Yesterday the Times, today the Red Tops.
South West Water says it is “totally committed” to supporting beaver habitats.
[Releasing untreated sewage into the Otter, on average, two or three times a week from Honiton (more from elsewhere) seems a strange way to show this – Owl]
Any comment from Simon Jupp MP or Neil Parish MP?
Funding for flood prevention works at Feniton, costing nearly £4 million, has been secured after two years of waiting.
Sixty-six properties are at risk of flooding in the East Devon village, as is the main road which floods regularly.
The school has been evacuated on numerous occasions, because of concerns about children being able to get home safely.
Phases one and two of the Feniton Flood Alleviation Scheme were completed in 2015 and involved channel improvements downstream of Feniton.
Phase three and four needed further funding approval. Unexpected costs also arose with building an undertrack rail crossing and a new large pipe (culvert) system through Feniton.
The village has suffered regular flooding since the 1960s. Two of the largest flooding incidents happened in 2008 and 2012 and in the past two months alone it has flooded twice.
The new works include building large (culvert) pipes, more than one metre in diameter, from the top to the bottom of the village, providing a by-pass around the existing drainage network.
EDDC will now be working with Network Rail to find the next available date to close the railway and carry out an undertrack railway crossing, with the rest of the scheme following after that is complete.
Cllr Geoff Jung, EDDC’s portfolio holder for coast, country and environment, said: “All flood elevation schemes are difficult to deliver with complicated historic drainage systems, many land ownership issues and many funding and budget complications. I would like to thank ex-councillor Susie Bond who was the Feniton district councillor for many years until moving away last year who encouraged and championed this project almost none stop whilst she was a councillor. Finally, through her tenacity and drive the district council will finally deliver this scheme.”
EDDC’s Feniton ward councillor, Alasdair Bruce said:“Let’s hope this brings closer to and end the anguish and stress those in Feniton and the surrounding area have suffered for too long. The mental health issues associated with a flooding event cannot be overstated, it undermines the fundamental premise that your home is your castle as well as your sanctuary. Provided Network Rail now get on and deliver, this woeful chapter can be consigned to the history of Feniton.”
The parts of the UK where Covid cases are continuing to rise
Neil Shaw www.devonlive.com
Covid-19 case rates are continuing to rise in nearly one in five local areas in the UK, with sharp increases recorded in the East Midlands, latest figures show.
Rates in most areas are now falling, however, with national rates also on a downward trend, suggesting the third wave of the virus is now being driven by localised outbreaks rather than a country-wide surge in new cases.
A total of 66 of the 377 local authority areas in the UK (18%) recorded a week-on-week rise in rates in the seven days to October 27, while 311 (82%) saw a fall, according to PA news agency analysis of Government data.
(PA Graphics)
South-west England continues to have the highest rates of any part of the UK, but they are now falling in 26 of the 29 local authorities in the region.
In Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, the rate is down from 1,228.5 cases per 100,000 people to 846.6, while neighbouring Stroud has seen its rate fall from 1,230.7 to 818.0.
Rates are also dropping in nearly all areas of eastern England, London, north-west England and the West Midlands, while every area in Wales is currently recording a week-on-week fall.
By contrast, of the 10 local areas with the biggest week-on-week increase in rates, five are in Leicestershire: Blaby (up from 363.9 to 496.3), Leicester (312.7 to 415.2), Charnwood (341.3 to 432.6), Hinckley & Bosworth (482.1 to 569.2) and Harborough (390.4 to 476.3).
Nearby Rutland has also recorded an increase (from 392.8 to 471.9), as have other areas in the East Midlands including South Holland in Lincolnshire (416.2 to 472.6) and Nottingham (253.9 to 304.4).
This pattern is not the same for the whole of the region, however, with all areas in Derbyshire and Northamptonshire recording a fall.
There is a similarly mixed picture in other regions, such as south-east England, where parts of Kent and West Sussex are currently seeing a rise in rates but all areas of Hampshire and Berkshire are falling.
(PA Graphics)
The data suggests a shift in the third wave of coronavirus, from a broad rise in new cases across most of the country to increases that are limited to pockets of areas.
It is too soon to say if this shift has been caused by specific events or changes in behaviour, such as the recent school half-term holiday or the rollout of Covid-19 vaccine booster doses.
The Orkney Islands in Scotland have seen the biggest week-on-week increase in rates in the latest figures, up from 227.7 cases per 100,000 to 366.1 – though because of the small population size, this is the equivalent of 82 new cases, up from 51.
In 10 of the 32 local authorities in Scotland rates have increased, along with three of the 11 authorities in Northern Ireland.
Rates remains at a relatively high level across the UK, with only one area (the Shetland Islands) currently below 100 cases per 100,000 people.
But with a majority of local authority areas seeing a fall in new cases in the latest figures, all four nations are now showing a clear downwards trend in rates for the first time in several weeks.
England’s rate stood at 422.1 as of October 27, down week-on-week from 489.8.
In Scotland the rate is 301.4, down from 332.0; Wales is down from 742.5 to 570.1; and Northern Ireland has fallen from 470.0 to 442.7.
Imagine you’ve been in contact with someone who has Covid. So, you do the right thing and order a PCR test. You are relieved when the test comes back negative – and you continue to take your children to school, go into work and care for your elderly relatives.
Then, six weeks later, you are contacted by a private testing firm who tell you you’re at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the pandemic so far…
Along with tens of thousands of others, you were wrongly told you didn’t have Covid when, actually, you did. Through no fault of your own, the lives of your family and friends have been put in serious danger.
This is the horror story facing 43,000 people who used a private testing firm that the Government assured us was safe. The scandal-hit lab is based in Wolverhampton and owned by a company called Immensa. Now, Covid rates in the South West are soaring higher than anywhere else in the country.
Thousands of lives have been put at risk. How on earth could this be allowed to happen?
Government should have known about these major failings within days of the problem arising, yet it took weeks for them to shut down the site. Shockingly, Immensa is still being allowed to process people’s PCR tests for travel at their lab in Loughborough.
And now it transpires that Immensa was never fully accredited to carry out tests, despite the Government previously insisting it was. And somehow, it was awarded a £119m Government contract in September last year without going through the normal tendering process.
We’ve written to Health Secretary Sajid Javid asking him to immediately terminate Immensa’s contracts, compensate those affected and to take action to properly regulate private testing firms. How many more wake-up calls does this Government need before it starts putting people’s safety ahead of private firms’ interests?
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[And don’t forget the beavers trying to survive in it, as reported in the Times yesterday – Owl]
Dear Neil Parish MP,
Sewer storm overflows spilled over 1,000 times and for over 10,000 hours into your Tiverton and Honiton constituency watercourses, using government permits, in the year 2020. In the same period tens of thousands of spills flowed into water courses across the South West for hundreds of thousands of hours.
Neil, these outcomes were predicted when in you voted in favour of deregulation of the private water industry, and for a 75% reduction of Environment Agency funding.
According to South West water’s own figures reported by The Rivers Trust, these are just a few of the spills recorded in Tiverton and Honiton constituency in 2020:
• Seaton South sewer storm overflow spilled 59 times into the River Axe Estuary for a total of 877 hours, using a government permit.
• Holcombe Rogus sewer storm overflow spilled 207 times into tributary of River Lyner for a total of 3085 hours, using a government permit.
• Honiton sewer storm overflow spilled 137 times into the River Otter for a total of 2442 hours, using a government permit.
• Kilmington sewer storm overflow spilled 163 times into the River Axe for a total of 1681 hours, using a government permit.
• Tiverton’s Westexe sewer storm overflow spilled 130 times into the River Exe for a total of 2120 hours, using a government permit.
• Tiverton’s Little Silver sewer storm overflow spilled 107 times into the River Exe for a total of 1191 hours, using a government permit.
• Broadhembury sewer storm overflow spilled 41 times into the Tale River for a total of 452 hours using a government permit
• Cullompton’s Duke Street sewer storm overflow spilled 57 times into the River Culm for a total of 900 hours, using a government permit.
• Bampton sewer storm overflow spilled 73 times for a total of 1716 hours into the River Batherm, using a government permit.
• Colyton sewer storm overflow spilled 63 times for a total of 700 hours into the River Axe using a government permit.
• Dunkeswell sewer storm overflow spilled 55 times into the Madford River for a total of 268 hours, using a government permit.
• Willand sewer storm overflow spilled 75 times into the River Culm for a total of 1233 hours, using a government permit.
• Sampford Peverell sewer storm overflow spilled 123 times into Spratford Stream for a total of 1125 hours, using a government permit.
• Halberton’s Corner Lane sewer storm overflow spilled into Halberton Stream 69 times for a total of 308 hours, using a government permit.
Neil, you let residents down when you voted with the government against the Sewage Bill. The time for action is now. I urge your government to:
As the longstanding Chair of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs Committee, and as our MP, these are failures of your most basic of responsibilities. Decisive action must start now. Your residents are horrified by the sheer volume of pollutants in our environment, in our food chain and in the water we swim in. Will you commit to supporting these six immediate priorities, or remain complicit in this government’s conscious degradation of Britain’s natural environment?
Sincerely,
Liz Pole
Constituency Spokesperson
Tiverton and Honiton Labour Party
East Devon Watch 