With June busting out all over, as the song once sang, your district councillors have finally put an exhausting couple of months behind them.

Paul Arnott www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

In early May every four years, East Devon electors choose 60 individuals to represent them, and after the deed is done these members spend the rest of the month organising themselves into the appropriate committees. Then, on the last Wednesday, in May we hold “Annual Council”.

This year’s happened at the Ocean in Exmouth, where I turned up with a kidney infection and a heavy cold and couldn’t wait for the evening to be over, to be frank. This saddened me because there was much to celebrate.

The first business transacted was to elect a Chair of Council. This is a critical non-partisan role, the conscience of the council, and members selected Eleanor Rylance from Broadclyst without opposition. I had then intended to say something substantial in support of proposing Sam Hawkins from Cranbrook as Eleanor’s vice chair, but felt so groggy I kept it pretty brief. Sorry Sam.

Eleanor is a Broadclyst working mother of four children from graduate to school age. She is a passionate local representative in a part of the district saturated with planning applications, often contentious. She has an Oxbridge law degree, is a bilingual translator, and is altogether a class act. And I have no doubt that if she finds me wanting as Leader I will be as remorselessly grilled as much as any backbencher!

Sam from Cranbrook is in his thirties, a qualified accountant and auditor by profession, and has had to deal with the many teething troubles of the new town. He has a forensic mind, is courteous at all times, and as his time chairing our Audit & Governance committee has shown will not hesitate from asking the most difficult of questions.

Forgive me for labouring this point but I’d emphasise again how important the appointment of a woman councillor with professional and family breadth, and a younger male councillor with auditing skills, is for East Devon. Vive la difference.

This week, then, it’s back to business full tilt. I was very grateful to be elected Leader for a fourth year, and feel confident that my Democratic Alliance group with nearly half of all members will work brilliantly with other groups for the public good.

In between coughs in my short acceptance speech at the Ocean, I simply stated where the emphasis will remain for the coming year. Homes. Environment. Economy.

These are the areas of public life we know a district council can influence (unlike pot-holes, education or adult social care which are county responsibilities). Two days after being made Leader again, I attended a meeting of the new Devon Housing Commission, where various local representatives could meet with members of the new board, chaired by excellent crossbench peer, Lord Richard Best.

Hosted brilliantly by the Cranbrook Education Centre, Lord Best was able to hear about the challenges, failures and successes of how the new town was conceived and developed. It was an excellent, non-political exchange of views.

At East Devon we are in no doubt that this must be an absolute priority. Local people of all ages are facing a crisis if trying to rent or purchase, and there is a lot of evidence of younger people moving back home.

The Kwarteng/Truss bombshell budget of last year and its immediate effect on spiking interest rates has not helped.

Our Strategic Planning Committee will push hard on all this, as will our excellent Homes and Communities Cabinet Member Dan Ledger, a genuine local in his early 30s working professionally in local government. We’ve got the A team in place – now let’s get some results.