alex Aiken: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statment of Simon Soothill: available here

21st December 2020: Witness statement of Catherine Hunt: available here

25th January 2021: Claimant’s skeleton argument: available here

1st February 2021: Defendant’s first skeleton: available here

9th February 2021: Witness statement of Mrs Jan Gooding: available here

10th February 2021: Email and instant messaging evidence: available here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here

10th February 2021: Extract from NAO report: available here

15th February 2021: Summary of hearing: available here

Because it is fielding 20 candidates, the “Freedom Alliance” gets significant publicity. 

Conservative anti-lockdown MPs in parliament number around 50 out of 364, about 14%. If this is representative of the general Conservative voting community then a number of Tory County seats could become marginal.

Owl thinks this provides an opportunity to “Change the Guard”. In the outgoing council the Conservatives held 41 of the 60 seats in DCC. So it only requires 11 of their seats to change for overall change to become a reality.

Remember there is a very different form of Alliance fighting this election. In East Devon, the East Devon Alliance (EDA) are candidates in Colyton & Seaton, where they won last time, and Axminster and Sidmouth where they came a close second.

From the EDA website:

We represent those who question the financial integrity of the District and County Councils; decisions made by a small “cabal” of Councillors from one dominant group, who use the party system to bulldoze through policy, and legislation – to the detriment of the vast majority of the residents in this County – ably and willingly assisted by a silent and compliant cohort of party members who rarely speak and who rarely object but continue – with a quiet word in their ears and a gentle arm at their elbows – to vote how they are told and when they are told. That is not democracy in our opinion. That is a virtual autocracy.

(Owl has already posted “All you need to know about one of Devon’s leading ‘Freedom Alliance’ candidates.”)

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com 

The newly formed Freedom Alliance political party is fielding candidates for 20 of the 60 seats in Devon, from Seaton to Hartland and from Combe Martin to Salcombe.

The Freedom Alliance Political Party, officially recognised earlier this year, say they are “committed to the principles of personal freedom” and oppose national lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Stephen Hopwood is a local party spokesman and a doctor of medicine who has worked in Totnes as a holistic practitioner for 25 years, and said: “These are unprecedented times and we aim to show that we are indeed a viable force to be reckoned with.

“More and more people are intelligently analysing what is true and what is not and beginning to see through the false narrative. We have decided to stand to support these people in this understanding and to directly oppose this unacceptable roll out in our community.

“We’re offering electors the chance to vote for a genuine opposition to the measures which have been imposed by the Government – measures that we do not believe were even remotely justified by the scale of the threat in the first place.

“Our economy has been ruined and our individual freedoms massively curtailed. Our fundamental human rights are in real danger of being lost and we believe we must act now to protect our community and humanity.”

“We reject the kind of restrictions that have been imposed on us in the last year under the guise of a pandemic which is just not justified by a proper rigorous scientific study of the data,” said Dr Hopwood.

“We have seen the threat of Covid exaggerated and large numbers of deaths caused by the lockdown itself – a huge cost in human misery, with people unable to get treatment or not being diagnosed for other illnesses. The toll on mental health and on society as a whole has been completely appalling, punitive and very damaging.

“Old people have been imprisoned in care homes. Children have seen their education blighted and been coerced into virus testing regimes and mask-wearing which is all hugely psychologically damaging. Businesses and livelihoods have been unnecessarily destroyed.”

The Freedom Alliance is calling for an immediate end to all lockdowns and believes any testing or vaccination should be completely voluntary and any ‘decline’ should not lead to any detrimental consequences. The party rejects compulsory mask-wearing and says vaccine passports are unnecessary and discriminatory.

Dr Hopwood said: “Times are very hard and people are delighted to have sincere individuals and a new political party step forward and speak up for them. Our numbers are growing rapidly as increasing numbers of local people realise what is going on and identify the need to stand together.”

Elections will take place for all 60 seats on Devon County Council on Thursday, May 6, with voters going to the polls to elect their representatives for the next four years.

The entirety of the 60-strong council will be up for re-election, with 56 ‘single-member’ Electoral Divisions and 2 ‘two-member’ Divisions’.

The current composition of the council consists of 41 Conservatives, 7 Labour, 6 Liberal Democrats, 3 Independents, 1 Green Party, 1 East Devon Alliance and 1 North Devon Liberal.

All elected councillors will serve their usual four year term upon their election.

The Conservatives and Labour are the only parties who are fielding the maximum of 60 candidates, with the Liberal Democrats fielding 55.

The Green Party are fielding 45 candidates, with one from UKIP, five from Reform UK, and 20 from the Freedom Alliance, who are standing on a platform of ‘no lockdowns, no curfews’.

The East Devon Alliance have three candidates, the Trade Unionist and Social Coalition have six, while there are 28 Independent candidates.

Claims that a Cornish hotel needs to clear coastline to build conference rooms for the G7 Summit have been dismissed by the government.

When push comes to shove will Cornwall Council simply roll over? – Owl

Will Humphries, Southwest Correspondent www.thetimes.co.uk

Carbis Bay Hotel has felled mature trees, cleared scrubland and poured concrete foundations without planning permission on the basis that development is needed for the summit in June.

The Cabinet Office has made it clear to The Times, however, that the hotel estate met all its requirements at a visit last year. Extra meeting rooms were not needed for the summit.

The council rejected the hotel’s plans three years ago for holiday lodges and a spa on the same strip of land because the development would harm the “beautiful backdrop to the beach”. The National Trust, which owns adjoining land, objected to the 2018 proposals on the “undeveloped coast” and has objected strongly again to the latest plans.

The resort, which will host the world leaders, has ignored calls from Cornwall council to halt its development until it decides on its retrospective planning application. It is not illegal to request approval after works have been completed but all work must be removed if the application fails.

The hotel submitted its plans in March after complaints. Local elections mean that councillors cannot meet to consider the work until after the summit of world leaders is held.

The hotel claims in its application: “Additional space is needed to provide smaller meeting room spaces for bilateral talks.” It said that the meeting rooms were needed to “enable the hotel to meet the accommodation requirements of the G7 Summit”.

A government spokeswoman said, however, that they had not asked the hotel to carry out any work for the G7. “The venues selected for the summit at Carbis Bay Estate and Tregenna Castle Resort provide the facilities required to host this significant international event,” she said.

Rupert Manley, a retired doctor, from St Ives, said that the planning system needed reform to make it illegal to develop an area without planning permission. “It sends a disastrous signal to developers that this is the way to do it,” he said. “This loophole needs to be tightened.”

Elise Langley, of St Ives, said the hotel was “obliterating the coastal woodland with no planning permission”.

Linda Taylor, local councillor and Conservative group leader on Cornwall council, said she “cannot imagine for one moment the G7 would occupy property that has not got full planning permission”.

“The last thing the Cabinet Office wants to be engaged in is a planning dispute,” she said.

“I absolutely support the G7 coming to Carbis Bay and I have every confidence the hotel will be an absolutely fabulous venue but we do have a planning process.”

Taylor said that following concerns raised by locals she requested the planning decision be made by a committee of councillors.

The hotel’s planning application for the meeting rooms appears to have been rushed, with it relying on an out-of-date ecological survey which Cornwall Wildlife Trust said could only be relied upon until January 2015.

The design and access document carries one error-strewn section which reads: “Thsi (sic) investment combined with the hotels reputation and unrivalled location have atracted (sic) internationsl (sic) renown to an extent that the Hotel has been sucessful (sic) in hosting the upcoming G7 Conference.”

Carbis Bay Hotel did not comment.

Is East Devon missing a trick? How about joining forces with South Somerset to push this through? – Owl

Small villages in one part of Somerset could soon find it a lot easier to provide affordable housing for local residents.

Daniel Mumby www.somersetlive.co.uk

Under current planning laws, housing developers only have to provide affordable housing (i.e. housing sold for below the market rate) for any new development of ten homes or more – meaning many smaller sites get built out without any low-cost option being provided.

South Somerset District Council is attempting to fix this by asking the government to designate most of its parishes as ‘rural’ – meaning they can insist on affordable homes even for smaller new developments.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is expected to respond to the council’s request later in the year.

Under the Housing Act 1985, UK parishes which are ‘rural’ (i.e. those with a population under 3,000) can set a lower threshold for affordable homes – allowing them to seek contributions from developers towards rural affordable homes without approving massive new schemes.

‘Rural’ areas in Somerset already include parishes which lie within either national parks (including Exmoor) or areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs).

Map showing rural parishes in South Somerset (orange), those which could be designated as rural (blue and purple) and urban areas (grey) (Image: Ordnance Survey/ South Somerset District Council)

But only three small parts of the South Somerset district currently have this ‘rural’ designation:

• Settlements within the Blackdown Hills AONB – such as Buckland St Mary and Whitestaunton, both near Chard
• Settlements within the Cranborne Chase AONB – such as Pen Selwood near Wincanton and Brewham near Bruton
• Settlements within the Dorset AONB – solely the parish of West Crewkerne

If the council is successful, almost every parish in the district would be classed as ‘rural’ by the government.

Tessa Saunders, the council’s specialist in strategic planning, said continuing under the current system was not an option.

She told the council’s district executive committee on April 1: “The rural designation will enable more affordable housing to be delivered in our rural communities once new policies in the Local Plan review have been prepared and are supported by viability evidence.

“This designation will also help to protect our rural communities from potential future national policy changes that seek to accelerate housing delivery, but having the unintended consequence of reducing affordable housing delivery in rural communities.

“The current affordable housing unit threshold policy does not work for rural areas as it limits the supply of much-needed rural affordable housing and often results in schemes that no longer meet genuine community need.”

The only parishes which would be exempt (and retain the existing threshold of ten homes) are those which are currently classified as ‘urban’ due to their population size – namely:

• Bruton
• Castle Cary (and neighbouring Ansford)
• Chard
• Crewkerne
• Ilminster
• Langport (and neighbouring Huish Episcopi)
• Martock
• Somerton
• South Petherton
• Wincanton
• Yeovil

However, the planned reform would provide protection for a number of parishes on the fringes of growing towns – such as Tatworth and Forton near Chard, or West Coker near Yeovil.

Council leader Val Keitch said: “In rural areas there is a need for one or two affordable homes – and that’s not what we’re getting, and so people are having to move out. Personally, I think that’s unfortunate.”

The district executive committee voted unanimously to approve the plans, with MHCLG expected to respond to the council’s request in the coming months.

The follow-up to yesterday’s post Trending Boris Johnson’s “Lies” -10 million views and rising.

Something to bear in mind when you vote on May 6: “Tory Culture”. – Owl

Andrew Sparrow www.theguardian.com

Six opposition parties in the Commons are urging the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to allow a vote on an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s “consistent failure to be honest” in statements to MPs.

They want Hoyle to let them table a motion saying that Johnson’s conduct should be referred to the committee of privileges, on the grounds that making a deliberately misleading statement to MPs amounts to a contempt of parliament under the Commons rulebook, Erskine May.

Given the size of the Conservative majority, there is no realistic chance of MPs approving such a motion, but a debate on this subject – if the Speaker were to allow one – would be highly embarrassing to the prime minister.

The letter was organised by the Green MP Caroline Lucas and it has been signed by five other parliamentary party leaders: Ian Blackford (Scottish National party), Sir Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats), Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru), Colum Eastwood (SDLP) and Stephen Farry (Alliance).

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was invited to sign the letter, but declined. A party source said Labour did not normally sign up to initiatives launched by other parties.

Lucas was partly inspired to take action by a video posted on Twitter by the campaigner Peter Stefanovic about what he describes as Johnson’s “lies”. It has attracted more than 11m views.

“It’s hard to recall any prime minister who has treated parliament with the contempt that this one does,” said Lucas.

“There is a normalisation of lying to the house which is deeply dangerous, especially coming from an increasingly authoritarian government which is looking at every means to avoid accountability.”

In their letter, the six MPs express their “deep concern” that the PM’s repeated failure to be truthful is damaging the reputation of the Commons.

They go on: “This is not a question of occasional inaccuracies or a misleading use of figures: it is a consistent failure to be honest with the facts, or to correct wrong information at the earliest opportunity when misleading information is given. This, we believe, amounts to a contempt of the house.”

The letter cites six examples of Johnson giving misleading information to MPs: saying the economy had grown by 73% under the Conservatives, when the figure covered the period since 1990 (including Labour’s term in office); saying CO₂ emissions had been cut by 42% since 2010, when the real figure was by 38% since 1990; saying the nurses’ bursary had been restored, when the replacement arrangement is less generous; falsely saying the number of families living in poverty had been cut by 400,000 since 2010; falsely saying Bridgend was going to be a battery manufacturing centre; and saying Covid-related contracts had been published when they had not.

When challenged about comments like this, No 10 will sometimes acknowledge that an error was made, but more usually brushes aside the complaint or argues that Johnson was misunderstood.

Johnson himself almost never corrects the record in the chamber, and Downing Street does not say his record for honesty is problematic – despite the fact that Peter Oborne, who was political editor of the Spectator when Johnson was its editor, has recently published a book, The Assault on Truth, wholly devoted to what he describes as Johnson’s “lies”. Oborne, a political reporter for almost 30 years, says he has never encountered a senior British politician “who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as … Johnson”.

The opposition MPs want the committee of privileges to investigate Johnson because other avenues of complaint appear closed. Knowingly misleading parliament is against the ministerial code, but only the PM himself can order an inquiry into breaches of the code.

The code of conduct for MPs says “honesty” is one of the values they should respect, but the parliamentary commissioner for standards does not investigate complaints about MPs making false statements in the chamber.

Intentionally misleading MPs could be a contempt of parliament, and contempt allegations can be investigated by the committee of privileges.

But the committee can only launch an investigation after a vote for one by MPs, and it is for the Speaker to decide whether a debate on such a motion can be held.

The Speaker’s office said it would not be commenting on private correspondence with MPs.

In response to the claims from the opposition MPs, a government spokesperson said: “The prime minister follows the ministerial code.”