East Devon District Council has re-elected the man ‘who has steered them through choppy waters’ back to his role as leader.

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com

Cllr Paul Arnott, from the East Devon Alliance, who first took on the role in May 2020, was once again voted in to the position at Tuesday’s annual council meeting by 29 votes to 21 over Conservative candidate, Cllr Colin Brown.

The meeting was held in-person at Westpoint due to social distancing guidance meaning it could not be held at Blackdown House, and lasted just 46 minutes as councillors sped through the ceremonial business of the meeting.

Cllr Arnott, who leads the council, which is run by a coalition of the East Devon Alliance, Liberal Democrats, Greens and some Independents, beat the Conservative candidate in a vote for the leadership, although the margin was tighter than in May 2020 when a similar election occurred.

Nominating him to continue in the role, Cllr Eileen Wragg said: “It is with pleasure and pride that I nominate Cllr Paul Arnott for the next year. The past year has been uniquely challenging to adapt to new systems and ways of working and continue with projects started by previous administrations like Queen’s Drive and Cranbrook. Bold decisions have been made like withdrawal from the GESP and granting consent for the Lower Otter Restoration Project.

“Under Cllr Arnott, huge strides forward have been made, with a willingness to listen and engage, and relationships have improved. He has steered the council through choppy waters with his hand at the helm.

“I hope you support the nomination and we will work together for the people of East Devon and our outstanding environment and put it ahead of political differences. We are being led by a caring councillor who does that and leads by example.”

Seconding the nomination, Cllr Olly Davey added: “As a Green, I welcome the commitment to climate change and sustainability and make it a guiding principle of the council. He has steered us through a difficult year and he has assembled a great team around him and he will take us forward in the way we need to go.”

But putting forward an alternative candidate, Cllr Bruce de Saram proposed on behalf of the Conservative Group that Colin Brown should be the leader. He said: “He is the chair of the scrutiny so we know he plays a positive and ganging role in the life of the council, and he would make an outstanding leader off the council.”

Seconding the nomination, Cllr Philip Skinner added: “Colin Brown would bring a marked difference to the authority and I would like to think other members would get behind him as well.”

But councillors voted by 29 votes to 21 in favour of Cllr Arnott continuing to lead the council, with eight members abstaining and not voting for either candidate.

Following the meeting, Cllr Arnott said: “I have spent a quarter of a century now living in East Devon and am very fortunate to have been everything from a student in Topsham to the parent of a now grown-up family in Colyton. I love this area, and it is a great honour to have been elected by the council to serve for a second term as Leader, not something I will ever take for granted.

“I believe that the majority of people in East Devon, of all ages, are progressive, forward-thinking people, wishing for their local governance to be a national exemplar of transparency and accountability. We have put much in place to achieve this and I wish to thank the very many officers at the council who have joined us on this mission. The work goes on.”

Cllr Arnott said his entire first term of office as leader was conducted on Zoom, and the extra burden of the pandemic on councillors and officers alike, was considerable, and added: “Now, we are hoping for more capacity to make progress with our key aims. The town of Cranbrook needs much attention to help it emerge from some tangled knots remaining from its first ten years. Axminster, so full of potential, will be another focus of the coming year, as Exmouth has been in the past year, and will continue to be. I stand ready to help in whatever way I can for Honiton, where the green shoots of a revitalised town council are now emerging.

“Across the district, from Seaton to Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary to the Blackdown Hills, we want to engage with and help in the culture, leisure, sport and tourism economies. East Devon has so much talent and potential in this, and we want to help this sector thrive.

“There will be financial challenges too. The government said it would cover losses from the pandemic, and unfortunately it has not, in particular leaving us with more than a million pounds in losses with LED. We also have to take on challenges ducked by previous administrations. What to do with our ageing public lavatory provision, or with our car parks?

“In Climate Change issues, we now have a new dedicated officer to help us guide this process, and all emerging policy will need to pass through this filter. We have a new Poverty Action policy, and we will be working with County to help us realise this. And finally, as an absolute priority, we need to put into action challenging ideas for more social and attainable homes for local people. I can’t wait to get on with all this over the next year with colleagues of every political colour.”

Cllr Arnott reappointed Cllr Paul Hayward as the deputy leader of the council, and named an unchanged cabinet from that which is currently running the council.

The meeting also saw Cllr Ian Thomas, a former leader of the council, elected as the new council chairman, winning the vote 36-20 over the Conservatives Cllr Andrew Moulding.

Proposing him to be the new chairman, Cllr Geoff Pook said that as East Devon is a polarised council of near equal number of opposing views, the chair has to be independent of party and of political bias and give every councillor the voice that they represent.

As Cllr Thomas was the leader of the Independents, Cllr Pook said: “He will bring intellect and skill and total independence and integrity and ensure the reputation of the council is both enriched and enhanced.”

Seconding the nomination, Cllr Susie Bond added: “He has a decade long experience and during his leadership gained the trust of all sides, and this offers an ideal opportunity and era of collaborative working.”

On accepting the office of chairman of the council, Cllr Thomas said: “I thank you for the endorsement and it is a great honour to serve the council.”

And on the fact the meeting had to legally be held in person, he added: “Several of us feel some risk and vulnerability here and I am sure someone will come up with a reason why we all have to be here other than a 50 year old law which we hope to change as soon as possible. Let’s do the business professionally and then go home safely.”

Cllr Val Ranger was also re-elected to her role as vice-chair of the council, by 31 votes to 23 over the Conservative Cllr Mike Howe.

Footnote: Worth adding that Owl believes that Cllr Ben Ingham displayed his new/old allegiances by proposing Cllr Andrew Moulding for the role of chair. See “EDDC Tories in denial, they have finally lost what they thought was theirs by right” for interesting references to Cllr Andrew Moulding’s view on “change” (when it suits his argument).

 Help me hold the government to account for Covid-19 care home deaths

At the end of March Cathy Gardner wrote this update on her legal challenge:

“It seems like a lifetime ago that we were granted permission for the Judicial Review. That was on November 19th 2020. At the time, the government’s legal team were arguing against an early court date, which could have been this spring. Since then my legal team have been following up with the court to get a date for the hearing, with no success. We’re now pushing harder because it seems that the delay is now due to the court backlog.

Hopefully I’ll be able to update this page with a date very soon. It still seems likely that the hearing will be later this year, which is frustrating for me and all those affected by the issues in this case. Meanwhile the call for an independent public inquiry is growing louder too. We need to hold our government to account. With your help I have been able to bring this case and with your continued support I know we will get there.”

Thank you

Cathy

Owl has long held the view that “kicking the case into the long grass” may not be to the Government’s advantage. Cathy Gardner obviously thinks the same. Here is another update:

Will Cummings help our case today? – Dr Cathy Gardner

“We will be watching todays hearing with great interest. Dominic Cummings has already hinted at some explosive revelations, including the failure to protect the most vulnerable in care homes. 

We will issue a full update once we have had a chance to digest what he says and its implications for my judicial review. 

Coincidentally we have also just received the defendants ‘defence’ documents, which seem to be attempting to bury my legal team in irrelevant waffle and rewrite history with the benefit of hindsight. 

We remain focussed on the key questions in our claim – who made the critical decisions and why? In the first weeks of the pandemic over 50% of the deaths were residents in care homes. People like my father were not protected: where was Matt Hancock’s infamous “protective ring”?

Thank you for your support, I cannot do this without all of you.”

Cathy

26.5.21

Never mind the small print, let’s get away from it all down the M5. The forecast for the holiday weekend is good. So the least we should expect are traffic jams. – Owl 

Jennifer Williams .www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk 

At some point earlier this month, the government’s website quietly changed.

It appears to have happened on Friday, although ministers claim it dates back to May 14.

Either way, that blink-and-you’d-miss-it update has major consequences for thousands of people.

In Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford, Leicester, Kirklees, Hounslow, Burnley and North Tyneside, all places where cases of the Indian Covid variant have been rising fast, people should ‘avoid travelling in and out of affected areas unless it is essential, for example for work, if you cannot work from home, or education’, it states.

It also specifies stricter socialising advice, warning people to only meet other households outside and to keep to the 2m rule, effectively rolling back to some of the national rules prior to May 17.

But in a technicolour re-run of the rows that played out between local and national government last year, there was no active communication of the change to the local populations affected, no press release, no announcement and zero notification to any of their local systems.

When Manchester Evening News reporter Ethan Davies spotted the change yesterday, we all had to take a step back. Was this something we already knew about, but that all of us had collectively forgotten?

But no. A few messages to local sources quickly showed this was news to them too.

“Nope…that hasn’t been communicated to Greater Manchester,” replied one. “I think it will be news to Bolton too.”

It was news to Bolton. Within minutes a source there had replied to say: “We have only just found out. No public health comms and no public health directors in all the area were aware of the change. We weren’t notified.”

As another official then said: “Which begs the question: do any of the local authorities referenced on the website know and what evidence was used to support this local restrictions guidance?”

The answer seems to have been no.

Last year these kinds of tensions were painfully common when covering the pandemic here – decisions landed from on-high at virtually no notice.

But even at the height of the madness, there was always some warning: local leaders knew shortly prior to the July 31 restrictions being introduced across Greater Manchester, for example; when the various hokey-cokey changes to borough-level measures were playing out, local authorities and MPs were generally consulted, even if they often didn’t like the outcome. Even during the tier three row, there were conversations.

This time, nobody had been told.

As in Greater Manchester, Blackburn’s public health director Dominic Harrison had no idea.

“Local government areas involved were not consulted with, warned of, notified about or alerted to this guidance,” he tweeted this morning.

“I have asked to see the national risk assessment which support this action – it has not been provided to us yet.”

In North Tyneside, director of public health Wendy Burke said the updated guidance had ‘not been accompanied by any communication to the local authority, local residents or businesses’.

Sources suggest the Local Government Association was not aware, MPs were not aware, the Association of Directors of Public Health were not aware…and it hadn’t come up on national discussions between central government and local officials.

“What’s the point of updating the government website when no Boltonian will bother to read it?” asks one senior figure here.

“If no one knows this, then there’s absolutely no chance of compliance.

“Boltonians can’t be blamed for not complying if they don’t know about any local restrictions. What’s puzzling is I didn’t know anything about these local restrictions, but did know that Boltonians have been barred from visiting Scotland, which says it all about the difference in national messaging.

“This is yet another clusterf***, to put it mildly.”

Today, meetings between local and national are escalating. There was already a meeting of Greater Manchester’s emergency Covid committee in the diary – which may end up being best summed up with a popcorn emoji – and sources say chief executives and directors of public health are meeting with Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries at lunchtime.

As yet, it remains unclear how the updated guidance ended up on gov.uk, who drafted it and who signed it off.

Nevertheless the government seems, so far, to be doubling down on its latest advice.

Last night Number 10 tried to claim that the guidance had been contained in a speech by the Prime Minister on May 14, although in reality all he said was ‘those living in Bolton and other affected areas, there is now a greater risk from this new variant, so I urge you to be extra cautious’.

The government website was indeed updated on May 14 with ‘additional guidance on new variant’, according to its updates summary, although it was only on May 21 that it was updated with ‘updated guidance for areas where the new Covid-19 variant is spreading’.

This morning cabinet minister Therese Coffey appeared on Good Morning Britain to claim the web page update was ‘just an element of a formality’ around the need for extra caution in Bolton, adding that ‘the partnership has been there’.

Local level would disagree on both counts. Telling people not to travel in or out of their area feels like something a little more draconian than a formality.

As one official here points out, such a move will have an economic impact, including on hospitality.

And on ‘partnership’: “At least northern and southern councils are being treated equally sh*t.”

Or, as another puts it: “This doesn’t bode well for the future if government can’t be clear they need to have agreed a plan with local leaders. Secret pretend lockdowns ain’t going to help anyone.”