Richard Foord Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Defence)  3:35 pm, 25th April 2023

I would like to tell a tale of two announcements. We are used to reannouncements, where the Government use much fanfare to introduce funding that, it later emerges, they have announced before. But I want to describe something that is new to me: an announcement with two faces.

On 7 April, the Sidmouth Herald quoted a Government press release:

“This week, the water Minister”— the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rebecca Pow—

“confirmed £70 million of cash will be used to improve sewage systems in Sidmouth, Tipton St John and Axminster, as well as Falmouth in Cornwall. East Devon’s share of the cash…will help prevent sewage overflows in Sidmouth and Tipton St John, as well as water pollution in Axminster.”

On the surface, that is welcome: £70 million to improve sewage systems in east Devon. Those reading that in the paper in Devon are led to believe that that relates to our area, and might miss the passing reference to a distant town in Cornwall, but readers in my part of Devon are discerning and they notice a mention of Cornwall in a story that is supposed to be about Devon.

To get a full picture of what is going on here, one needs to travel 125 miles south-east of Axminster and read the same announcement in Falmouth’s local newspaper, The Packet. What does the Conservative Government’s announcement claim in Falmouth?

“South West Water’s total investment for the Falmouth area includes…a total of £40 million.”

By reading about the same announcement in the neighbouring county, we find that most of the £70 million funding is not for east Devon at all.

I, for one, will never defer to the interests of polluting water firms or simply parrot the lines they suggest we MPs might like to use. Instead, I will always stand up for my constituents, who are seeing their bills rise and profits leaking out in bonuses, all while sewage poisons our rivers and beaches.

It’s in line with plans to grow the town’s population to 20,000

The coalition led EDDC of the past three years inherited a local plan devised and driven through by successive Conservative administrations based on a high growth scenario. The 18 year housing target in the 2013-2031 EDDC local plan is a minimum of 17,100. This is an increase of 63% over what is needed purely to satisfy demographic trends. 

The coalition has also withdrawn from the secretive Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP), a move opposed by every Tory councillor present at the debate.

GESP was the strategic plan to spread Exeter’s housing needs more widely with its neighbours: Teignbridge; East Devon and Mid Devon.

A draft allocation plan was published in 2019 (since withdrawn from the public domain). However we know that East Devon was set to take a disproportionate share of the total which amounted to a 150% uplift to the already eye watering local plan, and would continue to 2040. 

A vote for a Tory under the leadership of Phil Skinner is a vote to return to this “Build, build, build” policy. 

Leopards don’t change their spots. – Owl

Mary Stenson www.devonlive.com

Cranbrook is set to get even bigger as planning permission for more than 1,400 homes has been granted today (April 25). It comes as a separate application for another 1,035 homes was also approved last month.

A scheme of 1,435 new homes to be built in Cranbrook has secured planning permission at an East Devon District Council planning committee meeting today. The plans, which include a mix of apartments and houses on land at Cobdens, were first submitted in March 2022 by Persimmon Homes South West.

The plans are in line with the town’s Local Plan which aims for Cranbrook to reach a population of 20,000 and had allocated 110 hectares of land at the Cobdens Expansion Area for a mixed use development. Just last month, the 1,035 home development at Treasbeare was given the go-ahead.

The Cobdens development is following the Local Plan’s outlines for 15 per cent affordable housing as Persimmon has confirmed that 215 of the 1,435 will be transferred to a social housing provider for rent and shared ownership. A number of amenities are also set to be built, including a primary school with 630 spaces, a SEN school, a local centre, allotments, a place of worship, cemetery, ‘enhanced’ green space for leisure and recreation and 10 serviced pitches for Travellers.

A development of 1,435 new homes in the Cobdens area of Cranbrook has been granted planning permission (Image: Persimmon Homes South West)

Developers say that the design also incorporates a SUDS strategy, Country Park, SANGs (Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space) and six local play areas in a bid to create attractive open space areas, deliver biodiversity enhancements and mitigate flood risk.

Persimmon Homes’ South West Managing Director, Daniel Heathcote, said: “We’re delighted to have secured outline planning permission for our scheme at Cranbrook Cobdens.

“The development will provide a wide range of high-quality new homes designed for local people, especially young families and first-time buyers, who otherwise might struggle to get onto the housing ladder in Devon.

“Throughout the planning process for Cranbrook Cobdens, we have worked closely with officers and stakeholders at East Devon District Council to ensure that our homes are in keeping with – and enhance – the local area and its surroundings.

“The scheme will deliver substantial community benefit including over 400 new jobs, a range of new facilities including a new primary school, local centre, allotments, place of worship, cemetery and enhanced green space for leisure and recreation.

“Persimmon has an established record of delivery in Cranbrook and we are excited about this latest scheme as we continue to build the best value homes in sustainable and inclusive communities.”

Tory MPs have voted down a bid by Labour to stop sewage being dumped into rivers and the sea.

Surprise, surprise! – Owl

Kevin Schofield www.huffingtonpost.co.uk 

The party wanted to introduce a new law bringing in legally binding targets and automatic fines for water companies guilty of the disgusting practice.

But following a three-hour debate, MPs voted 290 to 198 to kill off a Labour motion which would have given them party parliamentary time to bring in the legislation.

In a separate development, the government today announced its own plans for legally binding targets to cut sewage discharges.

Environment secretary Therese Coffey said: “A clear, credible and costed legally binding target will add to our transparent and determined approach to solve this issue, whilst keeping consumer bills low.”

Labour’s Water Quality (Sewage Discharge) Bill would require water companies to reduce discharges from storm overflows by 90% by the end of 2030 and impose automatic financial penalties for sewage dumping.

Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon told MPs the plans “would finally see an end to the Tory sewage scandal”.

He said: “The reason we’re here today is because the country we love and the quality of life for millions of working people is being treated with utter contempt, dumped on with raw human sewage, dumped on on an industrial scale, and dumped on with at least 1.5 million sewage dumps last year alone.

“Dumped on for a total of 11 million running hours, that’s a sewage dump every two and a half minutes.”

But Therese Coffey said Labour’s bill was “pointless”.

She said: “We already have a target for reduction in sewage discharges which we will put into law, we’ve already consulted to remove caps on financial penalties and we’ve already undertaken an assessment of sewage discharges – but unlike the opposition we have a credible, costed plan to stop the scourge of sewage.”

Following the vote, Lib Dem environment spokesperson Tim Farron said: “It is scandalous that Conservative MPs have blocked the Sewage Discharge Bill.

“This is a new low for Conservative MPs who simply don’t care about the sewage crisis.

“They would rather these water firms rake in millions in profits whilst we all swim in sewage. Frankly, the whole thing stinks.”

Labour is determined to make the sewage problem a major issue in next month’s local elections.

In their latest Twitter attack ad, the party said: “Do you think it’s right to allow raw sewage to be dumped into our rivers and beaches 800 times a day? Rishi Sunak does.”

Shocking.

Tories must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to find candidates – Owl

A would-be Tory councillor has been criticised after his social media account suggested the holocaust would have been less likely if more Jews had guns. He also claimed if parents spent time with their children at rifle ranges it would be “quality family time and gun control all in one.”

Philip Churm www.devonlive.com

Ivybridge West Conservative hopeful Stanley Murphy’s personal Facebook site additionally argued the Covid vaccination programme was an experiment on the population and some equality programmes in schools are “communism.”

In a series of comments posted in 2021, Mr Murphy, who is standing for South Hams District Council, argues for controversial ideologies associated with US far-right groups, including limiting restrictions on firearms and his support for Donald Trump, who was sanctioned by social media giants following the 6 January 2001 Capitol riot.

Two Ivybridge residents, who do not wish to be named, say some local people are concerned about Murphy’s Facebook profile. One said: “It would appear from his personal Facebook postings [he holds] some worryingly extreme far-right American political views.”

They continued: “These posts appear to support the right to carry arms, concerns that the Chinese military are extracting DNA from pregnant women from around the world and that Covid-19 is a bio-weapon manufactured by the Chinese.”

In one post, Mr Murphy shows an image of Jews being forced onto trains during the notorious “Grossaktion” in 1942, when victims were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto before being sent to the extermination camp in Treblinka. The image includes the words: “Why gun control? Because armed people will NOT willingly load themselves into railroad boxcars.”

Another of Mr Murphy’s Facebook post shows a photograph of a man, woman and young boy, all pointing rifles and says: “This is quality family time and gun control all in one. Re-post because the communist [sic] at Facebook are covering it up and deleting.”

The Conservative candidate also reposted a YouTube video in which a British man in the United States aggressively criticises a school programme to improve the attainment of black students. Mr Murphy adds: “This is how you deal with crazy leftist school boards or anyone who hates their own country in favour of communism and behave in a dictatorial manner.”

The Facebook posts were dated between April and July 2021, at the height of the UK’s vaccination programme, but Mr Murphy reposts a meme stating: “Stop saying you did your research before you got the injection – you are the research.”

Stanley Murphy’s Facebook comments appear to be at odds with the Conservative Party, which he is representing in the local elections. Mr Murphy and the Conservative Party have been approached but have not responded.

Postal ballots have had to be-issued in Lympstone & Woodbury as a result of confusion about whether or not one of the candidates, Amanda Ford, could display a red “Labour” logo on the ballot paper.

The “description” section of her nomination paper blank had been left blank and she seemed to be standing as an independent, adding the logo means that she isn’t. (Owl understands that the returning officer is acting on advice from the Electoral Commission on what must be an unprecedented case).

Amanda is a bit of a chameleon figure who popped onto Owl’s radar in 2018 when she quit as the Teign Valley ward member on Teignbridge District Council, slashing the Conservative majority to one.

Her resignation followed suspension by the Conservative Party days before her resignation following claims that she had broken the Code of Conduct for members.

In 2017 she stood as the Conservative candidate in the Barnsley Central ward in the General Election. 

This is how DevonLive reported her resignation at the time:

“Prior to her departure, she had resigned from the vice-chairman role of the overview and scrutiny committee, had complained that she was being bullied by officers, and that the atmosphere at council HQ was ‘poisonous’.

But Cllr Jeremy Christophers, leader of the council, denied her claims and said that he was saddened by the allegations and misrepresentations that she made and that the council’s senior leadership team did not recognise her version of events and relations between officers and members.

He added: “It was sad end for someone who showed some promise in the early days but who couldn’t get her head around the idea of collective decision making.

“Just saying what you like to who you like, when you like, doesn’t apply when you are a councillors, and some officers were concerned by a lack of respect that she had for them.

“We had tried to help her through the complaints process with her grievances but she did not take and listen to the relevant legal advice from the council. In fact, she was actually suspended from the Conservative Group on October 31 as she had broken the members’ code of conduct which says that you must treat officers with respect.”

Cllr Ford did not reply to request from the LDRS to comment on the reasons for her departure from Teignbridge District Council.”