His is the first of three, but the others are also worth a read.

Government plans to scrap housing targets

www.thetimes.co.uk

Sir, My authority spends thousands of officer and councillor hours per year trying to ensure that planning permission is granted to quality schemes (“Housing targets scrapped”, Apr 8). Yet the arbitrary housing need number — about 900 homes a year in east Devon — makes this impossible to achieve. Our real problems are not nimbyesque. They concern unfit-for-purpose sewage and drainage infrastructure, the lack of GPs, places in education, transport and local jobs.

When major schemes are approved, experience has shown many to be poorly built, with gardens, at best, the size of a cricket wicket. Meanwhile, any landowner able to ensure their grassy patch is designated as developable will make millions for nothing more than assigning rights.

If councils try to build social homes, there is no effective way to protect from the right to buy, and affordable homes, at, say, 80 per cent of local market rent, are anything but. The country needs an urgent, cross-party commission on homes, with no powers off the table. And please shelve the term “nimby”; it is about as helpful as the term “Remoaner”.
Paul Arnott
Leader, East Devon district council

Sir, The assertion that nimbys are only interested in preserving the value of their houses is wide of the mark. I have long been engaged in community reaction to development proposals in London. Rarely do I experience outright opposition to development and that usually revolves around the loss of green space. The majority of large schemes are for tall, dense, poorly designed blocks of tiny flats, many of which will be occupied by footloose buy-to-let tenants. So it should be no surprise that residents in settled suburban communities of low-rise family houses are roused to fury. Proposals for, say, streets of small terraced houses would rarely experience opposition.
Gordon Massey
Chairman, Federation of Residents’ Associations in Barnet

Sir, In my 16 years as a county councillor and 21 as a district councillor the vast majority of people did not object to new housing. They did object to longer traffic jams, longer GP waiting times, children being bussed to schools miles away from their homes, more flooding and sewage in local rivers — in other words to a lack of infrastructure. Developers promise all sorts of infrastructure improvements to get planning approval then do all they can to renege on those promises. It would be better to build the infrastructure first with government-backed loans. Then, as each house is built, a percentage of the sale price pays back the loan. All the time infrastructure is meant to follow the houses there will be objections. Not because of nimbys but because no one believes, and experience shows correctly, that adequate infrastructure will ever be built.
David Simpson
Darby Green, Hants

First the claims

Simon Jupp MP

 “I have repeatedly called on South West Water to invest in East Devon. I’m really pleased they’ve listened to the case I have put forward on the floor of Parliament and in cross-party meetings with local councils………this new multi-million-pound investment is much needed to upgrade our water infrastructure in Sidmouth and reduce nutrient pollution in Axminster. South West Water must continue to invest locally to clean up their act and our water.””

Tory Leader Cllr. Phil Skinner:

“We’ve been driving this agenda as a district and also Simon has worked really hard on it from his angle and has applied lots of pressure,” he said. “Because the sewage issue in East Devon at the moment is massive; we’ve got awful problems with sewage – particularly in areas like Clyst St Mary where we get the flooding, and particularly in and around Exmouth where we get flooding. We’ve had all sorts of issues, but other areas as well.

“So, to hear this news – the funding coming for South West Water to tidy up their act really to be fair as pollutants – is really good news for us. So all credit really all round to ourselves in East Devon in applying the pressure that we have been, and also to Simon Jupp who has particularly pressured from his angle as well.”

Now the doubt

But this is what “Squirrel” [one of Owl’s Trusted Sources] said in a comment posted on Easter Sunday:

“It would be very interesting to see a report in here about who has instigated the work on sewage spillages in Sidmouth. Simon Jupp seems very keen to suggest it has all been about him but I think we all know that isn’t true. The Sid Valley Biodiversity Group (River volunteers) backed by the town council and EDDC councillors have been pushing hard and meeting with SWW, and producing excellent data on an area where SWW data was woeful and inaccurate.

A bit of an exposé about how much money is actually going to be invested, and how much has been promised by successive environment ministers would also be interesting,

Sewage should be enough for anybody to not vote for the tories in this election. Decades of underinvestment and basically asset-stripping has left our water industry in a shameful situation and we are now literally seeing and smelling the result.”

This raises the $64,000 question, who is paying for this: SWW; the consumer or the Tax Payer?

Rob Kershaw, local democracy reporter, www.radioexe.co.uk writes:

“The government is investing in sewage works in East Devon following continued problems in the district.

South West Water (SWW), is often criticised at East Devon District Council’s planning meetings. But this week, water minister Rebecca Pow confirmed £70 million of cash to improving sewage systems in Sidmouth, Tipton St John and Axminister, as well as Falmouth in Cornwall .

East Devon’s share of the cash, part of a £1.6 billion water infrastructure investment by central government, will help prevent sewage overflows in Sidmouth and Tipton St John, as well as water pollution in Axminster.”

According to OFWAT

The immediate funding is being taken forward as part of the Ofwat/Defra “accelerated infrastructure delivery project for English Water companies” funded through the “transition expenditure process”. 

Owl’s take on all this bureaucratic gobbledygook is that the accelerated costs will be financed initially by the taxpayer, with the water companies paying on the “never never” over a period ending in 2030.

The question then arises as to how the water companies levy their customers and/or shareholders to provide the payback. The only explanation Owl can find talks about setting an appropriate “time value of money” so that  companies are not financially incentivised to delay making investment.

It’s all smoke and mirrors to Owl.

Is this the “bottom line”? Thérèse Coffey:

“   wider upgrades of the sewer network lead to destructive works on our streets and put hundreds of pounds on people’s bills. There’s no way we can stop pollution overnight.”

Time for Simon and Phil to come clean when making claims.