“We must learn to live with the virus” – Boris Johnson

“We are seeing rising hospital admissions and we must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from Covid.”

“We have to balance the risks. The risks of the disease which the vaccines have reduced but very far from eliminated and the risks of continuing with legally-enforced restrictions that inevitably take their toll on people’s lives and livelihoods, on people’s health and mental health.”

“We must be honest with ourselves that if we can’t reopen our society in the next few weeks, when we will be helped by the arrival of summer and by the school holidays, then we must ask ourselves: when will we be able to return to normal?”

And who was it that delayed adding India to the Red quarantine list at the end of April, which has left us in a worse condition than otherwise could have been the case (cases doubling every seven days – work it out)? – Owl

The Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital (RD&E) has gone into OPEL 4 status – its highest alert level – due to high demand and staff shortages.

Howard Lloyd www.devonlive.com

The NHS Foundation Trust revealed today that it was ‘experiencing severe pressure’ across a range of services and both its acute and community hospitals.

Patients are being urged to phone 111 if they need urgent care instead of coming to the emergency department for treatment.

The hospital added that it was not the only one in Devon experiencing extreme pressures.

Phil Luke, director of operations, said: “The RD&E – and the wider NHS across Devon – is extremely busy today.

“As always, our top priority is to continue delivering safe, quality care. To help us ensure this, I am asking people who do not need emergency care to phone NHS 111 in the first instance. This will help to ease the burden on our overstretched services at this time. It is important to stress, though, that if you do need emergency care, please phone 999 or attend our emergency department.”

“In addition, if people have a loved one who is medically well and able to leave hospital please support us to ensure that they can do so safely.”

The Trust continues to operate its maternity services as normal.

A statement on the RD&E website added: The Trust is currently at OPEL 4 status – the highest alert level – due to:

• A large number of people continuing to visit our Emergency Department
• Delays with discharging patients who have no onward care arrangements in place
• A high level of staff absence due to COVID-19 self-isolation
• Caring for a small number of patients with COVID-19 and the impact this has on our other service
• Pressures across our paediatric services

Several other NHS organisations across Devon are also experiencing severe pressures. The RD&E is working with these organisations to reduce pressures, focusing on ensuring people are cared for in the most appropriate setting.

• Our Emergency Department, which is for urgent and immediately life-threatening cases only, is extremely busy today with longer waits than usual.
• If people need urgent care, before coming to our Emergency Department, we ask that they call 111 or visit 111 online first. Through 111, they’ll be able to speak to a clinician, who will advise where to go to get the right treatment more quickly.
• It’s really important that people continue to attend appointments and seek medical attention if they need it.
• If a friend, family member, or loved one is medically fit and able to leave hospital sooner, we ask that people get in touch with our Family Liaison Service to help us make discharge arrangements. The service is open 7 days a week, 9am-5pm, and can be reached on T: 01392 402093 (weekdays only) or E: rde-tr.pals@nhs.net (7 days a week). If you cannot get through on phone please email and we will ensure this is picked up.
• The free paediatric HANDiApp provides expert advice for common childhood illnesses.

Ministers decided to ditch mandatory face masks after being warned the UK economy would lose billions of pounds if people were made to wear them after 19 July.

By Jane Merrick, Richard Vaughan inews.co.uk 

Modelling from reviews of social distancing and mass gatherings revealed public dislike for wearing face coverings at sporting, music and arts events.

Keeping compulsory face masks could cost the events and hospitality industries more than £4bn in lost revenues, the analysis suggested.

A Whitehall source told i that the research was compelling and the driving force behind the decision to scrap mandatory face masks when all restrictions are lifted in England.

This was despite warnings by scientists from The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) that the Government should keep “baseline measures” in place.

It suggests that ministers are now “following the economy” rather than the science as the country grapples with an exit wave from the pandemic.

The public dislike for face masks in recreational settings such as football matches and live concerts is in contrast to broad support for coverings on public transport, which is regarded as a necessary inconvenience, sources said.

But at a meeting in April, Sage recommended that face masks and other baseline measures such as working from home should be kept in place even after all other restrictions were lifted at the end of the roadmap.

The minutes, published on Monday, said: “Ongoing baseline measures and sustained long-term behavioural change will be required to control a resurgence in infections. Lifting restrictions may recreate conditions for super spreader events.”

The public health chief of one of the areas worst-hit by the Delta variant has added his voice to the widespread calls from scientists and medical experts to keep face masks in enclosed public spaces after 19 July.

Professor Dominic Harrison, director of public health for Blackburn-with-Darwen in Lancashire which bore the brunt of rising Delta cases in May and June, also called for a decision to be made as soon as possible on vaccinating 12 to 17-year-olds to limit transmission in secondary schools once the new term starts in September.

The independent vaccines committee the JCVI is still debating whether to extend jabs to 12-17-year-olds.

Prof Harrison told i: “I generally share the view of some colleagues that it is time for us to open up as much as possible – but the three things we need to make this safer are; to get on with vaccination for those aged 12-plus as soon as possible, increase ventilation measures in schools and other public indoor space and retain mask wearing (as now) in enclosed public space.

“With these mitigations we should be able to have maximum freedoms and minimal risk – but we need to be really clear – we will still not be completely risk free.”

Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, and the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance effectively backed Boris Johnson’s decision to scrap face masks by appearing alongside the Prime Minister in Monday’s press conference.

But both scientists wanted to make it clear they would continue to wear coverings in enclosed or crowded public places, reflecting concerns on Sage that people should be mindful of the infection risk.

Professor Calum Semple, a member of Sage, said this was the right approach from the Government’s top scientists.

He told Times Radio Breakfast: “The emphasis from the chief medical officer and the Government chief scientific adviser was to assess your environment.

“They both said they’re going to be wearing masks in many circumstances, as will I.”

Boris Johnson’s “freedom day” will be a day of fear for elderly and vulnerable people and those with compromised or suppressed immune systems, for whom the efficacy of vaccines is much reduced, charities have warned.

Amelia Hill www.theguardian.com

Citing the statement by the new health secretary, Sajid Javid, that Covid infections could surge to a record 100,000 a day in a few weeks after all social distancing and mask-wearing regulations are removed in England, Blood Cancer UK has said that 19 July “will be the day that it feels like freedoms are being taken away from” many people.

“People with blood cancer are unlikely to have got as much protection from the vaccines as people without cancer,” the charity said in a tweet. “Lots of you have also told us it’s been great to start getting back to normal over the last couple of months.

“The reason many of you have felt able to do this is that the people around you have been keeping their distance and wearing masks. We’re appealing to the public to continue to be considerate because there’s no way of knowing if the person next to you is immunocompromised.”

Jan Shortt, the general secretary of the National Pensioners’ Convention, said that the 50 deaths a day being projected by many health experts as a direct result of the ending of restrictions were likely to be among the UK’s oldest and most vulnerable.

“The ‘free-for-all’ depicted in the information from government sources is making older people (and potentially others in society) anxious about going out into crowds and being targeted because they are either wearing a mask or not,” she said.

But it is not only older people who are scared and angry. Eve, who is 34 and unable to work because of disabilities, said the relaxation of the rules will “mean I’m rendered housebound by those who choose not to wear masks”.

“The so-called freedom day is, for us, the exact opposite,” she said. “Shame on those who made this decision and those who choose, going forward, not to wear a mask. You are part of why I will not be able to go outside, just as I was starting to enjoy a bit of actual freedom again – which, for me, has been that I now sometimes go into a shop. That’s all I’ve had. And now it is being taken away. I feel hopeless.”

Cathy Bass, a 39-year-old office worker in Lincolnshire, said the younger generation felt they had been sold out by the government’s decision.

“As a younger person who’s only recently had a first dose of the vaccine, I feel a bit betrayed by the decision,” she said. “We’ve sacrificed so much during the pandemic mostly for the sake of protecting the older population, yet apparently we can’t keep the small step of wearing a mask in certain places for just three more months while we wait for all of the adult population to have had the chance to be fully vaccinated and to be as safe as it’s possible to be from coronavirus, including the effects of Long Covid.

“Not to mention keeping unvaccinated under-18s safe – and helping stop the development of new variants,” she added.

Ellie from Leigh in Greater Manchester is 38 and lives with her partner, both of whom are classed as clinically extremely vulnerable.

“My partner and I have had our lives on hold for the past 18 months,” she said. “We’re just at the point where we can start to get out a little more and start mixing with friends and family. The idea that masks will no longer be mandatory terrifies me. I feel that as a disabled and vulnerable woman I’ll be excluded more and more from being able to participate in normal life.

“If people will not be wearing masks then I don’t want to return to supermarket shopping with my carer, to going out for lunch with my mum or attending events where lots of people will be present,” she added.

Jacquie Rogers, a 64-year-old author from Malvern said the relaxation in the rules will “condemn” her to having to avoid all places where others congregate.

The author, who is immunosuppressed and has been shielding since the start of the pandemic, said she “relies on others to protect me”.

“Emerging data from John Hopkins and other research centres suggest the efficacy of the vaccine is very low for people like me compared with others of my age,” she said. “I suspect my options outdoors will contract, too, with restrictions lifting, meaning even fewer opportunity for me to socialise or even shop.”

The chief obstacle, which is also widely acknowledged in policy circles, is that there is no real desire for property prices to fall as housing investment has a direct bearing on GDP, economic growth and confidence in the economy. The paradox is that millions of individuals and families under the age of 45 may be excluded from the housing market, but millions of older voters inclined to vote Conservative stand to gain from an ever-appreciating asset.

Anna Minton www.theguardian.com

If the price of food had increased at the same rate as house prices in the UK over the past 50 years, then today a chicken would cost just under £70. As average house prices in London are more than twice as high as the rest of the country, in the capital that chicken would cost almost £140.

The government response to soaring inflation is to promise to build more homes at speed by loosening the planning system. It is a “supply side” solution, which sounds logical: rapidly increase the number of homes being built and prices will inevitably come down. It is a highly contentious approach, which cost the Conservatives the Chesham and Amersham byelection, but it sounds as if it should work.

The problem is that the housing market does not function like a pure market, and while the UK does have some of the highest prices in the world the affordability crisis is not a peculiarly British issue; it’s a global problem, with an index by the property consultants Knight Frank revealing that global residential prices have risen by more than 60% in the past 10 years.

Cities around the world, from Auckland to Vancouver, are facing an affordability crisis, with huge price rises and extreme gentrification in cities linked to global capital flows and foreign investment rather than local circumstances. This ensures that increased supply will not bring prices down; the new luxury apartment complexes that now characterise British cities such as London, Manchester, Bristol and York, to name but a few, remain out of reach for the majority of house buyers. Many are sold “off plan”, straight to foreign investors, before they have even been built.

The flood of global capital into cities followed the financial crisis and has been driven by low or negative interest rates, the growing dominance of global private equity in real estate and quantitative easing, the policy of creating trillions of pounds of electronic money pursued by the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. In the UK £445bn was created between 2009 and 2016, which went disproportionately into the hands of the richest, who ploughed it disproportionately into property. Between March and November 2020, a further £450bn was funnelled into the economy, which is predicted to have a similarly distorting effect on the housing market.

The irony is that while house prices have soared around the world, they are generally left out of central banks’ calculations on inflation. In the UK, food, clothes, furniture, cars and holidays are all included in the government’s preferred inflation index, the consumer price index (CPI), but house prices are not. The European Central Bank is looking at measuring the role of housing in the rising cost of living in a forthcoming strategic policy review, but there is little likelihood of the UK doing the same.

This is the global context for our extreme housing crisis, which is further fuelled by local circumstances. Chief among these are a private sector lacking incentives to produce more housing, and a social housing sector that builds very limited amounts of social and affordable housing. Margaret Thatcher’s defining policy of “right to buy”, under which more than 2m council homes were sold, continues to decimate the dwindling amount of affordable housing in England, although Scotland and Wales have halted the policy. In 1978, the year before Thatcher came to power, the government built 100,000 council homes, the private sector built 150,000 and there was no shortage of housing. Since then, private sector housebuilding figures have failed to make up the shortfall despite repeated policy incentives, such as starter homes, which have contributed to a limited rise in building but added further inflationary pressures by increasing mortgage credit.

Housebuilders are businesses accountable to their shareholders, and it is well documented that it is not in their interests to flood the market with homes, as it would damage their profits. Instead they control the rate of production and trickle out limited numbers of homes from large developments to keep prices high. As a result, repeated government reviews and politicians from both parties have consistently identified “land banking” rather than a restrictive planning system as the key barrier to supply-side solutions. There is also little incentive to build high-quality, larger homes, leaving the UK with some of the smallest homes in Europe, with the most attractive sites for developers in city centres suited to small luxury apartment developments that generate high income.

If there is widespread recognition that the planning system is not the main barrier, why are the government’s reforms so focused on loosening restrictions? This is partly because it’s a voter friendly idea outside of the Tory shires and popular with free-market Conservatives, while the interventionist policies required to genuinely affect house price inflation are seen as ideologically unpalatable.

Canada and New Zealand, which have witnessed some of the fastest house price rises in the world, have introduced policies to dampen demand from foreign investors. Canada has proposed a new tax on foreign investors and restrictions on mortgage credit, while New Zealand has instructed its Reserve Bank to consider house prices in making monetary policy decisions. Solutions involving the public sector are equally hard to envisage, such as a public housing programme or large-scale new housing developments enabled by the municipal purchase of land, which underpinned the creation of the postwar new towns and remains the European model for development.

The chief obstacle, which is also widely acknowledged in policy circles, is that there is no real desire for property prices to fall as housing investment has a direct bearing on GDP, economic growth and confidence in the economy. The paradox is that millions of individuals and families under the age of 45 may be excluded from the housing market, but millions of older voters inclined to vote Conservative stand to gain from an ever-appreciating asset.

The growing consensus is that the planning bill is unlikely to survive in its current form as it is so unpopular with swathes of Conservative MPs in vulnerable shire constituencies. The result is planning reforms that were unlikely to make a substantive difference in the first place are likely to be significantly watered down. In this way, a government claiming to liberalise the planning system can appeal to its free-market wing, while also appeasing the no-development lobby in the shires. It may be clever politics, which produces a lot of noise about the need to build, but it obscures the causes of the housing crisis instead of addressing them.

• Anna Minton is the author of Big Capital: Who is London For? and reader in architecture at the University of East London

Putting a road through “would’ve ruined it”.

Some councillors in favour of the road worry about the district falling behind its targets to build new homes and the threat of the government stepping in to force planning decisions on the council.

Joe Ives, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

Plans to build an access road across a popular park have been rejected by North Devon District Council.

The council had been considering selling Westacott Park to a developer with a view to building a secondary access road for a new housing development.

The council’s strategy and resources committee voted six to three against controversial proposals put forward by developer Progress Land Ltd. 

The park had been earmarked by the council as a potential access road to a development of more than 130 new homes.

Councillor David Knight, who voted against the plans, said:  “It’s a contentious decision but personally I’m not happy with selling a park to put a road in the middle of it.”

“It’s an intimate space which people use and frankly putting a road through it would have ruined it.”

Progress Land intended to acquire the park from the council for an undisclosed fee. If their plans were accepted, they promised to build a new park and improve what remains of the current Westacott Park by furnishing it with new equipment.

The road, which would have covered more than 10 per cent of the park, has divided local opinion.

Some councillors in favour of the road worry about the district falling behind its targets to build new homes and the threat of the government stepping in to force planning decisions on the council.

One of those to vote in favour of the plans was Councillor John Patrinos (Independent, Lynton and Lynmouth) who warned: “We can’t afford to stop these houses being built.

“If we do then, according to the rules laid down by government, we’re not going to have a five-year land supply for our local plan.” 

Councillors from both sides agree that alternative plans for the access road need to be more developed and put forward to the council.

Julie Hunt (Lib Dem, Barnstaple with Westacott) welcomed the result whilst recognising the need for an alternative.

Councillor Hunt also warned that the road, unpopular with many residents, might not be off the table for good:  “It can always come back. There’s nothing set in stone.” 

“I’ll be very surprised if we’ve heard the last of it.”

In a parallel universe might some of these have been dumped on greenfield sites in East Devon? – Owl

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com 

Councillors are being asked to back plans for work on assessing the feasibility of plans for around 5,000 homes to be provided in Marsh Barton.

As part of the Liveable Exeter programme, Exeter City Council are aiming to deliver up to 12,000 new homes in inclusive and sustainable communities in order to meet the forecast housing need of the city into the future.

As part of the Liveable Exeter vision, Marsh Barton offers the largest opportunity within the Liveable Exeter programme to deliver a significant number of new homes as part of a mixed use community.

It has the potential to become more than just a dormitory suburb and become a new town within the city, building on Garden Community principles with scope to deliver up to 5,000 new homes as part of a mixed use community.

Grant funding totalling £625,000 has recently been secured to progress work related to the Liveable Exeter programme and fund the Liveable Exeter programme team, and Exeter City Council’s executive, when they meet next Tuesday, are recommended to approve the budget to progress work related to the Liveable Exeter programme, and for the creation of two new, fixed-term posts as part of the team.

The work will consider how to unlock the redevelopment of this part of the city to deliver a new mixed-use city quarter.

As part of the vision for the scheme, ‘mobility hubs, linear parks and digital connectivity will all take the place of expanding car parks and roads and offer the opportunity to create a ground-breaking development anchored around a comprehensive and sustainable urban mobility network’.

The future Marsh Barton will connect with Water Lane and the City Centre, to become a super-connected place which builds on existing under-utilised and redundant infrastructure to deliver world-class sustainable and active travel opportunities.

The plans could see around 5,000 homes built, mainly in flats, remain an important employment and retail area, but with the integration of living and working where uses are compatible, to make better use of riverside location, as well as new work space, and community space and school sites.

Richard Marsh, Liveable Exeter programme director and interim city development lead, in his report to the executive, said: “The Liveable Exeter programme is the council’s transformational housing delivery programme. It seeks to deliver up to 12,000 new homes in a series of new inclusive and sustainable communities, focused on major brownfield development sites within the city.

“This way of working marks a distinct change to previous growth strategies which sought to meet housing growth demands within the Greater Exeter area through greenfield development and is consistent with the council’s focus on achieving the net-zero targets and delivering on the Exeter 2040 Vision.”

He added: “Having a good understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with the long-term redevelopment of the Marsh Barton area will also mean that the city council, and its partners’, are in a good position to be able to develop and evidence bids and business cases to support applications for government grant funding and infrastructure investment – likely to be required in order to unlock a strategic project of this scale, complexity and nature.

“It also allows the city council and its partners to act in a coordinated and strategic manner in order to realise shared objectives. An important element of the work will also involve considering how public sector land ownerships within the vicinity of Marsh Barton can be consolidated, rationalised or relocated in order to accelerate the timely release of public sector land assets within the area – in line with the Liveable Exeter Vision.”

The executive is recommended to note and then for the full council to approve the successful application for, and receipt of, Garden Communities capacity funding to support the Liveable Exeter programme and approves a budget of up to £475,000, to be funded by an earmarked reserve, to progress work related to the Liveable Exeter programme.

They are also recommended to note the successful application for, and grant of, One Public Estate funding to support the progression of feasibility and technical work on Marsh Barton in line with the Liveable Exeter vision and approves a budget of up to £150,000, to be funded by claims to Devon County Council as lead partner , in order to progress the work, and the creation of two new, fixed-term posts within the Liveable Exeter team to be funded utilising a proportion of the Garden Communities capacity funding.

Eight sites across Exeter are mentioned as part of the Liveable Exeter vision, including the Marsh Barton plans.

They are:

1: Red Cow Village (St David’s) – 664 homes in a new neighbourhood based around the historic Red Cow Village near Exeter St David’s railway station. It will provide a strong sense of arrival benefits Exeter’s identity, status and culture, a new neighbourhood, including new work space, and use of under-utilised station buildings, as well as space for shops and leisure, work space, and a new Exeter St David’s station building and the refurbishment of Great Western Hotel

2: Water Lane – The Water Lane project can deliver a new community at the scale of a new town close to the city centre, as the riverside site has the potential to become home to around 14,000 people. The vision for Water Lane is as an enterprising, self-sustaining community, a place to work as well as to live close to the city’s best loved assets. This will be a walkable place where day to day needs can be met without the use of a car. The plans could see 1,567 homes, a space for expanding leisure attractions near the quay, with low traffic or car-free development with attractive cycle and walking connections, shops and leisure, work space, as well as other community space and a primary school,

3: Marsh Barton – Marsh Barton offers the largest opportunity within the Liveable Exeter programme to deliver a significant number of new homes as part of a mixed use community, with the potential to become more

than just a dormitory suburb and become a new town within the city, building on Garden Community principles with scope to deliver up to 5,000 new homes as part of a mixed use community.

Mobility hubs, linear parks and digital connectivity will all take the place of expanding car parks and roads and offer the opportunity to create a ground-breaking development anchored around a comprehensive and sustainable urban mobility network, and the future Marsh Barton will connect with Water Lane and the City Centre, to become a super-connected place which builds on existing under-utilised and redundant infrastructure to deliver world-class sustainable and active travel opportunities.

The plans will see 5,544 homes, remain an important employment and retail area, but with the integration of living and working where uses are compatible, to make better use of riverside location, as well as new work space, and community space and school sites.

4: East Gate – The plans for East Gate would provide Exeter with an enhanced approach to the City Centre from the east, reducing traffic on the Heavitree Road and allowing for improved public transport and walking and cycling routes, the East Gate development is an exciting opportunity for communities in St Leonards and Newtown.

It would include 962 new homes, shops and leisure units, including the new St Sidwell’s Point leisure centre, work space, including a relocated Civic Centre, and community space.

5: West Gate – The plans for West Gate would open up access to the river and canal from the city centre and will provide Exeter with a new cultural destination on the river. It will expand and connect the park at the heart of the city around the historic bridge and promote active travel across the river with an iconic and Green Bridge over the River Exe at Exe Bridges.

It would include 617 new homes, shops and leisure units, work space, a cultural venue on the river, and a new St Thomas railway station entrance.

6: South Gate – The South Gate site will establish an improved link between the city centre and the historic quayside, giving greater emphasis to the Roman wall, city gates and Southernhay, linking from Southernhay to the quay. This development will provide Exeter with a new arrival to the city centre from Topsham Road.

The plans include 300 new homes, a greater emphasis on the wall, city gates and Southernhay, retail and leisure units, work space, and retained car parking at Cathedral and Quay

7: North Gate – Uncovering the medieval city wall between Friernhay and Northernhay Gardens, the North Gate site will provide a new approach to the city from Saint David’s along with new residential space in the heart of the city.

It includes 308 new homes, a new living opportunity at density in the heart of the city, retail and leisure space, and car parking retained at Mary Arches, with the scheme assumes ground floor commercial with residential above

8: Sandy Gate – The plans would see 1,050 new homes in a new sustainable and well connected mixed-use neighbourhood, bridging the city and the new and existing neighbourhoods to the east, providing recreational, cultural and entertainment space where Exeter meets the newly formed Clyst Valley Park.

As well as homes, would include shops, leisure, work space, and space for sports and education provision.