How long have we been waiting for “promised” funding for essential infrastructure needed as a result of “Build, build, build” development running ahead of local capacity to absorb it? 

Is this really a cash pot from a bountiful government? How much cash has been taken away from local government by Conservatives since Austerity 1.0?

How much time and effort was required to make what should be a blindingly obvious case in the “begging bowl” centralised Whitehall culture?

This is essential spending not investment in growing the economy.

What about real “levelling up” cases such as the Axminster master plan?

Does this reflect that Simon Jupp’s seat is now considered to be on the “vulnerable” list? – Owl

Guy Henderson www.devonlive.com

Plans for new developments which would have brought hundreds of jobs to Torbay were in ruins today as the Government turned down the bay’s application for cash. Elsewhere there were celebrations around the country as places such as Exmouth picked up much-needed investment from the Government’s “Levelling Up” funds.

But Torbay’s innovative so-called “Fish and Chips” bid for fish market expansion in Brixham and a microchip technology park in Paignton was rejected for the second time. Now the bay’s MPs are to meet to discuss the way forward.

In Exmouth the money will go towards a major road extension and developments around the town’s railway station. East Devon MP Simon Jupp said: “This is excellent news and I am looking forward to seeing spades in the ground.”

In Torbay the money would have been spent on badly-needed improvements to Brixham’s busy fish market and on a photonics site at Long Road in Paignton.

It was the bay’s second go at securing funds from the Levelling Up pot, having missed the boat in the first round as well. The revised bid which has been turned down today was for an expansion of Brixham Harbour and a base for electronics and photonics businesses at Paignton.

Torbay Council had said that if the bad had succeeded, the proposed expansion of the commercial port at Brixham could see an annual £5m growth in the value of fish and shellfish landed and support 150 new jobs. The port has recently reported record figures, and is already the busiest in England.

However, fishing industry leaders have warned that the future prosperity of the market and the port as a whole depends on expanding the quayside area. If successful, the bid would have brought an extended fish market and more quay space for distribution vehicles. The council would have benefitted from increased fish toll income.

An electronics and photonics production park at Long Road in Paignton was also part of the bid, with more well-paid jobs generated in a sector in which Torbay is already a leader. But today a letter from Levelling Up Minister Dehenna Davison explained that the application had not met the criteria outlined for the Levelling Up Fund.

The Minister went on: “I appreciate how disappointing this news will be. The UK Government remains firmly committed to levelling up all parts of the UK and officials will provide written feedback on your application to support future proposals.”

Torbay MP Kevin Foster said: “I am disappointed to hear the bid submitted by Torbay Council for levelling up funding has not succeeded, especially given the potential boost for our fishing and photonics sector it would have brought. Anthony Mangnall MP and I will be meeting to identify what we can do as local MPs to ensure the necessary work is done locally to ensure a future bid succeeds.

“We will shortly meet with Government Ministers to identify if there were specific areas of concern which need to be addressed and what, if any, impact delays in Torbay Council getting work under way on other schemes where significant government funding has been made available had on this decision.”

After years of campaigning by East Devon MP Simon Jupp, Exmouth will receive £15.7m from the Levelling Up Fund. The multi-million-pound funding will deliver the Dinan Way road extension to improve journeys and cut congestion. Dinan Way currently forms a partial ring road around Exmouth but lacks a final connection to the A376, with traffic using unsuitable residential roads to get through to the main road to Exeter and the M5.

The funding will also deliver regeneration around the railway station, including improvements to pedestrian access to the town centre and the infilling of an underpass.

Mr Jupp said: “This investment will improve journeys in Exmouth, improve air quality, and help spruce up the area around the train station. I would like to thank the councils who worked together to develop the plans and the Conservative Government who backed our bid.”

And Cllr Andrea Davis, Devon County Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, added: “This is brilliant news for the people of Exmouth and a boost to the town’s regeneration. It will not only enable Devon County Council to complete the Dinan Way link road which will reduce traffic going through the centre, but also fund improved walking and cycling routes, and bus services to Exeter.

“A big thank you goes to Simon Jupp, who has worked tirelessly to support this project. I want also to thank the team at Devon County Council who put such a compelling bid together.”

Austerity again compounding the problem – twelve, coming up thirteen, years of Tory misrule – Owl

The police department that returned a shotgun licence to a man who carried out a mass shooting did not have enough staff, an inquest has heard.

www.bbc.co.uk

Jake Davison had his licence revoked in 2020 but police returned it in 2021.

Davison, 22, killed his mother Maxine, 51, and then shot dead four others in Plymouth.

Three-year-old Sophie Martyn, her father, Lee, 43, Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66, all died on the evening of 12 August 2021.

Thursday was the third day of inquests being held into their deaths.

A senior police officer told the hearing there had been a backlog of licence applications when Davison first applied in 2017.

Ch Supt Roy Linden, from Devon and Cornwall Police, was questioned about the number of applications for firearms or shotgun licences.

He said in 2017 there were about 3,000 applications per year and the force had the highest number of holders of certificates for firearms or shotguns in the UK.

The counsel to the inquest, Bridget Dolan KC, who is asking questions on behalf of the coroner, said: “Were there sufficient staff to deal with 3,000 applications?”

Ch Supt Linden replied: “The simple answer is no.”

He said there was a backlog of applications within Devon and Cornwall Police, but the force was not unique in the country.

Ch Supt Linden added the problem had only got worse over time.

He told the inquest: “It’s still the condition today, I think they have probably increased.”

Before he gave evidence Ch Supt Linden addressed the families of the victims.

He said the force “recognises the trauma that has been caused by this incident”.

He added: “It’s our intention that this tragic incident will serve to drive improvements in firearms licensing both in Devon and Cornwall and nationally.”

The inquest hearing at Exeter Racecourse continues.

Sir Keir Starmer has urged Rishi Sunak to apologise for the “lethal chaos” in the NHS under his watch. It comes as he highlighted the case of a 26-year-old woman with cancer who collapsed at home in Plymouth and died while waiting for an ambulance.

Richard Wheeler, Martina Bet and Elizabeth Arnold, PA Political Staff www.devonlive.com

The Labour leader called on the Prime Minister to admit the NHS in England is “in crisis” before accusing Mr Sunak of deflecting and blaming others for ambulance delays experienced by patients. The call came during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister did not offer an apology in response to Sir Keir’s demand but pressed Labour to support anti-strike legislation. Opening Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir gave a hypothetical example of a person suffering chest pains and waiting for an ambulance.

Mr Sunak responded by defending Government steps to improve waiting times and claimed Sir Keir is “in the pockets of his union paymasters” rather than prioritising patients. But the Commons then fell silent as Sir Keir raised the case of Stephanie.

He explained: “Her mum rang 999, desperate for help. She only lived a couple of miles from the hospital, but they couldn’t prioritise her. She was 26 when she died waiting for that ambulance.

“A young woman whose life was ended far too soon. As a dad, I can’t even fathom that pain. So on behalf of Stephanie and her family, will he stop the excuses, stop shifting the blame, stop the political games and simply tell us when will he sort out these delays and get back to the 18-minute wait?”

Mr Sunak replied: “Of course Stephanie’s case is a tragedy. Of course people are working as hard as they can to make sure people get the care they need. But he talks about political games – he is a living example of playing political games when it comes to people’s healthcare.

“I’ve already mentioned what’s been going on in Wales. Is he confident in the Labour-run Wales NHS that nobody is suffering right now? Of course they are because the NHS everywhere is under pressure. What we should be doing is supporting those doctors and nurses to make the changes that we are doing to bring the care to those people.

“But I’ll ask him this: if he is so concerned about making sure that the Stephanies of the future get the care they need, why is he denying those families the guarantee of emergency life-saving care?”

Sir Keir countered: “So that’s his answer to Stephanie’s family? Deflect, blame others, never take responsibility. Just like last week, he won’t say when he’s going to deliver the basic minimum service levels people need.

“Over the 40 minutes or so that these sessions tend to last, 700 people will call an ambulance. Two will be reporting a heart attack. Four will be reporting a stroke. But instead of the rapid help they need, many will wait and wait and wait. So if he won’t answer any questions, will he at least apologise for the lethal chaos under his watch?”

Mr Sunak faced shouts of “apologise” from Labour MPs, replying: “He asked about the minimum safety levels, we will deliver them as soon as we can pass them. Why won’t he vote for them first of all?”

The Prime Minister added Sir Keir will “just say anything if the politics suits him”, claiming the Labour leader will “break promises left, right and centre”. Mr Sunak, who in November carried out an “across-the-board” review of pledges he made during the Tory leadership battle, added: “If we are going to deliver for the British people, people need to have strong convictions “But when it comes to (Sir Keir) he isn’t just for the free movement of people, he has also got the free movement of principles.”

Still no date for Tiverton and Tipton

A Devon MP [Richard Foord] has urged the government to get on with rebuilding two flood-risk schools after bad weather in recent days.

Ollie Heptinsall, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Heavy rainfall saw several Devon schools hit by flooding. Both Tiverton High and Tipton St John schools, which before Christmsa were added to the government’s school rebuilding programme, are on flood plains.

Flooding at Tiverton High last week reportedly closed off its rear entrance and 50 per cent of a playground, while Tipton St John Primary has also been hit by flooding in recent years.

It has led Tiverton & Honiton’s MP to ask when the proposed new schools will be built. It has yet to be confirmed when rebuilding work will begin, with 239 schools recently added to the list of 400 now provisionally chosen across the country.

Richard Foord MP (Liberal Democrat), who triumphed in a by-election last year in which the poor state of Tiverton High was one of the main talking points, said: “Tiverton High and Tipton St John Primary are recognised as being unfit because they are built on flood plains at increased risk from heavy rainfall.

“The government has provisionally placed both schools on the list of 239 schools to be rebuilt over the next five years but has not confirmed when this vital work will commence.

“This is simply not good enough,” he said. “We’ve already waited years to see progress on rebuilding Tiverton High School; we cannot afford to wait another decade whilst our children’s education is continually disrupted by flooding.

“That is why I am calling for the Department for Education (DfE) to stop stalling and get to work on breaking ground so we can get the new, safer and modern school buildings that our communities deserve.”

In response, the DfE says schools provisionally selected for the rebuilding programme will be prioritised according to the condition of their buildings and other relevant criteria. Works will only then be scheduled once due diligence checks are completed.

They added work will start at a rate of roughly 50 schools per year over the next five years, with work on the first schools expected to start this April.

The DfE says it will be in touch with schools this month to explain the next steps.

“I’m from Devon, I live near the sea in Sidmouth, and I love where we live…..I voted for a crackdown on sewage spills.” 

Well Simon it is true that you didn’t actually vote to pollute our water, but you did vote against imposing a legal duty to stop it, instead voting for something very much more “light touch”.

This Mirror article, published in August 2022 when sewage discharges onto beaches became a live issue once again, fact checked the arguments made by Tories.

August 2022, Simon, was when Owl reported you as “Missing in Action” when Richard Foord was interviewed by the BBC for a full three minutes on Budleigh beach. That’s your patch isn’t it? Where was your concern for the environment then?

Here is a brief summary of the the various votes:

In October 2021 Johnson’s Conservative government, with the votes of Simon Jupp and Neil Parish, succeeded in voting down a Lords amendment designed to stop private water companies from dumping raw sewage into the UK’s waterways. The amendment would have placed a legal duty on companies “to make improvements to their sewerage systems and demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.“

Of course we now know that Neil may have been preoccupied fiddling with his phone to know what he was really doing.

No excuse for Simon Jupp.

In November 2021 what Simon voted for was a watered down version which changed a legal duty into a nebulous progressive aim of a “reduction of adverse impact of storm overflows’ and make it enforceable under a different Act.

”Now in December 2022 the Government announced abandoning the principle of a legal target for river health, and postponing a deadline for agricultural run-off reduction by three years (from 2037 to 2040).

What goes in our rivers end in the sea. Oh, and who privatised the water companies?

Weekly column: South West Water must clean up their act

www.simonjupp.org.uk

As your MP, I want South West Water to clean up their act – and I’m holding them to account, using legislation brought in by a Conservative government.

The government brought in the toughest ever crack down on sewage spills. That’s set out in law through the Environment Act, which I voted for.

The Environment Act and Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan ensures water companies will face strict limits on when they can use storm overflows. These should be genuinely exceptional circumstances to avoid sewage backing up into homes.

That’s what I voted for. A proper plan to crack down on an issue that has been around for decades under all previous governments. Under the Conservatives, we’re tackling the problem and taking on water companies who fail to act.

I would never vote to pollute our water – despite some claims suggesting otherwise. I’m from Devon, I live near the sea in Sidmouth, and I love where we live.

The government’s crackdown has forced water companies to embark on a £56 billion programme of investment.

Working cross-party with East Devon parish, town, district and county councillors, and environmental groups, I’m continuing to hold South West Water to account about their plans to invest in East Devon.

Last month, I chaired a meeting of the region’s MPs with South West Water’s Chief Executive. We were updated on what the company is doing to get a grip on sewage spills. Things are moving in the right direction, and not before time. South West Water’s storm overflow use halved from 2021 to 2022 across the bathing season and pollutions are at their lowest level in 10 years.

I’m continuing to press South West Water to urgently fix specific local problems as and when they do crop up, too. I’ve previously secured compensation for Clyst St Mary residents after foul flooding in the village.

At the moment, I’m working with Sidmouth Town Council and will be meeting with Escape Exmouth so we can work together to scrutinise South West Water on your behalf.

In all of this, the key thing is having the right data. Ministers have increased the number of storm overflows monitored across the network from 5% in 2016 to almost 90% now. That figure will reach 100% cover by end of this year. Following new data coming to light as a result of increased monitoring, the regulators – the Environment Agency and Ofwat – have launched the largest criminal and civil investigations into water company sewage discharges ever, at over 2,200 treatment works.

The public needs the right data, too. South West Water told me that they are launching an updated website with better and more timely information. It’s a step in the right direction, but more investment to improve the situation is what’s actually needed to provide peace of mind.

Not everyone is aware of this but the government subsidises water bills in our region by £50 per household every year. Despite pressures on public finances, that support will be continuing in 2023/24 thanks to lobbying by MPs.

The public expect water companies to keep their bills as low as possible to ease the cost of living. This is not the time to reward failure. Water company bosses have to demonstrate a link between their performance and their generous bonuses, through Ofwat’s licencing conditions.

South West Water was fined £13 million last year alone because of missed targets and will have to reduce customer bills accordingly. I’m awaiting the outcome of Ofwat’s ongoing investigation into water company sewage treatment works and Ofwat’s separate enforcement case against South West Water.

Future fines handed out to water companies will be channelled directly into work to improve water quality, which is another major step forward by the government.

I voted for a crackdown on sewage spills. We can now hold failing water companies to account – including the one-star rated South West Water.

This column first appeared in the Exmouth Journal on Wednesday 18th January 2023 and in the Sidmouth Herald later in the week.

Last August Owl was surprised that Simon Jupp let Richard Foord hold centre stage on Budleigh beach to talk about sewage pollution. Obviously not so very important to the hospitality sector so close to Simon’s heart, or the queries and casework he devoted the month to.

Recycled chippings from thousands of festive trees thrown out from East Devon homes will benefit a pupils’ mud kitchen and forest school in Cranbrook.

[For eco-warriors there’s an even greener way of disposing of the Christmas tree – Just eat it!  Pickled veg, herb tea, vinegar, even flavoured gin … an organic tree has many uses once the baubles are banished. Something for next year perhaps? – Owl]

eastdevonnews.co.uk

More than 1,600 Christmas trees collected by the district council at the end of the festive season have been chipped and returned to the ground, or used to benefit a host of outdoor projects.

St Martin’s Primary School, in Cranbrook, recently took delivery of a truck of festive pine tree chippings for the upkeep of outdoor pathways, to protect tree roots, suppress weed growth, and clean-up muddy play areas.

An EDDC spokesperson said: “These chippings will now be used by the school and students in their forest school for a variety of purposes, including maintaining pathways, to protect tree roots and to retain moisture in the soil and suppress weed growth.”

They added: “The students’ mud kitchen also received a helping of chippings to improve the ground around the playground – this will help the children to avoid getting as muddy at break times.”

The real trees – thrown out after the festive season – were collected by EDDC StreetScene workers from drop-off points across East Devon from early January.

A total of 1,699 trees were picked up 245 from Seaton, 70 in Axminster, Honiton threw out 140, Ottery 205 and Sidmouth 235.

In Budleigh Salterton EDDC picked up 188 trees, 311 from Exmouth, 200 in Cranbrook and 105 from the village of Broadclyst.

Tom Wood, EDDC StreetScene operations manager, said: “Our tree team, supported by operational teams have worked really hard to process an enormous number of Christmas trees in a short space of time.

“It’s really pleasing to see these trees being recycled and put back into the ground across the district to benefit local eco-systems and the environment.”

EDDC said the donations of wood chippings to St Martin’s Primary School was made as part of an ongoing partnership with the EDDC StreetScene team.

Chippings from trees in previous years has helped to slow spread of Ash Dieback within the school’s estate, EDDC said.

In Exmouth, the council workers stepped in to help the Rotary Club take down the town’s main Christmas tree.

A collection by the Rotary Club around the tree in the town’s Magnolia Centre raised more than £1,000 for Exmouth Open Door Centre.

The Rotary Club of Exmouth praised the ‘kindness and support’ of the EDDC StreetScene staff for helping ‘with such good grace at short notice’.

East Devon: Plans are in the pipeline for a new cycle and walk route to connect Cranbrook to Exeter city centre

“What he seems to have missed entirely is the fact that those penalties are not actually usable. And it seemed wacky to say that he would make the penalties weaker.” Ash Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.

Alan Lovell, new Chair Environment Agency, has previously served as the chairman of Interserve Group, a construction company, a director at a distributor of construction materials and chairman of a company selling double-glazed windows….He promised to make the agency a “little more commercial”, which he said would free up money to spend. 

Difficult to see the relevance of this CV, no background in environmental regulation. – Owl

PS Remember the days when John Varley, Clinton Devon Estates, was on both the Environment Agency and Natural England boards? He is now off both.

Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor www.thetimes.co.uk

The Environment Agency’s new chairman has criticised plans to punish water companies found to have spilled sewage by increasing penalties to £250 million.

Alan Lovell derided the number, put forward by the previous environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, in October, as “crazy”, “massive” and “way in excess of what’s needed”.

Lovell, who started at the regulator last September, said that he was instead negotiating with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs on “a sensible number” for maximum penalties.

His comments are the first indication that the government could scrap the Liz Truss-era policy of raising the existing £250,000 cap on penalties one thousand-fold.

In his first major public speech, Lovell said that while the agency had secured £102.5 million of fines for water companies in 2021, establishing wins through the courts took years and was too slow.

Instead, he said he wanted to move towards using civil sanctions, known as variable monetary penalties. The agency can impose these itself and they require a lower burden of proof than in a criminal case.

But Lovell said that the current £250,000 cap was “unfortunately not enough to make a difference to a water company’s behaviour”. As well as raising the limit, he said he wanted to speed up the process of imposing the penalties. To date, the Environment Agency has issued no variable monetary penalties despite having had the power to do so since 2010.

Ash Smith, of the Oxfordshire-based campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, said: “What he seems to have missed entirely is the fact that those penalties are not actually usable. And it seemed wacky to say that he would make the penalties weaker.”

Speaking at a school in Andover on Monday, Lovell said that while water companies had made a “lot of mistakes” they were “trying pretty hard” to improve water quality. Water companies have been under fire in recent months over incidents such as weeks-long sewage spills in the Thames Valley.

Lovell said it had been a “terrible mistake” by Ofwat, the water industry regulator, to allow companies to pay dividends after the sector was privatised in 1989. While investment had increased initially, he said most of the period since had seen “chronic under-investment” by the nine main water companies.

Lovell said that if water firms were breaking the law and not trying to comply with it, he agreed with his predecessor, Emma Howard Boyd, who said last year that executives should be jailed over serious pollution incidents. However, Lovell said: “My personal experience is that they [water executives] have got this message.”

Lovell has previously served as the chairman of Interserve Group, a construction company, a director at a distributor of construction materials and chairman of a company selling double-glazed windows. While he has been chairman of the Consumer Council for Water, he does not have a background in environmental regulation. He promised to make the agency a “little more commercial”, which he said would free up money to spend.

The agency had received a welcome boost in the past year to its annual budget of almost £2 billion, he said. But it was still not being funded in a “long-term sustainable way” and he would take “full advantage” of the general election and public concern over pollution to lobby for more money.

Lovell made clear that about 100,000 farms in England were also in his sights, and he was hoping to curb pollution washing off their land into rivers. He said the agency, which The Times recently revealed inspected only 2 per cent of farms a year, was stepping up action and inspections against farmers. But he said: “They are hard to reach, there are so many,” and admitted that the agency was still “not fully staffed up to do it”.

Paul Arnott www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

The older you get, the more you understand that to enable real change in your community, it has to be done by the book and on the record. Because if you let slip one inadvertent, tiny technical mistake, or even make an ill-chosen public utterance, you can damage your cause.

This is relevant now because East Devon District Council has just closed a two-month consultation period for its Local Plan, a document setting out where domestic and business development is permitted between the adoption of the plan, likely in 2024, and 2040.

For a council leader there are twin perils. If you speak out too vociferously prior to public consultation, a city lawyer for a disappointed developer or landowner will later go to the Inspector (who ultimately approves the plan) and cry “pre-determination” and an attempt to influence an objective consultation. At which point three years of work can be thrown out.

So, you have to keep your powder dry until the consultation is over. The other peril is that your silence can be taken for approval. Hopefully, in most quarters local people who follow district affairs will have understood my caution not to grandstand on this.

Now that the consultation is closed, I can say that I was of course very aware that a number of proposed sites in the Local Plan consultation would be contested by local communities. But these sites had been submitted by landowners and developers and it is not the role of a council to pre-determine which to include going forward to be consulted on so long as our officers recommend that they have met the basic criteria for lawful development.

I was also aware that you can’t try to dodge confronting these challenges by playing games, as the Conservatives’ at East Devon did by attempting to throw out the whole consultation process at the eleventh hour. That would only have made our precious area more vulnerable to speculative developers who could argue that as an authority we were not proceeding in a timely manner. Why would the Conservatives have wanted that, you may well ask?

However, last February our council took care to speak in strong terms directly to government about the central flaw in our national planning processes. Careful to ensure this had the formal, cross-party consent of our whole Strategic Planning Committee, we wrote in politically neutral terms to Michael Gove to challenge the Standard Method for Calculating Housing Need.

We wrote that the current housing need figure for East Devon “can only be met through harming our attractive landscape areas including two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB’s) and areas where development has been shown to have a significant detrimental impact on designated wildlife habitats, over 90% of East Devon.”

The previous Conservative administrations in East Devon had fallen under the spell of landowners and developers (one of whom now provides funding for a local MP) and had publicly proclaimed a “Build, build, build” strategy. We told Mr Gove of the consequence: the district’s number of homes built per year grew from around 700 a year less than 10 years ago to well over a 1000 in 2019.

Because of local Conservatives choices a decade ago, this unsustainably high baseline set the maths for the housing need numbers today, even though we were now entering territory in many areas of East Devon where this was highly undesirable. So, we asked Mr Gove to allocate new housing based on future needs and aspirations to protect the environment rather than based on the past trends.

We didn’t shout this from the rooftops last February; we just did it. As result, Mr Gove has called these processes in, hinting at potential reforms to number setting. He now needs to enshrine this in legislation uninfluenced by the builders’ lobbyists. We are watching very closely indeed.

A Devon and Cornwall Police officer is set to appear in court over rape charges. A statement from the force said PC Kane Haywood, 29, from East Devon, has been charged with two counts of rape of a woman aged 16 years or over and sexual assault by penetration.

Chloe Parkman www.devonlive.com

According to a statement on the police website, the charges relate to alleged incidents in Exeter in March 2021. Haywood is due to appear at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court tomorrow (January 18).

PC Haywood is currently suspended from duty. A spokesperson for the force said: “A Devon and Cornwall Police officer is due to appear before Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 18 January charged with rape.

“PC Kane Haywood, aged 29, from East Devon, is charged with two counts of rape of a woman aged 16 years or over and sexual assault by penetration. The charges relate to alleged incidents in Exeter in March 2021.”

All police forces have been ordered to search for sexual predators and domestic abusers in their ranks, in a major review sparked by the horrific crimes of David Carrick.

Maybe Devon and Cornwall Police also need to review their handling of sexual predators cases outside the force. For example their early reluctance to pursue the John Humphreys paedophile case. “Nothing to be seen here”. DCC and EDDC have their inquiries underway but nothing from the police. – Owl

Lizzie Dearden www.independent.co.uk

It comes after a similar check by the Metropolitan Police found more than 1,000 officers and staff who have had complaints against them in the past decade but remain in service.

The review across England and Wales was announced ahead of a meeting between the prime minister and commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, where the government said Rishi Sunak would “make clear we must work together to root out the misogyny and predatory behaviour within the police’s ranks to restore public confidence”.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) is writing to all forces in England and Wales to check their officers and staff against national police databases.

The Home Office said the search would “help identify anyone who has slipped through the net before vetting standards were toughened and ensure those who are unfit to serve can be rooted out”.

Vetting and monitoring processes for police officers are under intense scrutiny after it emerged that Carrick was let into the Metropolitan Police months after the force investigated him for harassing a former partner.

He was allowed to remain in Britain’s largest force for 20 years despite involvement in at least nine incidents, including domestic abuse and violence, as he was never prosecuted and Scotland Yard repeatedly decided Carrick had “no case to answer” for disciplinary proceedings.

All 49 offences, including 24 rapes, he has now admitted perpetrating against 12 women over 17 years took place during his career in the Metropolitan Police.

Martin Hewitt, chair of the NPCC, said: “The confidence of women and girls in London and across the country in the police has been damaged further by the details of David Carrick’s decades long violent and degrading abuse of women and the police failures to spot and stop him.

“Chief constables are rooting abusers and those who betray our standards out of policing.

“We will be asking all police forces to further check their officers and staff against national police databases. This will help identify anyone who has slipped through the net before vetting standards were toughened and remove those who are unfit to serve.”

Details of the review, how it will be carried out and in what timescale are still being formulated.

The home secretary has also asked the College of Policing, which governs police training and standards in England and Wales, to strengthen the statutory code of practice for police vetting and make the obligations all forces must legally follow stricter and clearer.

Suella Braverman said: “Carrick’s sickening crimes are a stain on the police and he should never have been allowed to remain as an officer for so long.

“We are taking immediate steps to ensure predatory individuals are not only rooted out of the force, but that vetting and standards are strengthened to ensure they cannot join the police in the first place.”

The home secretary previously announced a review of the police disciplinary process, which will consider public calls made by commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to give more power to chief constables to govern who serves in their forces.

Ms Braverman told MPs on Tuesday: “I want to make sure we have a fair and effective system of removing those officers who are simply not fit to serve.”

Carrick’s case will also be looked at as part of the ongoing inquiry into police vetting and wider issues by Lady Elish Angiolini, which was started after the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard.

A proposed terms of reference states that the inquiry will question whether processes around recruitment and vetting do enough to identify those who are not fit to serve, investigate the extent of “misogynistic and predatory behaviour” in police culture and the suitability of current risk management.

Several previous watchdog inspections and reports have identified issues with vetting and warned that rapists, domestic abusers and sex predators were being allowed to join and remain in policing.

Following calls from HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary for urgent action on recommendations that were made last year, the government commissioned a “rapid review” of police forces’ responses.

“Despite repeated warnings – including several from us – not enough has been done to improve standards and stamp out misogyny and predatory behaviour in policing,” Andy Cooke had said. “It is vital that the police act on our recommendations. They simply cannot afford to wait any longer.”

He who pays the piper…….! – Owl

A Devon MP whose General Election campaign was partly bankrolled by the landowner who won a controversial ban on wild camping on Dartmoor has said he won’t be drawn into the row. But South Devon MP Anthony Mangnall has pledged to lobby for more cash from the Government to promote the “extraordinary” countryside of Devon.

Guy Henderson www.devonlive.com

The official Parliamentary Register of Members’ Financial interests reveals that land owner and hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall gave £5,000 to the campaign fund that backed Mr Mangnall’s election to the Totnes seat in December 2019. Mr Mangnall points out the money went to the Totnes Conservative Association and not to him personally.

Mr Darwall is reported to have given substantial financial backing – to the tune of £90,000 – to the UK Independence Party and the ‘Leave’ Brexit campaign in the past. He is a millionaire who owns several large areas of land across the UK including the 4,000-acre Blachford Estate near Ivybridge on the southern fringes of Dartmoor, which offers pheasant shooting and deer stalking for well-heeled visitors.

Mr Darwall is in the headlines after he challenged the legal basis permitting wild camping on Dartmoor. He and wife Diana challenged the claim the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 permitted wild camping, saying the legislation only related to recreation “on the move”.

They questioned the legal foundation of the Dartmoor National Park Authority’s bylaws which permit responsible backpack camping – allowing, for example, hikers to pitch a tent, which they must transport on foot, for up to two nights. They argued that some wild campers on their land caused problems to livestock and the environment.

Tiverton High School Ten Tors 2022

Sir Julian Flaux, the Chancellor of the High Court, agreed and found the act did not give the public any right to make camp overnight on Dartmoor common land, and that this required the consent of the land owner. The judgment sent shockwaves through the countryside and cast doubts on the future of events like the Ten Tors Expedition and the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which both involve young people camping out on the moors.

A statement on the Blachford Estate website explains: “We are grateful to the High Court for its thoroughness in clarifying the matter. We now hope to engage with the Dartmoor National Park Authority, so we can improve outcomes on the ground. Working together, we can improve conservation of the Dartmoor commons and improve the experience for those enjoying the Commons legitimately.

“Our intention was not to ban camping on Dartmoor, but to clarify the law on this matter. We have always wanted to work with the DNPA on this issue and the recent court ruling now affords us that opportunity. We are hoping to come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement in the near future.”

Mr Mangnall said he was “100% supportive” of the right to roam across national parks, and fully appreciated the benefits of outdoor exercise. He went on: “I have spent quite some time as the MP for Totnes working on how we can keep public footpaths up to scratch, and even more time working on how we can improve outdoor learning, including ensuring that people are able to make use of what is on their doorstep.

“Regarding the High Court’s decision about wild camping, I do not believe it is right for a MP to second guess legal experts, especially given the independence of the courts. However, it is clear the decision is a huge disappointment to many people, both locally and nationally.

“Please note, there is no question as to the public’s right to walk and ride on the commons, and everyone may continue to do so.

“Regarding the donation Mr Darwall gave to the Totnes Conservative Association, I should make it clear that this money did not go to me personally but to my association. That donation was given in late 2019 and no further donations have been made. This donation was in line with the rules set out by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

“Our countryside is of great importance and over the coming days, I will be working to see how we might be able to secure extra funding from central Government to attract more people to this extraordinary part of Devon.”

Devon County Council has ruled out an appeal against the granting of planning permission for the Straitgate Quarry near Ottery St Mary. 

Philippa Davies www.midweekherald.co.uk 

The council has expressed disappointment that its refusal of permission was overturned by planning inspectors earlier this month, but said it could not challenge that decision. 

It gives the quarrying company Aggregate Industries permission to extract up to 1.5 million tonnes of raised sand and gravel over 10 to 12 years, and transport it to Hillhead Quarry near Uffculme – 23 miles away – for processing. 

Ottery town councillors have unanimously condemned the decision, which they said ‘appeared to have ignored a lot of expert witness statements and scientific advice’. 

Cllr Vicky Johns, the Mayor, said: “I’m still shocked and saddened by the quarry being given the go-ahead and can’t believe they didn’t take the residents’ and local councils’ comments into account.” 

Following the successful appeal by Aggregate Industries, the town council wrote to the county authority asking if it could take any action to prevent the huge quarrying operation, but Devon County Council said the only possibility was a judicial review. This would not question the merits of the proposals to quarry at Straitgate Farm, but would examine the way the decision to grant permission was made ‘on the grounds of illegality, irrationality or procedural impropriety’. 

Attention is now focusing on the huge number of planning conditions and legal obligations imposed on the quarrying company, including many that must be satisfied before any mineral extraction can start. 

Devon County Council will be responsible for enforcing all these conditions, and will also have a duty to investigate any reports of alleged breaches. These could include working outside the agreed hours, failure to control levels of noise or dust, or failure to carry out habitat management or restoration work. 

Ottery Town Council and the Straitgate Action Group are now urging the county council to carry out those duties rigorously. 

Ottery councillor Dean Stewart said: “The council did contribute to the Straitgate Action Group and we need to explore whatever options are still available. The appeal decision did attach a lot of conditions to the approval and we need to make sure that Devon County Council and East Devon District Council impose all of those conditions and police them carefully.” 

Nursing staff across Cornwall will be taking part in two consecutive days of strike action this week in what has been described as a “last resort.”

Emma Ferguson www.falmouthpacket.co.uk 

Members of the Royal College of Nursing will be outside the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust and Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust hospitals on both Wednesday and Thursday.

There will be four picket lines set up, with the industrial action running between 7.30am and 7.30pm on both days for three of them, although at West Cornwall Hospital in Penzance it will end at 5pm.

Picket lines will be outside the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske in Truro, the West Cornwall Hospital in St Clare Street, Penzance, near Camborne Redruth Community Hospital in Barncoose Terrace, Redruth, and near Bodmin Hospital in Boundary Road, Bodmin.

It is after the necessary majority of members voted in favour of strike action last year.

Cornwall was not involved in the first strikes that took place on December 15 and 20, but is taking part in the second phase in a bid to build pressure on the government.

A spokesperson said: “Our members join thousands of RCN members across England in taking this action.

“Strike action is a last resort for nursing staff, but low pay in the profession is driving chronic understaffing, which is putting patients at risk and leaves nursing staff with no choice but to take action.”

There is no picket line for NHS Blood and Transport staff, who are invited to join other pickets.

Staff not scheduled to work on the day of strike action can also still attend the picket line to support colleagues.

Some staff will be withdrawn from the action in what is called ‘derogation’, to ensure that life-preserving care can still be delivered without breaking the strike.

The RCN added that the action was designed to “rectify the years of real-terms pay cuts that are pushing people out of the nursing profession and putting patient safety at risk.”

It went on to say: “Our pay position is clear. We expect to see a pay award that goes 5% above inflation (the retail prices index).

“We reached our pay position for 2022-23 in close collaboration with our members across the UK. We carried out an analysis of economic trends and NHS pay over the past decade. We also considered the staffing pressures facing the profession.”

The NHS has a shortage of hospital beds, with occupancy rates consistently exceeding safe levels. As the health system faces unprecedented pressures due to rising demand and the burden of COVID-19, bed capacity will remain a critical limiting factor in the ability of the NHS to recover.

www.bma.org.uk

This page provides analysis on the availability and occupancy of beds in the English NHS and is updated regularly with new data. [Online article contains more graphics.]

Last updated: 20 December 2022

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on service delivery. A number of factors impact the usage and availability of beds:

•  infection control measures placing limits on ward space
• reduced elective capacity
• staffing redeployment.

This is why data shows a sharp fall in the number of available hospital beds in 2020/21.

To fairly illustrate long-term trends this analysis therefore uses the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20 as the comparator.

The UK has fewer hospital beds than comparable nations

Compared to other nations, the UK has a very low total number of hospital beds relative to its population. The average number of beds per 1,000 people in OECD EU nations is 5, but the UK has just 2.4. Germany, by contrast, has 7.8.

Combined with staffing shortages, an insufficient core bed stock means that hospitals are less able to cope with large influxes of patients, for example during winter or periods of high demand.

This has ultimately impacted hospitals’ ability to provide safe and timely care and remains a major factor in growing backlogs.

NHS hospital bed stocks have changed over time

Overall bed stock has declined

Prior to the pandemic, the total English NHS hospital bed stock reduced by 8.3% between 2010/11 and 2019/20 as the average daily total of available beds fell from 153,725 to 140,978.

The ratio of beds that are overnight versus day-only has also undergone change. Between 2010/11 and 2019/20 the overnight bed stock shrunk by 10% while the number of day-only beds increased by 13.4%.

Different settings

The extent to which overnight bed numbers have fallen varies across different settings. Learning disability and mental illness beds have seen the largest reduction of 56% and 22.5% respectively since 2010/11. This reflects policies to move care for these patient groups out of hospitals and into the community.

A  reduction has also occurred in the available number of general and acute overnight beds which have decreased by 6.9%, from 108,958 average daily beds in 2010/11 to 101,432 in 2019/20.

The rise in general and acute day-only beds reflects an increase in day-case surgeries reducing the need for overnight stays, following clinical innovations that have lowered the time patients generally need to spend in hospital.

COVID-19 has impacted bed availability

As NHS England has noted, capacity has had to be organised differently during the pandemic. This is to comply with enhanced infection control measures and to treat COVID and non-COVID patients separately.

As a result of this reorganisation, the number of general and acute beds available for use dropped to a low of 92,559 in the first quarter of 2020/21.

Latest data for the second quarter of 2021 showed this has now increased to 98,000, but remains well below pre-pandemic levels.

Safe limits are routinely breached

Rising occupancy

While overall bed numbers have declined, occupancy rates have been rising.

Since 2010, average bed occupancy has consistently surpassed 85%, the level generally considered to be the point beyond which safety and efficiency are at risk.

Coming into the pandemic, England had an average occupancy of 90.2% in 2019/20. However, local variation in supply and demand have seen many trusts regularly exceeding 95% capacity in the winter months.

Bed shortages alongside high occupancy rates are unsafe for patients and staff. It can:

• increase delays in emergency departments
• delay patients transfer from intensive care units and between wards
• add stress to staff and patients.

Impact of COVID-19 on occupancy levels

The pandemic has seen a drastic fall in bed occupancy rates as a result of infection control procedures and rapid discharge arrangements. However, occupancy levels go hand in hand with the availability of beds.

Low occupancy with a low bed stock and low throughput is neither good for patients nor staff, who are facing long waits for treatment, a mounting backlog and capacity pressures.

Data for the second quarter of 2022/23 indicates that bed occupancy levels in England have risen substantially and have passed the recommended safe threshold again.

Pressures in social care are causing delayed discharges from hospital

Issues surrounding bed capacity are compounded further by discharge delays caused by pressures in social care. Up to one in three English hospital beds are occupied by patients who are medically fit to be discharged, but remain in hospital as there is no space for them in social care. This issue highlights the importance of properly funding both health and social care systems so that they can effectively work together.

Critical care capacity remains low despite increases in beds

National data on critical care beds is collected via monthly situation reports. Until February 2020 this consisted of a snapshot taken at midnight on the last Thursday of the month.

In March 2020 reporting adjustments due to COVID-19 changed this to an average across the month.

NHS England paused the regular publication of complete critical care bed capacity in February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UK entered the pandemic with a low number of critical care beds relative to its population, with just 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, more than half the average in OECD EU nations (15.9).

This is despite the total number of adult acute critical care beds actually having risen over the years. 

In placing new demands on critical care services, COVID-19 laid bare that England does not have enough critical care beds.

When the NHS was asked in early 2020 to free up critical care capacity to prepare for a surge in patients, it achieved this through reorganising existing resources to:

• reduce demand by postponing non-urgent planned operations
• increase the amount of beds and physical spaces dedicated to critical care by reducing capacity elsewhere, including repurposing recovery rooms
• redeploy staff from elsewhere in the NHS.

As a result of these measures the number of available critical care beds saw a sharp increase between March and April 2020.

However, the need for rapid expansion of critical care capacity has come at a large cost to the NHS, which now faces extensive backlogs in other parts of the system. See our secondary care capacity analysis.

What the BMA is calling for

With bed capacity pressures mounting, the BMA is calling for action to be taken to ensure that the core bed stock grows to reach a level that will cope with year-round demand.

Increasing the total number of available beds is a sensible and achievable step towards addressing bed shortages in the NHS.

Expanding bed numbers will only be meaningful if there is sufficient workforce to staff them safely.

Funding for the adequate staffing of these beds – alongside long-term investment in increasing the NHS workforce – must therefore be provided by the Government.

This must be accompanied by a workforce strategy to ensure that the appropriate number of future staff are being recruited and trained. This is likely to save costs in the long run – through, for example, a reduction in locum costs.

The richest 1% of people in the UK are now wealthier than 70% of the population combined, according to analysis by Oxfam.

“Survival of the Richest” – Proves that there is no such thing as trickle-down economics. – Owl

Laura Parnaby www.independent.co.uk

A report by the charity highlights how the 685,500 richest people in Britain are worth a total of £2.8 trillion, compared with 48 million people in the UK whose combined wealth totals £2.4 trillion.

Oxfam’s report, called Survival of the Richest, builds a picture of widening worldwide inequality, after extreme poverty and extreme wealth increased simultaneously over the past two years for the first time in quarter of a century.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, the richest 1% accrued nearly twice as much “new wealth” – revenue created in the global economy – as the rest of the world combined, Oxfam has said.

According to the report, this elite group pocketed £21 trillion in new wealth over the last two years, which equates to almost two-thirds of all new revenue.

This comes after both the number and wealth of billionaires doubled over the last decade.

At the same time, at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and more than 820 million people – roughly one in 10 people on Earth – do not have enough food.

Oxfam is calling for a wealth tax of up to 5% on the super-rich to raise £1.4 trillion each year, which the charity argues is enough to lift two billion people out of poverty.

Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam GB chief executive, criticised governments for failing to tackle the issue of financial inequality, describing the current economic situation as “an affront to basic human values”.

He said: “Multiple crises have pushed millions to the brink while our leaders fail to grasp the nettle – governments must stop acting for the vested interests of the few.

“How can we accept a system where the poorest people in many countries pay much higher tax rates than the super-rich?

“A flour seller Oxfam works with in Uganda pays 40% tax each month, while some billionaires’ true tax rates have been as low as 3%.

“Governments must introduce higher taxes on the super-rich now.”

Along with Patriotic Millionaires and Tax Justice UK, Oxfam is pushing for one-off “solidarity wealth taxes”, and a permanent increase on tax for the richest 1% to at least 60% of their income from labour and capital, with higher rates for billionaires.

Their campaign is supported by Ian Gregg, former managing director of Greggs and the son of its founder, who believes he should be paying more tax.

Mr Gregg said: “I can never be happy with an economy that fosters such division in society for our children and grandchildren.

“Now, more than ever, the wealthiest must contribute more.

“For me, paying more tax would be a small price to pay to start the process of making society fairer, and reducing inequalities in both wealth and opportunity.”

Oxfam also found that 95 food and energy corporations more than doubled their profits in 2022, making £251 billion in windfall profits, and paying out 84% of this sum to rich shareholders.

The charity said that excess corporation profits have driven at least half of inflation in Australia, the US and the UK.

Some progressive governments have taken steps to increase taxation, including Costa Rica which increased its top rate of income tax from 15% to 25%, while Bolivia and Argentina have also introduced wealth taxes.

You’ll be lucky

First the strikes. Then engineering works. Now a landslip.

www.radioexe.co.uk

The chances of getting smoothly between Exeter and London Waterloo are often somewhat fraught. But now rail operator South Western Railway (SWR) is warning passengers there’s little hope of going the distance, at least on Tuesday and possibly for the best part of a week.

Ar landslip in the Hook area of Hampshire is severely reducing the number of trains that can safely run on the line. Trains aren’t going between Basingstoke and Waterlooo and only a limited shuttle service is in place connecting with trains at Woking.

People should check the situation before travelling for the next few days.

Sunday’s landslip was one of 11 incidents affecting infrastructure on SWR’s routes overnight on Sunday into Monday.

Claire Mann, managing director of South Western Railway, said: “We are deeply sorry for the significant disruption felt by customers across our network on Monday. What began as a major landslip at Hook was then compounded by 10 separate weather-related infrastructure failures, which have made planning and delivering a reliable train service across our network very difficult.

“We are working hard to provide a service that our customers can rely upon and unfortunately, we will be unable to run through services from Exeter, Weymouth, or Portsmouth (via Eastleigh) to London Waterloo from Tuesday. 

“With the repairs at Hook set to take at least a week to complete it is likely that further service alternations will need to be made. We are sorry for the ongoing disruption caused by the landslip and will communicate any changes to our customers as soon as possible.”

Going nowhere for a while (image courtesy: SWR)

No, it’s not any of the Devon Tory MPs. – Owl

The MP for Tiverton and Honiton, Richard Foord, is calling for the Government to safeguard people’s right to use Dartmoor for wild camping. 

Philippa Davies www.midweekherald.co.uk 

A recent High Court judgement ruled that individual Dartmoor landowners have the right to remove people from land they own within the National Park. There has been growing concern about how this will be enforced and the implications it would have.  

Mr Foord says many local residents have contacted him to express their anger and concern. Many fear that this will undermine the South West’s tourist trade and affect events that rely on Dartmoor for training, such as the Ten Tors Challenge and the Duke of Edinburgh award – both of which are undertaken by schools in East Devon.  

He has tabled a motion in Parliament celebrating the success of the Ten Tors challenge and calling on the Government to bring forward new legislation that would guarantee the continued right to camp on Dartmoor. He is asking other MPs across the area to back his motion. 

Mr Foord said: “Dartmoor is an amazing place. It is one of the few areas in England where you can cut away from the noise of 21st century life and get lost in nature. Spending the night on Dartmoor allows you to properly switch off from the sound and fury of modern life.   

“The recent ruling means that our right to pitch a tent is now at risk of being brought to an end by wealthy landowners. It should not be the case that vast tracts of our National Park are effectively fenced off to the public.  

 “So many people have been in touch with me to express their anger at the ruling and concern about how our green spaces are to be used. Dartmoor is a place for rest, recuperation and healing, and it should stay that way.  

“The Conservative Government must act on this. So far, they have failed to respond to the ruling or even bring forward a statement on the issue. This indifference is damning, and it is angering communities across the South West.”  

Politico Newsletter:

A total of 600 CEOs, 56 finance ministers, 19 central bank governors, 30 trade ministers and 35 foreign ministers are attending Davos this year. But while the WEF’s operating model requires it to provide a place for the world’s most influential people to talk (119 billionaires joined in 2020), all that power is a stark reminder that billionaires and CEOs don’t look like the rest of us.

This is the obvious solution but the Tories don’t want to admit how cruel their policy of closing cottage hospitals was. None more hawkish than local District and County Councillors. – Owl

www.thetimes.co.uk

The NHS needs a “rethink” to deal with Britain’s increasing sick population, the former head of Britain’s family doctors has said.

Dame Clare Gerada, former chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, called for a new generation of cottage hospitals to offer better treatment to elderly people increasingly living longer with multiple illnesses.

“The problem with the NHS at the moment isn’t obesity, not really, and it isn’t really because we’re getting older, it’s actually because we’re getting older with chronic disease,” she told Times Radio.

CHRIS HARRIS FOR THE TIMES

“So for the last 20 years of our life, most of us are suffering from three, four, five, even ten long-term conditions and we’re living with those until our late 80s and early 90s. And the NHS was designed for a time when the average life expectancy was 67, when you tended to become unwell not long before that, and the NHS was geared up to provide acute care for those acute illnesses.”

Gerada, who will sit on The Times Health Commission, which launches today, led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against David Cameron’s NHS reforms a decade ago and warned against another structural upheaval.

“Clearly what we need now is a rethink — not a top-down reorganisation, but a rethink about where the staff are, where staff are trained, where the resources are.”

She said ministers should consider “how we develop what I would call cottage hospitals — we used to have them and they all got closed down.”

She said beefing up care closer to home would help “deliver the two extremes of what patients need, which is one of acute necessary care, you break your leg, you’ve got an acute infection… but for the vast majority of patients today it’s the long-term chronic disease which isn’t really treated in a way that it should be.”

With waiting times for both emergency and routine care at record highs, The Times commission will take evidence from across the health service and draw up a radical blueprint for far-reaching reform of the NHS and social care.

The chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police has said the force is battling inexperience among its ranks due to the number of new recruits.

Well, there’s a surprise. What does Alison Hernandez, police commissioner since May 2016, have to say?   – Owl

BBC News www.bbc.co.uk

Devon and Cornwall Police chief constable Will Kerr said he wants to prioritise tackling basic crime

Will Kerr, who was sworn into the role in December, said the force had the highest number of officers it has ever had.

But he admitted this had brought “challenges”.

He also outlined a back to basics approach to policing to improve public confidence in the force.

It comes as a Freedom of Information request by the BBC found 54% of officers in Devon and Cornwall Police had three years of service or less.

Only 55% of response officers were qualified to drive with blue lights.

‘Time and effort’

Mr Kerr said: “It is a challenge and there’s no point trying to pretend it is otherwise.

“But, of course, when you’re significantly increasing the number of new recruits and new police officers coming in through the door… that takes a lot of time and effort and detailed training programmes.”

He said addressing the issue will become slightly easier “in a couple of years”.

Andy Berry, from the Police Federation, said inexperience was an important issue for Mr Kerr to tackle.

“For response officers, it’s absolutely essential that they can drive with blue lights – frankly, 54% isn’t enough,” he said.

Mr Kerr said he would be prioritising basic issues such as anti-social behaviour, drug-dealing and unsafe driving.

He said public confidence in the police “begins and ends” at a community level.

“What I’m keen to do is make sure we give those young cops and new police staff members the skills that they need to get out as quickly as possible in local communities,” he added.