Monthly Archives: January 2023

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Anger in Cranbrook after another heating outage

So things are back to “normal” for the long suffering residents of Cranbrook, many of whom had to take an involuntary “ice bucket challenge” to shower. What a way to start the week. – Owl

Mary Stenson www.devonlive.com

Residents of Cranbrook woke up to no hot water this morning [Monday] after the town’s communal heating supply was cut off. It comes after previous outages in the town, including one last month which left households without heating for up to five days during a sub-zero cold snap. The town’s heating provider E.ON says this morning’s issue was “an isolated incident”.

As temperatures plummet today, a large number of Cranbrook residents say they have had to take cold showers this morning as their homes are without hot water. The town is supplied by utility company E.ON via a communal district heating centre on London Road.

Locals took to Cranbrook’s community Facebook page, Belonging to Cranbrook, to say they had been without heating this morning, including one post which said “No hot water. Just had [an] ice cold shower. Anyone else?”

The post was met with at least 70 comments which reported no hot water in homes throughout the area. E.ON has said that the issue has now been resolved and that it was caused by a fire alarm which cut off the energy centre.

It is not the first time that Cranbrook has had difficulties with their heating system. Just last month, a large number of homes were without heating, including one mum who said that she and her children were having to stay with relatives as it was too cold to sleep at home. E.ON attributed last month’s heating problems to “an issue with valves in the heat interface units in some customer homes” rather than the network itself.

Local MP for East Devon Simon Jupp has since been rallying for an improved service for Cranbrook, most recently calling on E.ON to ensure compensation is “as simple as possible, be calculated fairly, and cover every single day customers were affected.”

Nicola Quick moved to phase 4 of Cranbrook five years ago and claims that every winter her home suffers heating outages. She explains she was drawn to the idea of a new-build property as she believed it would require less work and have fewer problems.

She said: “With a new house, you think there’s not going to be any problems, you don’t have to do anything to it. Where I live is the quieter end of the whole development and I quite like that there’s no through traffic.

“I didn’t know what [communal district heating] was when I first moved in. When you go around and have a look, you see the radiators and kind of think that it’s central heating which is ok.

“The Christmas before last, on Christmas Day I had to phone up because I had no hot water. It’s just ridiculous, it’s sporadic throughout the year. Every year we have this every winter. This is not something new.”

She explained that her home, which she lives in by herself, has been impacted both today and during the December outage, as well as numerous other times over the year. Nicola claims she has found herself waiting up all night and taking days off work to ensure she is there when an E.ON engineer comes to resolve the problem.

She said: “You get up in the morning to go to work and no hot water for a shower. Not a great a start to a Monday. When they know there’s going to be an issue at the E.ON centre, why is it then an issue for all of us?

“It’s really difficult because you’ve got to take the whole day off work. You’ve got to really kick off before they’ll actually do anything about anything and it just causes you stress when you don’t need it.

“One of the engineers was supposed to turn up when I called at 9pm one night, he was supposed to turn up within five hours and just nobody contacted me or said anything. They did give me £5 for that but I was up all night waiting.”

Nicola claims that it wasn’t until Simon Jupp got involved that she received compensation, which was £30 for everyday without heating. However, she adds that she had to “fight” to get compensation for all three days she was without hot water as she was initially only going to be reimbursed for two.

She went on to say that despite enjoying being an active member of the Cranbrook community, the lack of consistent heating, as well as problems with parking in the town, has left her wishing she’d “never moved [there].”

Nicola said: “Traffic is appalling. Even the bus drivers can’t get the buses down the new development which is on the fourth roundabout which is phase 7. You can only have one car through there because of parking on the other side of the road.

“The council said they weren’t going to designate yellow lines in the town at all which is a total joke. I’ve got a garage with my property and the amount of people that park in front of my garage when I’ve got signs on there saying ‘please do not park, I need access 24/7’, I still have to phone the police and they have to phone the owner to move.

“If I could move tomorrow I would, definitely. I run and I’m a member of the community with the park runs and use the country park a lot. That’s great and it’s great for work but the other issues with E.ON is just a shocker.”

DevonLive contacted E.ON to ask how many households have been affected this morning, the cause of the outage, whether it has been resolved, why heating issues appear to occur when the temperature drops and whether households would be compensated for this morning’s incident.

An spokesperson for E.ON responded, saying: “We had an issue this morning where the fire alarm cut off the energy centre. This was an isolated incident but supply was lost for a few hours from 6am. All is restored now but we’re sorry for the disruption.”

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Planning applications validated by EDDC for week beginning 2 January

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Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi ‘pays millions to settle tax row’ after investigation

Former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi is said to have agreed to pay HMRC several million pounds in tax following an investigation into his financial affairs that was first revealed by The Independent last year.

Adam Forrestwww.independent.co.uk

The Tory chair has agreed to pay a seven-figure sum to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to settle a tax dispute, according to reports. Labour says there are now “serious questions to answer” for Mr Zahawi and the prime minister.

The Independent Reported in July that HMRC officials were examining the tax affairs of the senior Tory figure after an inquiry was launched by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in 2020.

This is how The Independent reported the investigation at the time (The Independent)

In summer last year, when Mr Zahawi was chancellor and while he was running for the Tory leadership, a senior Whitehall source confirmed that the tax matter being investigated by HMRC was “unresolved”.

The initial NCA inquiry was codenamed Operation Catalufa and is understood to have involved the agency’s International Corruption Unit.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Mr Zahawi, who said he had known nothing about the NCA investigation before being contacted by The Independent.

The Tory chair gave HMRC a “seven-figure” sum to settle a tax row related to Gibraltar-registered Balshore Investments – used to hold shares in the YouGov polling company he co-founded – according to The Sun on Sunday.

A spokesperson for Mr Zahawi did not deny that the tax bill amounted to several million, and told The Independent: “As he has previously stated, Mr Zahawi’s taxes are properly declared and paid in the UK. He is proud to have built a British business that has become successful around the world.”

The senior Tory claimed to be the victim of a “smear” campaign after details of the tax investigation were revealed, but vowed to “answer any questions that HMRC has of me”.

Labour chair Anneliese Dodds said there are “serious questions to answer” for both Mr Zahawi and Rishi Sunak.

“Why did Nadhim Zahawi claim last summer that he had paid his taxes in full, and that he wasn’t aware of an investigation?” she asked. “When was he made aware of an investigation? Was the prime minister aware of an investigation when he appointed Nadhim Zahawi to the cabinet?

“Finally, why did Nadhim Zahawi claim he was not a beneficiary of his family trust – Balshore Investments – when records show that the money he owed YouGov was paid from the trust?

“Not for the first time, Rishi Sunak’s judgement has been called into serious question. The question remains: is he strong enough to sack Nadhim Zahawi?”

Mr Zahawi vowed to publish his tax returns if he won the Tory leadership contest and became prime minister, before being eliminated in the first round of voting and throwing his weight behind Liz Truss.

The Tory chair initially backed Boris Johnson for the leadership when Ms Truss resigned in October, but later switched his support to Mr Sunak.

The 55-year-old was born in Iraq and came to the UK as a child when his Kurdish family fled Saddam Hussein’s regime, before becoming the MP for Stratford-upon-Avon in 2010.

Mr Zahawi made his fortune with online polling company YouGov and was also chief executive of Gulf Keystone Petroleum until 2018.

A spokesperson for HMRC said: “We cannot comment on identifiable taxpayers.”

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Boris Johnson embroiled in fresh row over finances amid Tory leadership comeback plan

Boris Johnson has been urged to come clean about his financial affairs and end his Conservative leadership ambitions, as the former prime minister became embroiled in a fresh row over money.

Adam Forrest www.independent.co.uk

The prime minister is thought to have secured an £800,000 line of credit while he was at No 10, backed by a millionaire relative who was suggested for a top role at a quango.

Canadian businessman Sam Blyth agreed to guarantee the huge credit facility for his distant cousin in December 2020 before it was taken out in February 2021, a newspaper report claimed.

Labour condemned the lack of transparency around the “alleged murky financial arrangements”, calling on No 10 to come clean about who exactly Mr Johnson had received money and other benefits from when he was PM.

Tory MPs said the latest questions about Mr Johnson’s finances, coming soon after damning new Partygate claims, showed exactly why he was not a “suitable character” to be prime minister.

Asked about the huge £800,000 line of credit, former Tory minister Caroline Nokes said there was no way he could return. “Boris was a particular politician for a particular time … but now is not his time. We need sensible, grown-up politicians,” she told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

“It should help kill off any chance he has of coming back,” one backbencher told The Independent. “He wasn’t a suitable character to be PM. The stories about Partygate and his finances would keep on coming if he tried to come back.”

Another Sunak-backing Tory MP said the huge line of credit Mr Johnson was given at No 10 “reminds us why so many people had concerns about him as leader”.

They added: “But some MPs just don’t care because he’s such a unique character. You still can’t rule out a comeback push, because there are a hardcore group who think we did the wrong thing getting rid of him.”

Natwest bank chairman Sir Howard Davies also criticised Mr Johnson, suggesting that the markets would react very badly to any attempted comeback. “Running the country is not the same as running his own finances, where it seems there are mysterious people prepared to fill in any budget gap,” he told the BBC.

The Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team were said to have approved the £800,000 credit arrangement in December 2020 after Mr Johnson asked for the advice of cabinet secretary Simon Case, the Sunday Times reported.

Mr Johnson’s Canadian cousin, the guarantor of the credit line, was considered for a position as chief executive of the British Council, a non-departmental public body when the guarantor arrangements were being put into place, according to the newspaper.

But Mr Case and Cabinet Office officials are said to have been unaware of Mr Blyth’s application for the quango, having been assured that there were no conflicts of interest. And Mr Johnson insisted he was not aware of Mr Blyth’s appearance on a recommended list for the British Council job.

A spokesman for the former PM said: “Boris Johnson did not in any way assist with, and was unaware of, any application by Sam Blyth, formal or informal, to serve in any position whatever with the British Council, and neither was anybody in No 10 who was acting on his behalf.”

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Mr Blyth, said to be a friend of Mr Johnson’s father, Stanley Johnson. The Canadian told the Sunday Times: “I am aware of the statement Boris Johnson is making and can confirm the accuracy of his account.”

The former PM’s wife Carrie Johnson is believed to have made free use of Mr Blyth’s villa in the Dominican Republic in early 2022, before Mr Johnson and the whole family holidayed there in October.

Mr Johnson has argued that the use of the Dominican Republic villa did not need to be registered because its free use came from a family member providing a personal benefit. “All Boris Johnson’s financial interests are and were properly declared,” said a spokesperson.

Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds said: “Boris Johnson was never fit for office. These alleged murky financial arrangements only further confirm this fact. This raises the question of why this arrangement was not publicly declared.”

She added: “The public have a right to know when sizeable gifts and loans are made to leaders to avoid any suggestion of inappropriate influence. Will No10 or the Conservative Party confirm just who Johnson received money from when he was in No10, why this was not properly declared, and what these wealthy individuals were offered in return?”

The latest revelations come after The Independent revealed a bitter split between warring Tories over whether Mr Johnson should be restored as leader given his history of scandal.

Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain MP said: “It’s clear as day he’s filling up his coffers and plotting a comeback. This disgraced prime minister should not be granted one. Johnson must publicly rule out a comeback.”

Analysis by The Independent shows that Mr Johnson has raked in than £2.6m in earnings, donations and benefits in kind in the past year alone.

The total includes outside earnings of just over £1.3m in the past 12 months, as the former PM entered the speaking circuit after leaving No 10 in September.

Mr Johnson has also received just £1.2m in donations and hospitality, gifts and benefits in kind – including a £1m donation from Brexiteer businessman Christopher Harbourne and accommodation worth just over £60,000 from Lord Bamford and Lady Bamford.

It also emerged that Mr Johnson put a dinner costing more than £4,000 on a government credit card while with staff in New York for a UN General Assembly meeting in September 2021.

The bill for £4,445.07 for the meal at Smith & Wollensky’s enjoyed by Mr Johnson and his entourage emerged in a question posed by Labour. “While families are sick with worry struggling to make ends meet, this waste of public money is obscene,” said deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner.

Foreign Office minister David Rutley said: “Expenditure was subject to normal FCDO controls and an appropriate use of public money.”

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Ex-MP Who Quit Over Porn-Watching Scandal Wants To Stand At The Next Election

A former Tory MP [Neil Parish] who quit after watching porn in the House of Commons has said he wants to stand again at the next general election.

(Neil has been floating this idea, even toying with standing as an independent at the by-election for his own seat, but so far hasn’t “made a commitment”.)

Owl’s message: Go ahead Neil and split the Tory vote but remember that by the next general election you will be very much “yesterday’s man”!

Richard Foord is setting an example of how an MP should care for his constituency, something few of us have ever experienced in Toryland.

Alexandra Rogers www.huffingtonpost.co.uk 

Neil Parish, who resigned his Devonshire seat last summer, said there was still “so much unfinished business” following his departure from parliament.

Parish, who represented Honiton and Tiverton, said that the first time he watched porn online had been accidental as he searched for tractors online.

But he admitted that on another occasion he had deliberately watched the material while waiting to vote in the Chamber.

His actions cost him his political career and triggered a by-election in the seat, which the Lib Dems won with a 30% swing.

Parish said after the result: “It’s a shame that I had to make such a terrible mistake and go in the way I had to go.”

Speaking to Times Radio, Parish said today that despite the nature of his exit, he was hoping to make a political comeback.

He told presenters Kate McCann and Adam Boulton: “At the moment I just don’t want to quite leave it.

“When you leave so suddenly like I had to, there is so much unfinished business. Therefore at the moment I don’t really want to leave it there… the seat that comes very close to my farm is the Tiverton and West Somerset seat.

“I would very much consider standing there at the next general election.”

And asked whether he would considering running as an independent and not the the Conservative Party, Parish said: “I shall offer my services to the [Conservative] Party … whether the party will have me or not is another matter.

“Then I have the option of also standing as an independent…there’s a certain draw for me actually to have a shot as an independent.”

Parish was just one of a number of Tory MPs to lose the party whip over their conduct.

Andrew Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire, was suspended from the Conservative Party on Wednesday after he referred to the Holocaust in a debate about Covid vaccines.

The following day, Bridgen, who now sits as an independent MP in the Commons, apologised for causing offence and released a video denying he was racist.

There are currently 15 independent MPs sitting in parliament.

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Tory donor’s firm behind PPE delivery now to be paid millions to burn it

Nice “win win” for somebody – Owl

A company founded by a top Conservative Party donor that was paid £11m to deliver PPE kits during the pandemic will now be paid millions more to destroy them, it has been reported.

Maroosha Muzaffar www.independent.co.uk

Clipper Logistics, founded by Steve Parkin, will receive £4.5m to burn PPE including gowns, and surgical gloves that did not meet NHS standards, sparking criticism from opposition parties over alleged contract cronyism in the country.

Two years ago, Clipper Logistics, one of the UK’s leading storage and delivery groups, received £11m of taxpayer money to deliver PPE kits, among £3.5bn-worth of emergency Covid contracts that went to Tory-linked firms, according to Labour.

The manner in which the government fast-tracked applications for Covid contracts from suppliers with connections to ministers and officials has since been ruled unlawful by the High Court.

Clipper Logistics has been handed a contract to incinerate gowns, goggles and gloves that are among an estimated £4bn worth of PPE gear deemed ineffective, according to the Mirror.

Mr Parkin, 62, is no longer involved in the running of Clipper Logistics after it was acquired by US logistics giant GXO in a deal worth almost £1bn, but he remains a shareholder. He has reportedly donated £730,000 to the Conservatives since 2017.

This arrangement has sparked outrage among opposition parties. Labour’s Angela Rayner demanded: “Ministers must explain this.”

Ms Rayner said: “The Tories’ conveyor belt of sleaze and incompetence has come full circle. They handed millions to a donor’s firm with no experience of delivering PPE, then forked out millions more for the exact same firm to incinerate it.

“Taxpayers’ cash is going up in flames as the government’s bonfire of useless PPE grows. Ministers must come clean about these grubby deals and explain how a Tory donor’s company came to be awarded millions on millions for this fiasco.”

Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine said: “The public deserves to know the full details of how this Conservative-affiliated company landed these contracts. We need clarity, not more cronyism and cover-ups.

“Conservative ministers wasted billions on dodgy PPE contracts and now are spending millions more destroying it. Another demonstration of how out of touch this government really is.”

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Brownfield land for 1.2 million homes lying dormant, our report shows – CPRE

As the affordable housing crisis deepens, our 2022 state of brownfield report has found – yet again – that the number of new homes that could be built on brownfield land remains high. In fact, it has reached record levels, with more than half a million homes with planning permission waiting to be built.

www.cpre.org.uk

Our report looked at local councils’ registers of brownfield land and found that over 1.2 million homes could be built on 23,000 sites covering more than 27,000 hectares of previously developed land. Just 45% of available housing units have been granted planning permission and 550,000 homes with planning permission are still awaiting development. Read the report

Brownfield still underused

The data also shows clear differences between regions. On the whole, the former industrial heartlands, which are most in need of levelling up, are least likely to have planning permission to redevelop brownfield land. Compared with the national average of 45%, the proportion of available housing units with planning permission is: 33% in the north west, 36% in the West Midlands and 40% in Yorkshire and the Humber.

There is still a huge amount of land that can be recycled in our major cities. London boroughs have two of the top three totals of highest brownfield land with housing capacity and Birmingham is in second place. Using that land would take the pressure off the Green Belt around those cities.

CPRE’s latest state of brownfield report calls for a range of measures to protect green fields, farmland and countryside, while boosting the development of social and truly affordable homes in areas where it is most needed. Previous research has shown that development of the highest quality farmland has soared 1,000-fold in 10 years – while brownfield sites wait for regeneration. Meanwhile, the demand for social housing is growing six times faster than the rate of supply in rural areas. At current rates, the backlog of low-income families needing accommodation would take over 120 years to clear.

A broken system

Tom Fyans, interim chief executive of CPRE said:

‘You know the system is broken when hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and families are on social housing waiting lists, many in rural areas. Meanwhile, across the country tens of thousands of hectares of prime brownfield sites are sitting there waiting to be redeveloped.

‘There have been promising commitments by the government to incentivise brownfield development, tackle land banking and clamp down on short term lets distorting the rental market. But the scale of the challenge requires so much more. There’s no way to fix an overheated, undersupplied housing market without a new generation of social or truly affordable housing.

‘The only solution is a commitment to building hundreds of thousands of new homes available at social rents or sold at affordable prices linked to local wages. Investing in brownfield regeneration would have a transformative effect. Done with consideration, such developments breathe new life into communities while also building the homes local people actually need alongside existing infrastructure such as public transport, schools and shops.’

A ‘clear prioritisation’ of brownfield

Recent changes to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, including emphasising brownfield over greenfield, are welcome but vague. CPRE is calling for broad amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework, which is due for review in 2023, to include a clear prioritisation of brownfield development over greenfield sites. Among the recommendations are:

  • Only allowing greenfield developments when they are primarily affordable housing for local needs, or when as much use as possible is already being made of brownfield land.
  • The New Homes Bonus should be reformed so it is only paid out to support either development of brownfield land and/or additional affordable homes.
  • The Infrastructure Levy should be set at a much higher rate on greenfield land to reflect the high costs of greenfield development to local communities.
  • Provide local communities with stronger mechanisms to bring brownfield land forward as a source of land supply, such as increased compulsory purchase powers.

Read the report

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Government refuses to fund UK students at new medical school despite ‘chronic’ doctor shortage

A new school set up to boost the number of doctors in England has been told it will not receive any funding for domestic students – meaning that in future it may only be able to give places to those coming in from overseas.

Anna Fazackerley www.theguardian.com

The government is refusing to fund a single place at Three Counties Medical School, University of Worcester, despite health bosses in the area saying they are spending £70m a year on agency staff to plug a chronic shortage of doctors.

The school was set up to boost doctor numbers across Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire – rural areas that struggle to compete with big city training centres such as Birmingham when recruiting medical staff. The centre is expected to be completed in about six weeks, and it has the agreement of the General Medical Council to start training doctors from September.

However, the Department for Health and Social Care, which maintains a strict cap on the number of university medical degree places it funds, is ignoring pleas from local health trusts, hospitals and Tory MPs to pay for students to come and train at the school.

Professor David Green, vice chancellor of Worcester University, told the Observer: “The chronic shortage of staff in the NHS means that doctors are constantly rushed, so delays and mistakes happen and that is leading to a crisis of excess deaths. The question is how bad do things have to get before the government will act?”

He said that there was “a desperate need” for more doctors to work in the three counties, adding: “All the local health services say the school is crucial. But we still have not been allocated a single funded place by the government.”

Simon Trickett, chief executive of the NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire integrated care board, said they were spending just over £70m this year on locum and agency staff because they don’t have enough doctors. He added: “That’s a massive premium to pay to get your shifts covered.”

He said: “It is really frustrating. The local system is 100% behind this medical school. The GP surgeries, the hospitals, the community services and the local councils all really want it. But it is being blocked from entering the market.”

Trickett said that as well as doctors working in hospitals the region urgently needed a “production pipeline” of new trainee GPs to fill the gaps as existing doctors retired, adding that this was particularly important as they had a high proportion of elderly residents.

It comes as the head of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, called on the government to increase the number of homegrown nurses and doctors trained at medical schools. “We are seeing universities having to turn away excellent people,” she told the Times.

In the absence of any government funding, the university has managed to raise the money for 20 UK medical students to start its fast-track four-year graduate medical training this September, with support from a local charity and a one-off contribution from local NHS trusts, which do not want to see the school fail. The school received 1,000 applications from students in the UK and across the world, with international students paying £45,100 a year to support all their own training costs.

The medical school has offered places to 48 students in total, but Green said that the university could “easily” have secured training placements locally for more than 100 students if the government would agree to pay for them.

Robin Walker, Conservative MP for Worcester and chair of the Commons education select committee, said: “I’ve been telling health ministers that it is irrational to have medical schools that can’t recruit domestic medical students when we know we need them.”

He added: “At the moment we are dependent on training centres like Birmingham and Bristol to recruit doctors but they have their own demands to meet. We urgently need a local supply of doctors.”

The Royal College of Physicians has been lobbying for an expansion in medical training places for years. Its president, Dr Sarah Clarke, said: “Training more doctors is crucial to creating a sustainable and efficient health service. There are thousands of UK students ready to take up places in medical school, we just need the government to fund them.”

Next year Worcester says it will have to recruit only international students, who are less likely to stay and work locally.

The government has also denied funding to two other new medical schools in England, at Brunel University and the University of Chester.

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Since 2017, the government has provided funding for an extra 1,500 medical school places per year. We created five new medical schools as part of this process.

“We have commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term plan for the NHS workforce for the next 15 years. This will look at the mix and number of staff required across all parts of the country, including doctors.”

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‘Iron Hunt’ blocks NHS pay deals

Isn’t he part of the problem? – Owl

Jeremy Hunt has been “captured” by the Treasury, according to a Westminster insider.

Caroline Wheeler www.thetimes.co.uk

The chancellor is seen as the stumbling block in talks with the unions over disputes that have brought Britain grinding to a halt.

The insider points to Hunt’s determination to boost growth by getting economically inactive people back into work while blocking pay rises for public sector workers.

It is understood that the Treasury has told Steve Barclay to find savings in his health department if he wants to give nurses a pay rise. He has resisted the idea after having to find £250 million to plough into social care to free up hospital beds and ease the A&E crisis.

Barclay believes nurses should be an exceptional case, but the Treasury has rebuffed his approach for more money. In talks with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) last week Barclay asked for this week’s strikes, on Wednesday and Thursday, to be called off while discussions continue. The union wants a 19 per cent pay rise.

Rishi Sunak had promised unions a fresh approach, and ministers were told to begin negotiations on pay deals for 2023-24. The RCN talks are still open but this week’s action — involving up to 100,000 nurses — is expected to go ahead after the government refused to talk about this year’s pay deal.

With no sign of a breakthrough, the RCN is set to announce further strike dates for the start of February.

In more bad news for the government, the National Education Union and the National Association of Head Teachers are expected to announce that their members have voted in favour of a strike.

One Westminster insider suggested the blockage was Hunt: “Last year he argued for more funding for the NHS in his book Zero. Now he has become the iron chancellor, saying no to everything.”

The prime minister is likely to come under more pressure to resolve pay disputes as May’s local elections loom. One former cabinet minister said a way to put more money into health could be to tap the Treasury’s £4 billion windfall from the Bank of England’s sale of the long-term gilts it bought to quell panic after Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

A settlement on the railways is said to be “within touching distance” as ministers scaled back their demand for driver-only trains. The deal on the table is a 9 per cent pay increase over two years.

The chance of a breakthrough brings a glimmer of hope after a gloomy start to the year, with public services on strike on a scale not seen since 1926. The disputes have added to the bleak economic landscape. The UK narrowly avoided a 2022 recession after a “surprise” 0.1 per cent rise in growth in November. The risk of recession still looms large, however, with the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility both forecasting a contraction in the first half of 2023.

Sunak and Hunt have told business leaders that tackling Britain’s shrinking workforce is a priority that will be at the heart of the budget in March. Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has drawn up proposals to tempt Britain’s nine million economically inactive people back to work.

He aims to lure over-50s who have taken early retirement back into the office and has prioritised efforts to keep younger people in employment.

Stride is expected to meet Hunt this week to discuss his proposals, which are understood to include putting a duty on pension providers to offer “midlife financial MoTs”. It is believed many over-50s took early retirement using assumptions made before the cost of living crisis.

Stride is also looking at the childcare element of universal credit and is considering plans to increase the benefit.

“Mel wants there to be as radical a target as possible to help those with treatable conditions, including those with mental health and skeletal conditions, back into work,” a Whitehall source said.

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Devon new-build town with ‘shady past’ is now ‘lush place to live’

‘Community’ is alive and well in fast emerging Cranbrook as locals share what it’s really like to live in the young town, according to this article. www.devonlive.com

However, the string of comments posted online still seems to paint a different picture:

Comments

  1. Crimebrook, where the council took the back handers from councils with problem tenants from areas such as Birmingham and Liverpool and voila you’ve just spent a fortune on a house that will just about survive a windy day to find roaming neighbours whose hands are in everyone’s pockets bar their own
  2. The houses there will no longer be fit for purpose in another 20 years, no real substance to them and shoddily built. People pay a small fortune for what they call a family home which is hardly big enough to swing a cat in.
    The only people who will make any money on these houses are the developers. Anyone else will be lucky if the house is still standing in a few years. Don’t even think about trying any DIY, it’s basically wood & paper keeping the place together.
  3. Heating homes a major problem
    You must use natter boiler which you have no control
  4. I love the place can buy all my gear there and no police
  5. Looks awful. Another Luton.
  6. Oh no social housing! So many snobs here.
  7. You sure! Someone told me the local council received payments to take problem families from other areas and there are plenty of problems there!
  8. We rented in Cranbrook when we sold our last house and whilst looking for new. Although there for 9 months none of the neighbours introduced themselves, smiled or wanted any conversation. As soon as we brought a house in the city we meet all our lovely polite neighbours within a week, . There certainly wasn’t any community spirit in the road I was in. Horrid place to live – luckily I never have to go back.
  9. Cranbrook was ruined by the requirement to have a social housing allocation in new build estates. Imagine paying your life savings for your dream home and then find out that they have shipped all of the “problem families” out there out of sight, out of mind
  10. The “journalist” appears to have only spoken to a couple people, all of which are working here. Of course they’re going to say they love it. You want to speak to the residents. Plenty aren’t happy at all.
  11. No mention of the bus shelters getting constantly smashed up. No mention of the rats that are still prevalent. No mention of the cars and vans parking on the dropped kerbs restricting people getting in and out of their parking spaces. No mention of grass verges getting driven on as short cuts and also because people are being forced to because of the crazy parking. No mention of pets being run over and killed because people can’t seem to stick to the speed limits. No mention of the constant road blocks with traffic being diverted through the centre because EON can’t seem to do their job properly. Talking of EON, no mention of the heating constantly breaking down because they can’t do their job properly. No mention of the post office that’s rarely open. There’s a lot more I could mention.
    Yes, it’s a wonderful place to live if you can ignore all this…
  12. Cranbrook is “convenient” with its close proximity to Exeter and excellent transport links, sadly the present facilities are poor – there are times when the staff at the pub cannot be bothered with serving its customers and overpriced food and staff in the co-op and post office are occasionally downright rude – pist office especially, that is when it is open! Speed of the traffic passing through is another problem!
  13. Soulless, dull, depressing. But great if you want to live in jerry built, characterless, identikit rabbit hutches.
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Compulsive watching on TV, billed for February

Boris Johnson’s Partygate testimony to be shown in full on live TV

Can he navigate (bluster) his way out? Is your blood pressure up for this? – Owl

Michael Savage www.theguardian.com

Boris Johnson’s loyal band of supporters continue to believe he is the only politician with the box-office appeal to turn around the Tory party’s ailing fortunes. Before he has any chance of plotting a comeback, however, he will have to endure another box-office encounter that represents his biggest obstacle.

In what will be a high-stakes spectacle, major broadcasters are planning to air the entirety of the former prime minister’s testimony to parliament’s privileges committee, which is examining whether he misled MPs about law-breaking parties during the Covid pandemic.

So much sensitive evidence has been submitted to the inquiry that the Observer has been told it is being kept in a “strong room”. Only those with proper passes and reasons for access are allowed in and out. One source said some of the claims about parties were “decidedly weird”, and that new information would come to light.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s eagerly anticipated appearance – which could be one of only a small number of public hearings – will happen later than originally planned as a result of the quantity of documents the committee has been given. He is now expected to appear before the cameras next month. This will be broadcast live on parliament’s televised feed, and Sky News is already understood to have decided to show his whole evidence session.

The stakes have been raised in recent weeks as Johnson has broken cover with a series of speeches and appearances, some designed to keep his supporters onside and others to cash in since leaving office – a process he has described to friends as putting “hay in the loft” before he can embark on a comeback.

Last week, he recorded a £1m donation to his office from Christopher Harborne, a Thai-based British businessman who had previously given millions of pounds to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. He and his family are also being supported by the billionaire Bamford family, who have provided Johnson with two homes declared as costing £10,000 each for the month.

The events that took place in Whitehall during the pandemic are already being raised ahead of the privileges committee examination. Last week, Johnson was accused of joking at one leaving party during lockdown that “this is the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now”. He repeatedly told MPs that he did not know gatherings broke Covid laws in place at the time.

A spokesperson for Johnson did not deny the comment but said the then prime minister had “worked constantly” to ensure the government did all it could to save lives and protect livelihoods during the pandemic.

Whatever happens during the live questioning of Johnson during the inquiry, some MPs believe there is also a serious problem ahead for Rishi Sunak over the parties inquiry. MPs will have to vote on any sanction on Johnson recommended by the cross-party committee. While it is likely to be a “free” unwhipped vote, some MPs said that, in reality, Tories would seek advice over how they should vote.

One Labour MP predicted the event would end up being a “win-win” for Keir Starmer. “Let’s say that the committee decides the House was misled and Johnson is either forced to apologise to the House or suspended,” they said. “The government has to table a motion on that. Will they be whipping people to support it, or to vote down a Labour amendment designed to increase the sanction against him? They will be terrified about what to do. If he doesn’t defend Johnson, Johnson could try to take Sunak down. If he does defend him, the voters will take a dim view.”

Should Johnson navigate the privileges inquiry and retain support within the Tory party, some MPs are speculating that he may attempt to switch seats as his current Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency is a winnable target for Labour.

One of his options is to secure a seat from one of the supporters he has placed in the House of Lords. They include Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams, both of whom have safe Tory seats. Their elevation to the Lords is understood to have been delayed until closer to the election, to avoid hard byelections for the government.

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‘Can’t be right’ that ministers enjoy looser rules on financial interests, says standards chief

Current rules allowing government ministers to enjoy less scrutiny of their financial interests than backbench MPs “can’t be right”, parliament’s outgoing standards chief has said.

Andy Gregory www.independent.co.uk

Appointed commissioner for standards in 2017, Kathryn Stone’s term came to an end in December, after a bruising series of high-profile investigations into ex-Commons speaker John Bercow and former Tory MP Owen Paterson, whose case triggered the collapse of Boris Johnson’s premiership.

In her first interview about the role, Kathryn Stone said that one of her “real frustrations” has been failing to persuade the government to ensure that those in both MP and ministerial roles are held equally accountable.

But the retiring watchdog hailed the “hugely important” move to hand the members of the public who sit on the Commons standards committee, known as “lay members”, the power to vote on investigations, enacted after its MPs blocked her attempt to probe bullying claims against Mr Bercow in 2018.

And speaking after revelations that Tory MPs have pocketed a total of £15.2m on top of their salaries since 2019, Ms Stone hit out at parliamentarians for whom being an MP is their “second, third or fourth job”.

While ordinary MPs have to register their financial interests with the standards commissioner within 28 days, with a new list published every fortnight, ministers can choose to declare some gifts and hospitality under their department’s name instead, in less detailed lists published quarterly.

This “ministerial exemption” saw Mr Johnson opt not to declare a free holiday at Zac Goldsmith’s luxury Spanish villa in 2021, enabling him to keep the gift’s value private.

Meanwhile, his home secretary Priti Patel took five months to declare attending the No Time To Die premiere as a guest of the Jamaican tourist board, resulting in an ally suggesting she used the “exemption” because the nature of the fictional film related to her ministerial role.

“One of my real frustrations has been not being able to persuade government, parliament about the need to have a kind of equality of arms, if you like, between ministers’ financial interests, and backbench MPs’ financial interests,” Ms Stone told The Times.

“For me, it can’t be right that ministers are held to a different level of accountability. In fact, a lower level of accountability than backbench MPs. That can’t be right because ministers are in an elevated position and much more, it seems to me, at risk of there being a perception of influence.

“And I really do believe that ministers should be held to the same level of accountability as backbench members of parliament.”

MPs on the standards committee are in agreement, having repeatedly called on the government to close the accountability gap, most recently last May, as part of a series of recommendations aimed at cracking down on “sleaze” in the wake of the scandals involving Tory MPs Geoffrey Cox and Mr Paterson.

The committee also called for a ban on MPs acting as consultants, providing “paid parliamentary advice or strategy services”, a move backed in September by Liz Truss’s short-lived government.

Ms Stone was supportive of MPs having other paid roles, however, saying that their “outside interests can bring a very rich seam of knowledge, skill and experience” to Westminster.

“When it tips over to the point where being a member of parliament is your second, third or fourth job, then that’s problematic for me,” said Ms Stone.

“And it’s also problematic for members of the public who elect a representative and expect their interests to be the priority of the member of parliament and not somewhere down the pecking order.

“So I think when MPs are thinking about outside interests, there needs to be a consideration of what that means for their ability to carry out their democratically elected mandate here, which brings enormous responsibility and is an enormous privilege.”

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Asset-strippers continue to prowl the public sector

On Sunday it will be five years since the outsourcing giant Carillion collapsed under the weight of £1.5bn debt.

by Rachel Wearmouth go.pardot.com 

The mega-firm held around 450 separate public-sector contracts, spanning schools, prisons, transport and hospitals. 

Its bosses were paid huge six-figure salaries and bonuses before the companycollapsed; 3,000 jobs were lost and 7,000 suppliers and contractors were affected.

Carillion’s collapse was particularly catastrophic because the firm was so deeply embedded in public life. Vital infrastructure projects were delayed; schools suddenly found themselves with no cleaning or catering services.

The accounting firm KPMG was later fined £14.4m for misleading the accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, during inspections of its audits of Carillion and another company. A new watchdog to shake up the audit market and rebuild trust in corporate governance was promised, but after a number of reviews the draft legislation is still buried in a lengthy consultation.

To examine what lessons the government has failed to learn about outsourcing more generally, it is worth looking at children’s social care.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a review of the sector in 2021 amid concern the high cost of private sector children’s care homes was draining council budgets while demand was steadily rising.

In England 79 per cent of places for children are provided by the private sector. The Scottish and Welsh governments are aiming to end for-profit care for looked-after children, but there is no such plan for England. This is despite the landmark Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, published last May, which criticised rampant profiteering and warned that “without a dramatic whole-system reset” of family services there could be 100,000 children in care (up from 80,000) by 2032.

If that unhappy prediction comes to pass, the companies involved in care provision stand to make a lot of money. The service providers considered by the CMA averaged profit margins of 22.6 per cent between 2016 and 2020. Most councils in England have at least one looked-after child whose private placement costs at least £10,000 a week, and in some extreme cases that number can run to £60,000 a week.

It recommended bringing some aspects, such as fostering agencies (many of which rely on agency workers, who can demand higher rates), back in-house, as councils were paying high prices for a service they could provide and save money on long-term, given extra investment. More worryingly, the CMA warned some large providers were “carrying high levels of debt”, especially those run by private equity firms, increasing the “risk of disorderly firm failure, with children’s homes shutting their doors abruptly”. Sound familiar?

There are broader questions as to why asset-strippers continue to prowl the public sector while investment in the wider economy is weak, but Carillion’s ruinous failure should have pushed the government to act half a decade ago. There is scant evidence it has.

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Make-shift morgue set up at council gritting yard

A Wiltshire Council gritting yard is being used as a make-shift morgue after its local hospital hit capacity. Bodies are being stored at High Post Salt Store near Salisbury in response to an increase in need across Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.

Hannah Currie www.wiltshirelive.co.uk

The trust has confirmed that security guards will monitor refrigeration units at the site, used to cope with an increase in demand, for 24-hours a day. They added that despite the location, it will treat “deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless”.

A spokesperson for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said: “We can confirm that we have opened additional mortuary capacity to accommodate an increase in need across the local community.

“Our mortuary service operates to the national standards treating the deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless of location. All our additional capacity provides privacy and has 24/7 security” it added.

Cllr Richard Clewer, Leader of Wiltshire Council, added: “We are supporting our partners at Salisbury District Hospital during this period of extreme pressure for the NHS.

“The site at High Post is private and is an appropriate location to provide this facility, and it is guarded by security at all times. Our staff are specially trained to work in a professional and proper manner, and behave respectfully and sensitively at all times.”

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Conservatives lose seats but keep running Plymouth City Council

East Devon leads the way in showing how essential it is for the “ABCs” (anyone but the conservatives) to form alliances and coalitions – they work! – Owl

The Conservatives will continue running Plymouth City Council despite suffering a twin by-election defeat.

www.bbc.co.uk

Will Noble gained a seat for Labour in Moor View and the Greens’ Lauren McLay took Plympton Chaddlewood.

Following the election on Thursday, Labour has 25 seats and the Conservatives 23.

However, neither party has the 29 councillors needed for an overall majority.

Conservative leader Richard Bingley said he would not resign.

He blamed the defeats on “national issues” for his party and said the results were a “litmus test” for the Conservative government.

Will Noble, who won the Moor View ward for Labour, said: “There’s a lot of worry and disappointment at the way things have been run and the way things are going and it’s about trying to offer people a bit of hope that actually services and things can improve and that things won’t just get worse.”

presentational grey line

Analysis from Ewan Murrie, Political Reporter

It was a set of results that many Conservatives had privately expected – but the party will still be worried about the direction of travel.

Last night, the Greens clinched their second council seat in less than a year in the previously blue ward of Plympton Chaddlewood.

Labour says its win has bolstered hopes of winning back the Moor View parliamentary seat – which it lost to the Conservatives in 2015.

The Tory council leader has pinned blame for the defeats on his party’s national woes, calling the by-elections a “litmus test” for the government.

But infighting among the local Tory ranks will not have gone unnoticed. The group’s on its third leader since 2020 and has also lost scores of councillors.

Plymouth remains under no overall control.

Labour is unlikely to call a no confidence vote before the May elections – leaving the Tories to push through a difficult budget in February.

Lauren McLay said: “It means that we can hold the administration to account better.

“It means that we can scrutinise more. And it also means that we will be able to stand up and present our ideas a little bit more. But ultimately, I just hope that it means that the people that we represent have better representation.”

The election was prompted after the previous councillors stood down following complaints they had moved out of the area and could no longer serve local residents.

Turnout in Plympton Chaddlewood was 23.76% and in Moor View it was 26.04%.

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Local Plan: last two days of consultation – Crealy Park & Greendale feel left out

As reported earlier, the Down and Carter families, who own land between Crealy Theme Park and Greendale, are lobbying hard.

Their preferred site for a new garden village didn’t make the EDDC short list.

No doubt they miss the influence the East Devon Business Forum (EDBF) once had.

[All you need to know on the EDBF can be found here on this 2014 post, one or two of the old members are still lurking around in addition to Down and Carter such as Conservative leader Cllr Philip Skinner. They are all name checked on the referenced post.]

They have had to resort to using facebook and this attractive and official looking marketing website https://www.greenhayes.info/

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20 years neglect of much loved Exmouth football pitch

This is Mark Hawkins’ constructive comment on Planning permission sought to raise Exmouth football pitches::

Could the two councils, County and District, perhaps work with the applicant on this?

There’s not enough on the application to explain to me why it might be necessary to actually raise the ground level here, and it doesn’t really tell me anything at all about their plans.

This is the pitch 2 area which is already above the level of the internal road and houses at the south eastern end.

It’s not accurate to describe this as poor drainage. It is failed drainage, despite there having been a clear maintenance obligation on the lease between former leaseholder Exmouth Amateurs and landlord East Devon District Council. I have seen evidence of polite requests, complaints, and even a partial rent strike, going back well before the 2008 financial crash, before the lease was forfeited with highly selective justifications in 2016.

Then there was a further period with bad faith being shown to numerous other sporting organisations before the current administration returned it to the community in the form of Exmouth Town Youth in 2020, with the decision being taken by decent members of all parties. I understand that all officers involved acted in good faith on this occasion, including the one who had been apparently unable to fulfil specific promises in 2016, though the legal aspects took a surprising amount of time.

The new lease has apparently transferred the drainage obligation to the tenant, but although the council has undone part of the wilful harm of its predecessors one would hope they could do more.

The reason I believe the County Council have an obligation in this is that it is substantially their water, the main incursion being from the dip in Halsdon Avenue being piped under a bungalow and into the ground, leading me to speculate that the other “springs ” in the bank are from the other Halsdon Avenue gullies. So taking short cuts in the development of Halsdon Avenue apparently created a problem for those coming after.

Another breach of leaseholder obligation was in failing to deal with trespass from neighbouring properties, including to fly tip gardening waste. Some of which may well have contributed to the silting of the drains.

One would assume that East Devon have plans of the existing draining system, and indeed that those were given to the surveying engineers in 2018/19(?), in order that they didn’t cause more damage by drilling.

Neglect of this lovely facility has been going on for 20 years, often despite the best efforts of leaseholders and with the active obstruction of the landlord. Despite this it has provided so many of us with very happy memories. What better summer evening for a dad with his teenage son to kick a ball purposefully for an hour or so and then relax watching the fox cubs play. I do hope they manage to achieve the functional restitution of the facilities but retain enough space for the wildlife.

It is ironic that this has cropped up just as Cllr Skinner has commenced the Conservatives’ campaign for this year’s district elections, telling us how we need a change of administration. There couldn’t be clearer evidence that the recent history here of how the change of administration has been a gain for the community, and of course Skinner himself was significantly implicated in the shameful events of 2016.

https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=RM9X3SGHK0F00&activeTab=summary
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Boris Johnson given £1m donation by former Brexit party backer

Boris Johnson has received a donation of £1m from a Thai-based British businessman who had previously given millions of pounds to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, the newly released register of MPs’ interests has shown.

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com 

Christopher Harborne, a tech industry investor who had previously donated to the Conservatives but gave the Brexit party £6m before the 2019 general election, handed the £1m donation to Johnson’s personal office, set up after he left No 10.

The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd was established in October last year. Companies House records show its sole original director was Johnson’s long-time aide Shelly Williams-Walker.

She has since been replaced by Ann Sindall, another close ally of the former PM, who was his secretary when he edited the Spectator magazine and went on to work with him when he was London mayor.

The Companies House entry lists the purpose of the company only as “other business support service activities”. Former prime ministers often set up offices to manage their post-Downing Street activities.

However, the size of the donation, one of the biggest recorded to an individual UK politician rather than a party, and from a strong Brexit supporter, will increase speculation that Johnson could be planning some sort of comeback.

Harborne, who began as a management consultant, has lived in Thailand for about 20 years, where he is also known under the Thai name of Chakrit Sakunkrit.

The register of interests, updated monthly, shows that in addition to this donation Johnson earned just over £250,000 for two speeches in December, meaning he has made more than £1.2m from speeches since leaving No 10 in September.

It also shows that Johnson and his family are still being supported by the billionaire Bamford family who are close friends of the former PM and also strong Brexit backers. Anthony and Carole Bamford provided two homes during December, declared as costing £10,000 each for the month.

The Bamfords – Anthony Bamford chairs the eponymous family digger firm – have provided the Johnsons with free accommodation since he left Downing Street.

Johnson also declared the free use of a VIP suite at Heathrow airport on two occasions in late November and December. He has used such VIP facilities at Heathrow or Gatwick 15 times since August.

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Zero-carbon community ‘should be East Devon’s new town’

This is a story about lobbying.

The Down and Carter families who own land between Crealy Theme Park and Greendale are behind plans to support their proposals for a site for a new town in East Devon.

Unfortunately for them, this site they have called “Greenhayes”, has not made it onto the EDDC short list.

According to this report, more than 70 local people have already submitted comments in support of Greenhayes. To put this in perspective, Owl understands that the number of comments on the Local Plan are running in excess of 6,000.

FWS Carter and Sons are regular donors to Simon Jupp. – Owl

“Greenhayes is an opportunity to build the homes East Devon needs in the right way, in the right location and with the right character, facilities and infrastructure. All in a way that is sensitive to the environment.”

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com

Developers are calling on the public to support a discounted proposal for a new town in East Devon. East Devon District Council is consulting on their local plan for where homes will be built across the district, with Sunday the closing date for submissions.

A ‘second Cranbrook’ as a new town on the edge of Exeter is among the plans for new homes as part of the East Devon Local Plan. The new development could include up to 8,000 new homes along with a range of community facilities and amenities.

The preferred site for the new town would span land north of the A3052 near Crealy Adventure Park to the A30 near Exeter Airport. The indicative boundary would see it spread towards Farringdon in the east, and out towards Westpoint to the west. To the north, it would run towards the junction between the A30 and Exeter Airport, and across the farmland between the sites. A site spanning from the edge of Clyst St George to the west, to Woodbury Salterton to the east is listed as an alternative.

But prior to the Draft Local Plan being published, a third location was discounted as a potential new town site. This site – Greenhayes – would have bordered the A3052 next to Crealy, running out towards Greendale Business Park to the south of the road, and out towards Farringdon and around Hill Barton Business Park to the north of the A3052.

The option would have been a zero-carbon community known as Greenhayes, which is proposed near Exeter close to Crealy Theme Park and Greendale Farm Shop. Campaigners and developers behind the site are asking East Devon District Council to look at the location again.

The council is instead proposing to makeup a shortfall of 1,800 homes by identifying sites they class as second-rate including across Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Honiton and Axminster. More than 70 local people have already submitted comments in support of Greenhayes.

Greenhayes development masterplan

A spokesperson for Greenhayes said: “The council is proposing to shoehorn around 1,800 new homes into sites it classes as second-rate across East Devon’s towns and villages. Why put additional pressure on these communities? There is a better way.

“As local residents ourselves, we understand the concerns about spreading development across our towns and villages. We have an alternative that will help the council build the homes East Devon needs whilst protecting the environment and delivering vital infrastructure – that alternative is Greenhayes.

“We’re excited by the support we’ve already received. We encourage anyone else who doesn’t want to see unnecessary development in their towns and villages to come forward and tell the council they support the alternative before it’s too late.

“Greenhayes is an opportunity to build the homes East Devon needs in the right way, in the right location and with the right character, facilities and infrastructure. All in a way that is sensitive to the environment.”

Greenhayes will be zero-carbon and create a 20% net gain in biodiversity. The plans include a new school and healthcare facilities, along with a park and ride and a village centre anchored by the award-winning Greendale Farm shop. The proposed community is directly adjacent to several thousand already existing jobs, with good connectivity into Exeter, Exeter Airport and across the district.

Plans for Greenhayes are driven by two local farming families who own the land between Crealy Theme Park & Resort and Greendale Farm Shop and Café as well as the Greendale Business Park. You can visit www.greenhayes.info to find out more and to submit comments that will be passed onto the council for consideration as part of the consultation. The team can also be contacted on 0800 148 8911.

East Devon District Council’s consultation runs until by 15 January 2023.

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Richard Foord: I want 2023 to be the year that our part of Devon comes roaring back

Richard Foord MP Tiverton and Honiton www.devonlive.com 

It’s January, a time to look to the future and consider what we want to build in 2023 while the year is still young. I have heard many people speculate that we may see some political boredom this year, following on from the ‘excitement’ of 2022.

Some of that drama was beyond the control of the Conservative Government, such as the conflict in Ukraine, but much of it was of their own making – with the return of sleaze, a lack of integrity at the top and stark mismanagement of the economy through the September mini budget.

This cocktail of issues caused energy bills to soar and mortgage rates to rise. It caused some people to sit in the cold because they couldn’t afford to put the heating on. Bills are set to climb even higher in March, with the only consolation that we hope to use less energy as the weather warms.

This doesn’t just affect residents and families; it also hurts local high street businesses across our towns and villages, and those living off-grid – many of whom are still waiting for financial support. I have raised this delay many times in Parliament, and yet we are still waiting to see when it will actually land in people’s bank accounts.

I don’t want to watch the Government continue to shirk their responsibility to act in the interest of rural areas like ours. We need action to bring down ambulance waiting times, boost NHS dental appointments, invest in local high street businesses, strengthen our public transport links, and deliver real long-term support with the cost of living.

I want 2023 to be the year that, post-pandemic, our part of Devon comes roaring back. This may seem difficult, but with firm decisive action the Government can start to make progress.

The first chance for this is at the end of January, when will see the Government announce successful bids for the next wave of Levelling Up funding. I am proud to back the bid for East Devon, that will see the sea front at Seaton renovated and more business facilities created in Axminster.

I am a serial optimist – I believe that if we work together and challenge the status quo we can achieve so much good. And we are fortunate that this year poses another opportunity for us to help shake things up.

In May, we get to elect a new wave of local Councillors to represent our communities. East Devon District Council manages some of the key services we rely upon, from Council Tax to recycling, bin collections to the state of our roads. So who we elect really can make a difference.

Just as my election sent shockwaves through Westminster, these elections can make waves here in our part of Devon. The Conservatives have repeatedly neglected our communities – with even the current Conservative leader of Devon County Council saying his Council is not getting the funding they need from their own Government in London.

By working together, we can elect a wave of hard-working local champions to make change happen. Only by doing this can we deliver the transformational work that we need and send a clear message that our part of Devon will not be taken for granted anymore.