The UK government knew as early as September 2020 that its desire to free up hospital beds in the early stages of the pandemic had been “to the detriment” of care homes, openDemocracy can reveal.

So why contest the Cathy Gardner Judicial Review?

Cathy gained permission from the court to proceed in November 2020. – Owl

Jenna Corderoy www.opendemocracy.net 

It is one of a number of explosive admissions in a highly secret Covid “lessons learnt” review document that was released tonight following a two-year transparency battle between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and openDemocracy.

Ministers have publicly maintained they “threw a protective ring” around adult social care and “specifically sought to safeguard care homes” even after losing a high-profile court case last year over their failures. But behind closed doors, the department admitted the “operational response centre” (ORC) at the heart of the government’s Covid response had prioritised hospital capacity and failed to fully understand social care.

“The unprecedented speed with which this new virus emerged inevitably focused attention primarily on how the NHS would be able to cope,” reads the draft document, which is marked “OFFICIAL SENSITIVE”. “This prioritisation of the protection of hospital capacity, without adequate acknowledgement of key interdependencies, was to the detriment of ASC [adult social care].”

The Covid-19 public inquiry is a historic chance to find out what really happened.

The review also reveals the precarious staffing levels of the ORC itself as the disease crept towards Britain. As late as February 2020, 37% of shifts in the unit – also called the “incident response team” – were unfilled because civil servants who had received special training for emergencies could not get permission from their bosses to be released from regular work.

The DHSC carried out the review, dated September 2020, “as an informal, internal-only” overview of the first wave of the pandemic.

It used a “mixture of interviews with senior figures”, including “stakeholders” outside the department, and a survey that received 276 responses from across the DHSC. According to the DHSC, the review was not intended for publication, was not finalised, and “remains in draft form”.

Under the heading ‘Organisation’, the review says staff worked slower because the department did not have the right software: “The lack of a collaboration document management system, such as SharePoint or Google Drive, impacted teams’ ability to work at pace.”

In a passage that is likely to catch the eye of data privacy campaigners, the review also criticises Foundry, the controversial database software provided to the NHS by digital giant Palantir – saying even health secretary Matt Hancock was unable to use it.

“There is no single departmental overview of the range of available [DHSC] datasets, their origins, ownership and structure and the governance arrangements relating to access to those datasets,” the review states. “NHSE created the ‘Foundry’ data sharing platform to partially address these issues but staff (and the Secretary of State) experienced access issues and its utility as a central resource was limited.”

Palantir initially offered its services to the NHS for just £1, openDemocracy investigations revealed at the time, but subsequently won contracts worth £22m after getting its foot in the door. openDemocracy successfully sued the government over the deal and secured a vow that it would not work with the CIA-backed ‘spy tech’ firm again without consulting the public – a promise that was not kept.

The ‘lessons learnt’ review also reveals that documentation about key early decision-making may not exist – something that is likely to create a headache for the official Covid-19 inquiry, which began taking evidence this week, as well as the government itself, which has already been hauled over the coals for its refusal to release unredacted information.

“Due to the dynamic situation,” the document says, “complex discussions were sometimes taken in senior meetings without a formal submission to set out accountability. While this assisted decision-making at pace, it meant there was not always a clear audit trail for rapidly evolving strategy.”

Ministers have been heavily criticised for not doing more to protect care homes, where more than 20,000 residents died in the first wave of the pandemic.

Respondents to the survey criticised “glaring omissions in strategic direction of integration and preparedness” within the sector, “meaning that the social care system was not able to respond to a major health emergency”.

Indeed, some said they had not anticipated that the government would need to have a centralised role with care homes at all, assuming – wrongly – that the largely privatised care sector would be “responsible for their own response” to Covid.

The review also admits that putting a hold on routine care home inspections by the Care Quality Commission watchdog “removed one of the department’s lines of sight into ASC [adult social care] and limited its direct knowledge of what was happening on the ground”.

The DHSC says in the document that it “would have benefitted from a fuller understanding of the response by Asian countries (recognizing the contexts are very different) earlier in our planning, which might have enabled us to start to build testing systems earlier in January 2020”, but does not go into detail about what information officials lacked, or why it was unavailable. It also notes there was an “absence of a unified leadership for Test and Trace” at the start of the pandemic, but again stops short of going into detail.

On the subject of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, gowns and gloves, the review recommends “more rigorous… vetting of PPE suppliers” in future. During the pandemic, the government set up a so-called ‘VIP’ lane for suppliers of the kit – a separate channel for politically connected firms.

But PPE supplied through the government’s VIP lane was three times more likely to be useless to the NHS than normally procured PPE, according to analysis by openDemocracy. The total value of contracts awarded to suppliers through the high-priority lane was £1.7bn. Some £4bn of unusable PPE bought by the government in the first year of the pandemic later had to be burnt.

The existence of the ‘lessons learnt’ review was first revealed by HuffPost UK in May 2021. The DHSC refused openDemocracy’s request to see a copy, but the information rights watchdog – the Information Commissioner’s Office – ruled in our favour. The DHSC initially appealed against the ruling, threatening to take the ICO to court, but has now handed it over.

The ICO held that there were “significant public interest arguments in favour of disclosure”.

Pollution from farms has prevented housing developments being approved by 35 councils, analysis by The Times and Watershed Investigations, the not-for-profit organisation, can reveal.

Rachel Salvidge | Leana Hosea www.thetimes.co.uk 

Natural England, the regulator, has issued advice to 74 local authorities where water bodies were already in “unfavourable conservation status”.

The public body told them that new developments should be approved only if they would not worsen the already polluted rivers. Nutrient pollution, in the form of excessive nitrogen and phosphorus from farm fertilisers, animal slurry and human sewage, damages rivers by causing an overgrowth of algae. With the water starved of oxygen, the wildlife is suffocated. In extreme cases, this can lead to dead zones.

The Home Builders Federation estimates that more than 120,000 houses have been stuck in the planning system.

Developers are trying to work out how to show they are “nutrient neutral” — that the extra sewage they bring to an area will not add to the pollution.

The Times and Watershed Investigations used Environment Agency data to determine why rivers failed to meet “good” environmental standards at 64 of the affected councils. Agriculture was found to be the main problem facing 35 councils. Of the known reasons, across all 64 councils, 44 per cent were reported to be due to agricultural pollution and 21 per cent a result of the water sector.

The Times’s Clean It Up campaign has called on the government to maintain the nutrient neutrality rules laid out by Natural England. The campaign is also to encourage farmers to curb their pollution of rivers.

Several housebuilders said they backed the scheme but wanted the burden shared between water companies and farmers. The analysis found farm pollution was a problem in Cheshire and Devon, while the water sector was the main cause in 14 local authorities.

Stewart Baseley, executive chairman at the Home Builders Federation, said his members were “committed to protecting the environment”. He called for measures “that address the contributors to the poor quality of our rivers”.

Mike Burke, director for sustainable development at Natural England, said “comprehensive action across all sectors” was needed. “Pollution in rivers comes from a range of sources,” he said.

Richard Benwell, of the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition, called for an end to “intensive” agriculture. He said the government should encourage “agro-ecological” farming.

An official at Water UK, the industry body, called for more innovative approaches and partnerships with farmers “to deliver benefits”.

The National Farmers’ Union was approached for comment.

The future of Plymouth’s troubled city centre redevelopment is again in question after a key subcontractor went bust. Somerset-based groundworks and civil engineering firm GWKS Ltd has collapsed into administration blaming inflation, supply issues and the war in Ukraine.

William Telford www.plymouthherald.co.uk

The company was a subcontractor working on the regeneration of Plymouth city centre and staff in Plymouth have been told they have been made redundant. Plymouth City Council – which is behind schemes in Old Town Street and New George Street, Civic Square and the stalled Armada Way revamp – has been asked whether the projects will be affected.

Construction giant Morgan Sindall is overseeing all three schemes and would only say that GWKS, trading as G Works Construction, was “part of the public realm” works. PlymouthLive has been told staff were given their cards on Tuesday with one worker saying: “I’ve just got off a team call. We’ve just been told we’re now redundant and the company is in administration.”

In total 88 of the 109 staff working for the Bridgwater-headquartered company have been axed as soon as the company went into administration. Lucy Winterborne and Dan Hurd, of EY-Parthenon’s turnaround and restructuring strategy team, were appointed as joint administrators of GWKS Ltd, but said subsidiary G Works Surfacing Ltd is not in administration.

They said the firm is mainly focused on site preparation for customers across the South West. They said they will be undertaking “an orderly winding down” of the company and will look to realise assets for the benefit of creditors.

Ms Winterborne said: “Rising operating costs, supply chain challenges and labour shortages combined with the Covid-19 pandemic and wider geopolitical disruption has had a significant impact on the financial performance of the company. Our priorities as joint administrators are to protect the interests of the company’s creditors and to support the impacted employees who will be offered appropriate advice and support.”

Details of GWKS involvement in the city centre revamp are still being awaited. But it is another potential blow for the regeneration project which has been hit by setbacks, protests and even a legal battle.

The £7m upgrade of Old Town Street and New George Street got back on track recently after delays and the exit of original contractor Dorset-based Mildren Construction in 2022. The first phase began in lower New George Street in late 2021, the second phase began in April 2022. The overall idea includes creating a better link between Drake Circus Shopping Centre and The Barcode leisure and cinema multiplex But in July 2022 work stopped after the construction turned out to be more difficult than originally thought and Mildren Construction left the site.

The council then appointed Morgan Sindall, which was already chosen for the upgrade of Civic Square, to complete the work. The revamp was stopped before Christmas to give traders a break during the busy shopping season.

In January 2023 the council said the site had thrown up surprises including a length of Victorian tramline still embedded in cobbles buried beneath concrete. There was also discovered rubble from bombed out shops, cellars and other voids. Construction began again in February.

Meanwhile, Plymouth City Council is attempting to end the legal battle over the delayed £12.7m Armada Way regeneration. The authority will make an application directly to the High Court asking it to consider stopping the judicial review brought by protesters.

The newly-elected Labour council has already decided to take a fresh look at the design of the regeneration after the furore following the destruction of 110 trees in March.

GWKS’ most recent accounts, for the year to the end of June 2022, revealed the company was concerned about increasing labour and material costs. Nevertheless, it boasted a strong balance sheet and full order book, and said it had a “positive outlook” for 2022/23. Although turnover had fallen by £2m to £27.6m, it made an increased pre-tax profit of £431,664. It was the fifth straight year of profit. It paid out £100,000 in dividends.

Independent Woking councillor, John Bond, now retired when he dared to raise issues.

How many of us have been belittled, talked over or ignored, in Tory EDDC or Tory DCC either as an independent councillor or public speaker”? – Owl

Bust Woking council to cut ties with firm behind debt-ridden skyscraper

Richard Partington www.theguardian.com 

Woking council plans to sever ties with the Northern Irish developer behind a skyscraper venture that helped tip the tiny Surrey local authority into effective bankruptcy.

Amid ballooning costs and delays, a dramatic plunge in the value of the council’s Victoria Square development – which is 52% owned by Moyallen, a business from Dungannon, County Tyrone – is at the centre of the local authority’s financial meltdown.

Built as the tallest towers outside a major city in England – with the ambition they could be seen from the top of the Shard in central London 30 miles away – the scheme was first planned in 2013 as a £150m taxpayer-funded regeneration project, before costs more than quadrupled to £700m.

Involving a shopping centre, public plazas and a four-star Hilton hotel, the council warned last week that Victoria Square was among the main reasons for the failure of a risky investment spree overseen by its former Conservative administration, leaving the council facing a £1.2bn deficit.

Woking’s crisis comes amid intense pressure for the owners of physical retail after a collapse in footfall in the Covid pandemic and dramatic growth in online shopping, made worse in recent months by the cost of living crisis.

Ann-Marie Barker, Woking’s Liberal Democrat leader, told the Guardian that plans were being made to sever relations with Moyallen.

“The intention, always, with the relationship with Moyallen was that it was there for the development period [at Victoria Square], and that the relationship would come to a natural end at some point,” she said. “That is something we would anticipate happening.”

The details come as documents filed in the past month at Companies House show Moyallen had amassed debts worth £188m to Bank of Ireland in connection with its ownership of three other shopping centres, including another site in Woking.

Bank of Ireland placed four of Moyallen’s other operating units into administration – including two entities used to control the Peacocks Centre, a separate 1990s shopping centre adjacent to Victoria Square. Moyallen is run by the brothers Peter and John Robinson. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Those four entities are separate from Moyallen’s Victoria Square joint venture with Woking council, which continues to operate as a going concern. However, the details pose fresh questions over the suitability of the firm as the majority partner in a taxpayer-funded project costing more than the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

Documents filed at Companies House show the council was forced in the administration process to chase repayment of a £6m loan it made to Moyallen for running the Peacocks Centre, which was settled in full earlier this year. While the company operated the lease on the Peacocks shopping centre, Woking remained the freehold owner.

“We have been watching it [the administration] with some interest. There was work that had to be done by the council [to recover the £6m loan],” Barker said.

Woking’s former Conservative council leader had been warned about Moyallen’s financial position in 2018 by John Bond, an independent councillor at the time, who raised concerns that its Bank of Ireland debts posed risks to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.

Bond, who has since retired as a councillor, said: “Everything I thought was wrong has since happened.”

“I was shouted down, literally shouted down by the Conservatives. I was very concerned [about Moyallen], but they had the backing of the senior officers.”

The council’s former Tory leadership dismissed Bond’s concerns at the time, arguing that Bank of Ireland had indicated it was supportive of the company. Bank of Ireland declined to comment.

The latest available accounts for Victoria Square Woking Ltd, the joint venture company behind the project, show the council loaned it £700m. However, the value of its assets plunged by more than £360m in 2021 to stand at just £116m – leaving the joint venture with a financial shortfall worth more than half a billion pounds.

Moyallen, which does not have a website or publicly available phone number, was paid £1.1m in development manager fees for the year.

The fresh details come as commissioners installed by Michael Gove’s levelling up department investigate Woking’s financial dealings to establish how the projects were approved and structured, with the aim of extracting the council from costly schemes and recovering money by selling assets.

Most of the council’s spending had been financed by an obscure arm of the Treasury – the Public Works Loan Board – with £1.3bn worth of borrowing that Woking could now struggle to repay.

Documents show the administration of Moyallen’s shopping centre assets is not expected to recover the full £188m owed to Bank of Ireland, after efforts to sell them were hit by the economic turmoil triggered by Liz Truss’s mini budget.

The business was forced to sell its three shopping centres as part of the Bank of Ireland administration process – including the Peacocks Centre, alongside the Magowan West and Rushmere shopping centres in Northern Ireland.

The two businesses behind the Peacocks Centre, which Moyallen had acquired in 2008 for £166m, owed the bank £88m out of its £188m debt at the time it was placed into administration by its creditors in April 2022.

Documents from the administrator Grant Thornton show a prospective buyer pulled out of a deal for the Peacocks Centre “with the specific reasons being linked to the UK’s economic instability and wider macro-economic factors … the Liz Truss mini budget occurred on 23 September 2022, followed by her resignation on 20 October – these factors most definitely had an adverse impact on our sale.”

After slashing the asking price and finding a new buyer, documents show the Peacocks Centre was sold for £15m, out of about £65m recovered overall from the Moyallen fire sale – less than half the value of the Bank of Ireland debt.

A dye test that was supposed to determine the site of a storm overflow in Devon has failed.

[It is possible the pipe could be in a different location to where SWW had understood it to be! – Owl]

By Brodie Owen www.bbc.co.uk

Campaigners looking to see the release of dye at Exmouth. Image source, Geoff Crawford

South West Water (SWW) said it released the dye near Maer Rocks on Exmouth Beach at the request of the community but the test was “inconclusive”.

The company said it would “explore further options” to confirm the discharge location.

Campaigners said beachgoers needed to know the location of the outfall pipe due to concerns over water quality.

Geoff Crawford, from End Sewage Convoys and Pollution Exmouth, said the exact location of the pipe would determine how frequently the water would need to be tested.

He said it was possible the pipe could be in a different location to where SWW had understood it to be.

SWW said the dye test was inconclusive. Image source, Geoff Crawford

“The dye test is for all of us – for them to know where it is – and for the public to be confident,” he said.

“At the moment they test once or twice a week – if the pipe is closer to the beach they would have to test more often.”

SWW said the dye test did not work as planned on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman said: “The purpose of the dye test was to confirm the discharge location of our outfall pipe to provide reassurance to the community that our outfall functions as designed.

“Unfortunately, the test was inconclusive. We suspect this was due to lack of available water to flush the dye in the network out through the pipe.

“We were grateful for the support of the local community during the test and we will explore further options in order to confirm the discharge location.”

Mr Crawford said all parties were “in a situation now where we haven’t proven anything and we have dye in the tank”.

SWW had reassured swimmers before the test that the dye was “harmless” and turning the water yellow or green would only be “temporary”.

It said the dye had the potential to show on swimmers or animals but this was unlikely.

The firm agreed to conduct the test to reassure the community that the outfall functions as designed.

Dangerous metal poles embedded in the sand of Jacob’s Ladder beach have been removed after photos of the hazard were shared on social media.

Philippa Davies www.sidmouthherald.co.uk 

The poles were sticking out of the sand below the waterline, posing a danger to swimmers.

It’s not clear how they got there, but they were close to the walkway where scaffolding is in place for East Devon District Council’s work to improve the sea defences.

During last weekend (June 10 and 11) local tree surgeons Devon Arborists posted

the pictures in the Facebook group Sidmouth Community for the People, warning people to take care.

People reacted with shock and concern, with one person describing the embedded poles as ‘a horrible accident waiting to happen, especially when the tide is in and you can’t see them’.

The Herald contacted the council on Monday, June 12, and was told that its contractors have now removed the poles.

A spokesperson said: “We are monitoring the site and will remove any further pieces of metal as they come to light. 

“While we try to make sure that our beaches are as safe as possible, it is important to remember that the coast is a constantly changing environment and no area can ever by guaranteed to be entirely free of hazards. 

“We would strongly encourage beachgoers not to dive or jump into any area of water without first checking for hazards and the depth of the water.  For more beach safety advice, follow this link: https://rnli.org/safety/beach-safety”

Everyday that Boris Jonson leads the headlines on the news is a good day for opposition parties. 

That’s all yo need to know for the week!

Oh and then there will be Fizzy Lizzy’s “Honours” list to savour! – Owl

[The honours system recognises people who have:

• made achievements in public life
• committed themselves to serving and helping Britain

They’ll usually have made life better for other people or be outstanding at what they do.]

Paul Arnott www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

Readers may have seen that East Devon District Council is setting up a new drive to support the amazing work of volunteers across East Devon, using funds from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

Often such schemes are loaded with acronyms which stand in the way of understanding what is really being facilitated. Who amongst us really knows what the VCSE sector is? The answer: the wonderful groups leading work in the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise area.

The best way to illustrate it is to look at the well-established work of the agency EDDC is partnering with to deliver the scheme, Devon Communities Together (DCT), whose website at http://www.devoncommunities.org.uk tells their story.

In essence, DCT tries to identify gaps in our response to making Devon communities sustainable, in an area where there are often hidden semi-rural and rural problems in small communities. This can be anything from advice for people trapped using oil for heating in the current crisis to advising on grant funding for emergency planning. Having seen the terrible effect of flash flooding in Newton Poppleford and Tipton St John recently, it is clear that many communities in East Devon do not have a resilience plan in place.

In other areas of their work, DCT encourage small business start-ups facing Devon-specific challenges, and were advisers to village halls and community centres last winter as they strove to provide warm hubs. They have also been a central agency recently supporting the organisation of the redistribution of surplus food to individuals, households and groups in order to reduce food waste, feed people and build community capacity and resilience.

It is completely pointless to get political about why this work is more crucial now than ever. You are a very lucky person indeed if you do not now personally know someone struggling with soaring mortgage interest rates, private rental charges or food inflation around essentials. What matters now is less about blaming the government and more about seeing how we can collectively respond.

Unfortunately, there is also worrying local news which I discovered on Monday this week is far from unique when I was told of a Hilton Hotel near Bristol Airport that has been housing migrants awaiting the processing of their applications for leave to remain in the UK for many years. My source was a Somerset-based chef and volunteer who was appalled that the residents in the hotel have no access to proper cooking facilities.

I was stupefied to hear about this, because that is precisely the problem recently reported by residents and professional and volunteer visitors to the hotel near Exeter Airport which is being run along exactly the same lines. Marooned miles from a shop, with little cash in hand, the residents have been rendered dependant on ready meals driven down the M5 from as far away as Birmingham.

I have heard convincing worries from educational professionals who deal with the children of these families – by basically feeding them at schools with no extra government support – that malnutrition is becoming an evident problem. Malnutrition.

Socially the effect is completely demoralising. Both the Bristol hotel and Exeter hotels have professional kitchens, yet residents are lucky to get access to a microwave. Cooking binds families together as much abroad as it does here.

This time I will get political. Government through the Home Office has turned its back on all of this, leaving private companies, a melange of local authorities and the unfortunate residents to muddle through.

I cannot unhear what I have heard. This is now a major Safeguarding issue, and I’m sending up the distress flare. Action, please, central government. Now. I’m pretty sure volunteers would come forward in their dozens to help supervise access to the kitchens.

So Simon Jupp, the chicken-run Tory MP for Exmouth who’s now standing for the new Honiton & Sidmouth constituency, is trying to counter Richard Foord’s pledge to support community hospitals. He’s done a photo-op outside Sidmouth Community Hospital- the only one in the new constituency that hasn’t had its beds ripped out by the Tories. Funny he didn’t come to Seaton, Axminster, Honiton or Ottery St Mary, isn’t it? – Martin Shaw seatonmatters.org 

‘I will always fight to protect our local NHS’

Simon Jupp, MP www.exmouthjournal.co.uk  (and other local news papers)

For many, going to the local GP surgery is the front door to our NHS.

The latest figures show GPs are seeing on average 20 additional patients every working day compared to before the pandemic.

More staff than ever are working tirelessly to deliver that. Numbers are up by a quarter since 2019.

And more money is going into primary care than ever before. Funding is up by a fifth compared to seven years ago, even when taking inflation into account.

But we should be honest that the pandemic placed unprecedented pressures on healthcare services which led to treatment delays.

One of the Prime Minister’s priorities is to cut NHS waiting lists. And rightly so.

By the end of the year, patients who need prescription medication will be able to get it directly from a pharmacy, without a GP appointment, for things like earache, sore throat, and other infections.

By expanding the role of pharmacies with a £645 million investment over two years, fewer people will need to see their GP by default – freeing up appointments and lessening the ‘8am rush’ to get one.

We should also acknowledge that some pharmacies in East Devon are stretched. In Parliament, I’ve pressed Ministers to get funding to our pharmacies as quickly as possible. I visited Morton’s Pharmacy in Axminster last week and I’ll be relaying the feeling from the front line in my regular discussions with Health Ministers.

Money is going in to tackle NHS waiting lists at our hospitals. The multi-million-pound Exeter Nightingale Hospital has been kept open to help diagnose conditions and take pressure off the RD&E.

In Exmouth, I had the pleasure of visiting the hospital recently to see the £1.5 million for refurbishment that’s come from public funding and the hospital’s League of Friends. In Sidmouth, £353,000 of capital investment has been spent to improve facilities in the last year. 

These investments acknowledge the key role that community hospitals like Sidmouth, Exmouth, Ottery St Mary, Seaton, Axminster & Honiton play in caring for people closer to their homes. I will always fight to protect our local NHS.

“The Environment Agency (EA) declared in 2015 that there is a ‘risk to life’ of the children attending the hub and that it must be rebuilt outside of the flood zone.

However, a  £3.5million bid to the Priority Schools Building Programme was rejected in the same year.“

The upcoming election focusses minds! – Owl

Senior government officials will visit Tipton St John to help speed up plans for a site to be found for a new school, following recent flash flooding which led to the evacuation of Tipton St John Primary School.

Radio Exe News www.radioexe.co.uk

After Simon Jupp MP held an urgent meeting with Education Minister Baroness Barran in the days after the flooding, Department for Education officials will be visiting prospective sites in the coming weeks to consider appropriate locations for the new school.

The village of Tipton St John was severely impacted when intense rainfall of up to 130mm fell across a few hours, leading to the evacuation of children and staff from the local primary school who had to be rescued by the fire service.

Working with the Department for Education, Diocese of Exeter, Devon County Council and the local school leadership team, East Devon’s MP has called for a new school to be built in a safe location as soon as possible. In December, the Department for Education confirmed funding would come from the School Rebuilding Programme to build a new school to replace Tipton St John Primary.

Today in Parliament, Simon Jupp MP called for building work to be prioritised to protect pupils and staff and has secured a further meeting with Ministers.

Simon Jupp, MP for East Devon, said; “Children and staff had to be rescued by the fire service after Tipton St John Primary School flooded recently, and it’s clear action is needed now more than ever. Since being elected, I’ve raised the school’s situation in Parliament, regularly met with Ministers at the Department for Education, visited the school many times, and worked with the Diocese of Exeter and Devon County Council to secure its long-term future. Last December, I was pleased to confirm the government would fund the building of a new school. Since then, work to assess every possible option to keep the school in the village has continued and I’m looking forward to welcoming senior government officials to Tipton St John in the coming weeks. I’ll continue to press for the urgent relocation of the school as the safety of children and staff must come first.”

Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for Schools, said in Parliament today; “I was sorry to hear about the flash flooding and the impact that this has had on the school and the local community. Tipton St John Primary School was selected for the School Rebuilding Programme in December which will ensure a long-term solution for the school, protecting children and staff from flooding in the future. Officials are working with the Diocese of Exeter, Devon County Council, and my Honourable Friend to identify and secure a new site for the school, and I thank him for his support to help make this happen as quickly as possible.”

Fluorescent dye will be added to the water at Exmouth beach after the community called for an investigation into a sewage outlet.

Fluorescent dye test for the water off Exmouth beach aims to address pollution fears

Becca Gliddon eastdevonnews.co.uk

South West Water (SWW) has announced it is dye testing water off Maer Rocks,  Exmouth, from 8.30am on Wednesday, June 14, after residents raised concerns about black sewage seen on the beach.

Exmouth Town Council, backing the testing, said the aim of the dye testing was to ‘demonstrate the water company’s commitment to openness and transparency’, pinpoint the location of the storm overflow pipe – where extra rainwater or wastewater is released into rivers or seas – and to ‘create confidence’ through showing how the set-up works.

SWW said the yellow-green florescent dye was harmless to water quality and wildlife and would ‘take some time’ to move through the water network.

A South West Water spokesperson said: “On 14 June, we will be carrying out investigative work at Maer Rocks in Exmouth involving dye testing.

“The work follows a request from the local community for us to confirm the location of the discharge point from our outfall pipe.

“As a result, customers may notice some yellow/green discolouration to the sea near Maer Rocks on Wednesday morning.

“We would like to reassure local residents and visitors that the dye is harmless and other than a temporary colouring, will not affect bathing water quality or the wider ecology of the beach or Exe estuary.

“We thank customers for their patience while we carry out this work.”

Exmouth Town Council said the timing of the test had been planned to ensure optimum tidal conditions for the process to take place.

It said the testing would prompt the council to push for a simpler alarm system, because there was ‘much confusion’ over the current method.

Councillor Olly Davey, town mayor, said: “ We are really pleased that South West Water has agreed to carry out the dye testing.

“This will go a long way to reassure the local community and help with understanding the issues involved.

“We will also be pushing for the alert system to be clarified and possibly simplified as there is much confusion over when a discharge actually takes place.”

The town council said recent reports of sewage, turning sand black in the the area of Maer Rocks, was found to be rotting seaweed.

A town council spokeswoman said: “South West Water internal tests and the Environment Agency’s independent investigation have conclusively shown that the reported incidents were unrelated to South West Water’s infrastructure or sewage systems.

“However, in an effort to address any concerns from residents and demonstrate its commitment to openness and transparency, South West Water have decided to conduct dye testing in the area.”

Further vindication for Cathy Gardner. – Owl

The care minister, Helen Whately, has declined to back Matt Hancock’s claim that the government threw a “protective ring around care homes” at the start of the pandemic.

Robert Booth www.theguardian.com 

Whately worked under the former health secretary in the first 18 months of Covid, but she avoided endorsing her former boss’s assertion, which will be tested at the public inquiry which starts in earnest this week.

Asked whether Hancock was right in May 2020 when he told parliament “we absolutely did throw a protective ring around social care”, Whately told the Guardian she wanted to “use my own words which is that I look back on doing everything I felt that we could to help care homes and social care more broadly at an incredibly difficult time”.

In the first wave of the pandemic there were almost 27,000 “excess deaths” in care homes in England and Wales compared with the 2015–19 average. The virus penetrated care homes so widely and spread so fast that 13 homes in England saw two dozen or more Covid deaths each in just 11 weeks at the start of the pandemic, official figures have revealed.

Evidence sessions examining the UK’s preparedness for the pandemic start this week and Hancock, who resigned from the government in June 2021 after breaking lockdown rules, is due to give evidence this month.

Lawyers for trade unions are expected to highlight the chronic underfunding of social care and its fragmented provision in an opening statement to the inquiry this week. Government policy at the start of the pandemic of not requiring the isolation of untested hospital patients discharged into care homes has already been ruled illegal in the high court, where judges described it as “irrational”.

“I look back on it, how hard it was at that time when we were trying to get PPE out to social care,” Whately said. “We had so few tests available.”

She added: “I know looking back on it, it was very hard in the early days … We were really doing all that we possibly could. Still, it was really hard because people who were living in care homes were particularly vulnerable to Covid, as we know.”

Labour’s Liz Kendall, the shadow care minister, seized on the comments as an admission by the Conservatives of “what the country could see: their ‘protective ring’ was an insult to the staff, families and care home residents who were not only vulnerable but voiceless”.

She said: “For the 43,000 families mourning the loss of a care home resident, nothing will bring their loved one back. But they will be looking to the inquiry for answers and lessons to be learned.”

Leaked WhatsApp messages have already revealed Whately warned Hancock against restricting visits to care homes in October 2020 saying it would be “inhumane” and some elderly people were “just giving up”. Earlier, on 8 April 2020 she urged Hancock: “We should be testing all care home residents and staff who have had Covid contact, irrespective of symptoms.”

However, care homes were not able to start testing residents or staff without symptoms until the end of April. She also complained to Hancock that PPE supplies were “all over the place” and that discharging hospital patients into care homes was “my biggest concern”.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, who preceded Hancock as health secretary, has also been called as a witness in the module starting this week on pandemic preparedness, alongside David Cameron and George Osborne, who are set to be asked about the impact of their austerity policies from 2010 onwards on the nation’s readiness.

The module on care homes is not due to start hearing from witnesses until spring 2025.

Broader government handling of social care, which looks after over a million people in England, has been widely criticised.

It is estimated that an extra 480,000 care workers are needed in England by 2035 and there are already 165,000 vacancies. In 2020 when Hunt was out of government under Boris Johnson and chaired the Commons health and social care select committee, he said the annual social care budget must rise by £7bn by the end of 2024. The Health Foundation charity estimates the funding gap will be £9.3bn by next year but last autumn the government raised spending by equivalent to £3.75bn a year.

Whately told the Guardian there had been “big, big workforce challenges” over “many years”.

“The thing that I hear from the frontline is we need to be able to pay the care workforce better,” she said. “And for that, we need better funding to come through from local authorities for the care rates.”

Asked if the latest £7.5bn increase in central government funding over two years was the right amount, she said: “I want to see social care really well funded, but I’m not making the decisions for how all of government is funded. I will argue the corner for my sector.”

Today in England about 10,000 people live in the worst inadequate care homes, where problems are often caused by lack of staff. Asked if she accepted staff shortages were causing pain and suffering, she said: “You’ll understand if I choose my own words, but I know … for some providers, staffing is one of their big challenges. Really good care homes have staff there for a long time but others are finding it really difficult. I think we’ll see quality of care improve if we can help providers retain staff.”

She said increasing recruitment of care staff from overseas by adding them to the shortage occupations visa list was helping in the short term, but it was not a long-term answer.

“I want everyone to be in a good, if not outstanding, care home,” she said. “That is why I think the workforce reforms and the funding for social care are really, really important. But I don’t think anybody sitting in my position could come in and fix it in 24 hours. This is a long-term problem.”

• Replacement of existing windows and doors, and rendering of external blockwork. Daryl Cottage Long Hill Beer EX12 3HZRef. No: 23/1183/FUL | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single storey glazed extension to the front, two storey extension to the rear and internal alterations. 4 Counters Court Mill Street Sidmouth Devon EX10 8DWRef. No: 23/1171/FUL | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single storey glazed extension to the front, two storey extension to the rear and internal alterations. 4 Counters Court Mill Street Sidmouth Devon EX10 8DWRef. No: 23/1172/LBC | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Ash: fell. 18 Ridgeway Honiton EX14 2GFRef. No: 23/1166/TRE | Validated: Thu 01 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Garage conversion with garage door infill and change of roof orientation. Endellion Axminster Road Musbury Devon EX13 8AZRef. No: 23/1145/FUL | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Prior approval for a general purpose agricultural building Newcott Farm Yarcombe Devon EX14 9NDRef. No: 23/1149/AGR | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Variation of Condition 2 (approved plans) of application 22/2265/MFUL (side extension to existing care home to provide an additional 11 ensuite bedrooms; works include demolition of existing side extension, and associated external works) to allow for revision of plans for the proposed fire escape stair to relocate to the north elevation, rear of the building Malden House 69 Sidford Road Sidmouth EX10 9LRRef. No: 23/1157/VAR | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed erection of a farm succession dwelling Land At Larkbeare Avenue Larkbeare Talaton EX11 1LTRef. No: 23/1148/FUL | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Certificate of Lawful Development for proposed single storey side extension.2 Glebelands Sidmouth Devon EX10 8UBRef. No: 23/1146/CPL | Validated: Wed 31 May 2023 | Status: Approved
• Construction of a single storey rear extension, internal reconfiguration of the main house and level access to a raised garden deck. 34 The Marles Exmouth EX8 4NSRef. No: 23/1155/FUL | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single-storey kitchen extension Old Highwood Dunkeswell EX14 4SZRef. No: 23/1139/FUL | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single storey rear extension and patio Moxhayes Farm Yarcombe Devon EX14 9BBRef. No: 23/1122/LBC | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement storage building Dalwood Hill Nursery Burrow Knapp Way Dalwood Devon EX13 7ESRef. No: 23/1118/FUL | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single storey rear extension and patio Moxhayes Farm Yarcombe Devon EX14 9BBRef. No: 23/1121/FUL | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Provision of replacement livestock building retrospective Thorne Farm Exmouth Road Lympstone EX8 5AGRef. No: 23/1086/FUL | Validated: Wed 31 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Loft conversion with front and rear dormers, raising of front gable, and construction of raised seating area Durlston Barline Beer EX12 3LWRef. No: 23/1097/FUL | Validated: Thu 01 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed detached garage with storage space above. Allward, Flat 1 Salcombe Hill Road Sidmouth Devon EX10 8JSRef. No: 23/1072/FUL | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Variation of condition 1 (time limit on permission) of planning permission 18/1079/FUL (Retention of two storage containers and installation of additional unit) to extend the time limit to 10 years. Whimple Victory Hall Whimple Exeter EX5 2TSRef. No: 23/1049/VAR | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T2, Ash: Crown reduce lateral spread of branches by 1 – 2m, cuts 75mm in diameter; T3, Cherry: Fell; T5, Pittospurum: Fell; T6, Willow: Crown reduction by up to 4m, cuts of <125mm in diameter; T8, Southern beech: Fell; T9, Maple: Fell; T11, Holly and Hawthorn: Coppice at 50-75mm above ground level; T13, Yew: Crown reduce lateral branches to 0.5m from stem and reduce height by 1.5m; T14, Cherry: Fell; T21, Monterey cypress: Fell; G1, Leyland cypress: Fell; G4, Group of Poplar, Elm, Ash and Sycamore: Fell the Poplars, dead Elms and all stems <150mm in diameter. The Priory Greenway Woodbury EX5 1LPRef. No: 23/1058/TCA | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement rear extension with minor internal alterations. Bridge Cottage Bridge Street Sidbury Devon EX10 0RURef. No: 23/1041/FUL | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement rear extension with minor internal alterations. Bridge Cottage Bridge Street Sidbury Devon EX10 0RURef. No: 23/1042/LBC | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Installation of internal static totem pole sign. 223 Exeter Road Exmouth EX8 3DZRef. No: 23/1029/ADV | Validated: Fri 02 Jun 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1: Oak – prune back lateral crown spread of Oak by approximately 2m removing one limb (as indicated by red line in attached photograph 416JOH). Nutsberry House Town Lane Woodbury Devon EX5 1NHRef. No: 23/0830/TRE | Validated: Tue 30 May 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision

Martin Shaw, whose regular opinion column in the local press has been cancelled, has agreed to write a column for East Devon Watch. 

Martin will not stick to a rigid timetable but respond to issues as they arise. 

Here is the first.

A historic opportunity for East Devon

Just 12 months ago, East Devon voters helped topple Boris Johnson in a by-election after the tractor-porn MP, Neil Parish, resigned. Now Johnson himself has resigned as an MP (because he knew he’d lose a by-election in his London constituency), it feels as though what we started last year is coming to fruition.

Richard Foord, our new Lib Dem MP, has certainly hit the ground running. Having stood for election myself to save the community hospitals threatened with closure in 2017, I was especially pleased to see his new campaign to bring the beds back into Axminster, Honiton, Ottery and Seaton hospitals. The need for these wards was amply demonstrated during the pandemic, when Devon NHS was reduced to commandeering hotels to cope with the extra patients.

I’m sure Richard would agree that this will be just one part of restoring the NHS to a state where we can all be sure of the right care. It will require massive investment in nurses and doctors, which realistically is only likely to come from a Labour government under Keir Starmer. Although he is playing down the issue, it’s obvious that Labour will have to put in huge extra funds as Tony Blair did after Margaret Thatcher and John Major ran down the NHS in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

How can we in East Devon help the big national change which is needed? Our first priority must be to keep Richard as our MP in the election which is due in 2024. The constituency boundaries have changed and reading between the lines it looks likely that he will stand in the new Honiton & Sidmouth constituency. Here he will be up against the Tories’ Simon Jupp, who has done a chicken run from the new Exmouth & East Exeter constituency (where 78 per cent of the people he currently represents live).

Jupp’s shift testifies to the fact that on paper, Honiton & Sidmouth is the safer Tory seat. By the same token, all of us who want to keep the Tories out must rally behind Richard, assuming he is the Lib Dem candidate. It was great in the local elections to be able to vote Independent, Lib Dem, Green or Labour, and see a good mixture of candidates elected. In the general election, it will be a different kettle of fish. Many Tories who stayed at home in the by-election will come out and put their cross against Jupp. If anything, Richard will be the underdog, and he will need absolutely every vote.

Keeping our first non-Tory MP will be an enormous achievement for the area and a boost for the Lib Dem-Independent-Green alliance which runs EDDC. It will also help to ensure that when Starmer takes over from Sunak, we have an independent voice to put our concerns to the new Labour government. Keeping our Lib Dem MP will be a win-win.

It’s time too to start thinking seriously about the General Election options in Exmouth & East Exeter. Jupp is fleeing this seat precisely because it’s a better option for a strong anti-Tory candidate – Independent candidate Claire Wright made it a marginal and was just 5,000 votes behind last time. With Claire out of the picture, it’s important that a single strong challenger emerges to replace her.

I don’t know who that will be, but the worst possible outcome would be a close contest between the Lib Dem and Labour candidates which lets the Tory squeak through the middle. Historically the Lib Dems have been stronger in this seat and they need to choose a credible candidate who can continue where Claire left off. In 2024, both East Devon constituencies could elect progressive MPs. It’s a historic opportunity and we must not let it slip.

“The Plymouth and South Devon Freeport will supercharge the South West economy by building on our region’s unique national capabilities in marine, defence and space to form globally impactful clusters and a UK Innovation Superpower.” – Owl

Darren Jones MP, the Labour chair of the business and trade committee, has secured for himself a place on the shortlist for what I’m going to call the “Wait, What?” award for June.

James Moore www.independent.co.uk 

I shall bestow this on those who say things in otherwise anodyne-looking press releases that immediately pull you up.

Here’s his quote on the subject of freeports, one of Rishi Sunak’s flagship economic policies, something we have repeatedly been told will be a major benefit of Brexit. If that’s not an oxymoron. (PS: it is.)

“The government hopes that freeports and investment zones will transform regional economies, but we don’t yet have an agreement on how success should be measured.”

Wait, What? Think about what Jones said for a moment. These are government-certified big deals that the then little-known Sunak extolled the virtues of in a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank, way back in 2016.

Boris Johnson would happily bang on about them to anyone who cared to listen. And yet, here is Jones, announcing the terms of an inquiry into them, telling us there’s no agreement on how the policy should be assessed.

This matters. These specialised zones offer a series of generous concessions to the businesses operating within them.

There are eight in England, with two more given the go-ahead in Wales. Scotland has its own take on the wheeze, having announced two “green” freeports, which had to include plans for lowering emissions in the bidding process although they don’t face hard requirements to actually deliver on saving the planet.

The lot of them sit outside the UK’s main tax and tariff rules and enjoy lower regulation. But they have many critics. The TUC has, for example, expressed fears that they will serve as a “Trojan horse” which will usher in lower standards to the detriment of people working within them.

They aren’t cheap. The Office for Budget Responsibility thinks they will cost £50m a year from the current financial year, with the largest costs arising from employer national insurance contribution relief and business rate incentives they grant.

The OBR, however, admits that its estimate is a shaky one for a variety of reasons. The extent to which the various tax reliefs will be taken up is not known. Another outstanding question is how much freeport activity will be genuinely new investment and how much will simply be displaced from other parts of the UK by businesses seeking to take advantage of the tax breaks.

Critics of them see this displacement as another major problem.

It’s not as if they’re really new. A number of them were set up in the 1980s but the Conservative-led coalition government led by David Cameron phased them out in 2012 because their success was strictly limited.

Ah, but this time it’s different, say their proponents, such as Sunak. Now we’re outside the EU we can do all sorts of exciting things with them.

Well, we’ll see, shall we? The government does indeed have more flexibility than it had. The EU has been taking an increasingly dim view of the 80 within its member states because of some of the failings they are accused of. Here’s some more: critics say they facilitate money laundering and tax avoidance.

If the UK ones get too exciting in terms of incentives (and subsidies), the EU may very well take umbrage and levy retaliatory tariffs. There’s no such thing as a (tax) free lunch. We ought to have realised that by now.

With all those concerns, you would think a framework for measuring the success of this important and expensive economic policy would have been constructed, agreed and signed off years ago, but apparently not.

A cynic might suggest that this is because it isn’t just a big chunk of taxpayers’ money that is being invested in these things. An even more substantial amount of political capital has been pumped into them.

It would therefore be quite inconvenient if our putative framework were to adjudge them a white elephant at best, and a venue for the realisation of critics’ fears at worst.

Over to Jones’s committee, which will seek to measure the impact that freeports are having on business and trade and to consider where the cash lavished on them has been spent and whether it has been well spent.

Thank goodness someone is looking into this.

Beachgoers at a Devon beauty spots have been warned of what lurks beneath after what looks like scaffolding metal poles have been spotted sticking out of the sand. The scaffolding poles were pictured by Devon Arborists who took the picture above as a warning to dog walkers and swimmers enjoying Jacob’s Ladder in Sidmouth.

Olivier Vergnault www.devonlive.com

Jacob’s Ladder is one of the town’s two large beaches. An expanse of sand and shingle, the beach gets its name from the series of wooden steps that lead down from Connaught Gardens.

Over the past few weeks parts of the promenade have been fenced off as work is underway to repair it. People who have commented on the Devon Arborists’ post on Facebook have branded the metal poles sticking out of the sand a “horrific accident waiting to happen”.

Commenting on the post which was reposted by the Sidmouth Community for the people group, Leitch David said it was vital people going to the beach checked out where they swim before diving in as “you never know what lurks beneath”.

Samantha Day added: “Goodness, that’s a horrible accident waiting to happen, especially when the tide is in and you can’t see them.”

Richard Davey agreed, adding: “Absolutely lethal and horrible to think someone may have had a serious head or facial injury. Well done for bringing it to our attention.” Roger Hamilton-Kendall couldn’t agree more, adding: “Need to remove that sort of thing. Dread to imagine someone diving into the sea.”

Deborah Milward said: “Can it be removed ASAP as children or dogs could really have nasty accidents on those dread to think?”

Will this make the Local Enterprise Partnership, Heart of the South West (HotSW), and all the other unelected, business led bodies trying to bid for central government strategic regional funding redundant? – Owl

Ollie Heptinstall www.devonlive.com 

A devolution deal for the whole of Devon is progressing and could be offered to the county by the autumn. Outline approval was given in March to transfer new money and powers to local leaders – part of ‘levelling-up’ proposals by the government.

The ‘level two’ deal does not require an elected mayor, nor change the established council structure. Instead, a combined board would be created with the leaders of Devon County, Torbay and Plymouth councils, as well as district representatives.

The South West Local Enterprise Partnership’s scrutiny committee was told on Thursday [8 June] that work is now underway on the formalities, with six areas of greater powers being focussed on. These include more say on housing, devolution of adult education funding and more control of public transport commissioning.

Phill Adams from Devon County Council, who updated the committee, said the government is also open to exploring other areas for devolution, including innovation, tourism and culture. The planned combined authority will be “standalone from existing councils” according to Mr Adams.

“It would be led by the three upper-tier councils in conjunction with the districts in Devon … a business voice and some partners – most likely education.”

The combined board would be chaired by one of the three upper tier leaders – Cllrs John Hart (Conservative), David Thomas (Conservative) or Tudor Evans (Labour).

“It doesn’t replace anything,” Mr Adams stressed. “It’s not taking over. It’s not a super council or anything like that. This is purely around local government having a body to work through some of these functions that come down from government together. It’s very different from a mayoral approach. This is very much around developing what we’ve got.”

Once the deal has been offered by the government, it will then be subject to approval by local councils and a formal consultation process.

Woking has a council tax income on a similar scale to EDDC’s.

On an annual council tax take of £11m, it  is now paying £62m a year to service £1.8bn in loans on assets worth £600m less than what was paid for them.

A local resident “”armchair auditor” has been writing warning letters for years that have been ignored.

A picture is now emerging of: “Municipal recklessness, non-compliance with financial rules, over-optimism, egomania, incompetence, lack of transparency and regulatory neglect.”

A Tory council out of control – who could believe such a thing? – Owl

‘Eye-watering’: how Woking council’s glittering dream turned to dust

Patrick Butler www.theguardian.com 

In the autumn of 2020, the Tory leader of Woking council announced he was stepping down. In his valedictory speech, David Bittleston insisted Woking was not merely the best council in the country but was going places. “Ahead of us, this borough has an exciting future,” he declared.

Bittleston’s self-congratulatory boosterism was par for the course. He and the town’s municipal leaders were signed up to a grandiose high-rise vision that would transform the modest commuter town in leafy Surrey into a glittering modern city, Singapore-style economic hub and “premier global business location”.

This week Woking filed for effective bankruptcy after running up a deficit of £1.2bn on a series of risky property and regeneration deals. The place perhaps best known as the inspiration for The Jam’s hit song Town Called Malice has become the biggest financial basket case in UK local government history.

The epic scale of the council’s collapse has sent shock waves through local government. As auditors sift through the wreckage, an astonishing picture is emerging of municipal recklessness, non-compliance with financial rules, over-optimism, egomania, incompetence, lack of transparency and regulatory neglect.

The numbers involved are staggering. Tiny Woking, with an annual council tax take of £11m, is paying £62m a year to service £1.8bn in loans on assets worth £600m less than what was paid for them. “It’s simply eye-watering,” said Rob Whiteman, the chief executive of Cipfa, the public sector accountants body. “It is almost impossible to comprehend.”

No one seems quite sure about how to fix the problem. Woking could put up council tax bills by 15%, sell off all its assets and cut local services to a skeletal legal minimum, and it may still not bridge the deficit. Experts say the government, which approved Woking’s debt pile, must now decide whether to write off the loans.

It is not just Woking council’s head-spinning profligacy – the skyscraper developments, the hundreds of millions pumped into town centre regeneration, the £11m loan to a local private school, the purchase of pubs and farmland – that is coming into focus. It is how, despite warnings, things were allowed to spin out of control.

One local politician who had questioned the plans said: “There were no controls, no proper project management, no financial risk assessment. Just this naive idea that it was cheap money and what could possibly go wrong … You had this magic money tree, and they started playing Monopoly.”

The blame game is in full swing. The ruling Liberal Democrats, who took power in May 2022, say the Tories, who had controlled or led the council for the previous decade, are entirely culpable. The Conservatives claim the Lib Dems supported all of the key investment decisions at the time.

Some point to the role of Woking’s former chief executive Ray Morgan, the most senior official at the council between 2006 and 2021, when he retired. Made an OBE in 2007 for services to local government, people who know him say he was outspoken, cocky and ebullient with a reputation for getting his way. “A big fish in a small pool,” according to one source.

A key architect of the regeneration vision, Morgan overreached his brief, some suggest. “All roads lead to Ray,” one local politician said. Morgan has always insisted decisions were taken collectively. “Various people accuse me of being a megalomaniac,” he told a public meeting in 2013. “But at the end of the day I do what the council decides.”

Morgan was perhaps uncharacteristically unforthcoming when approached about the council’s collapse this week. In a statement to the local news website Surrey Live on Thursday, he said: “I am no longer employed by the council, I do not think it appropriate for me to engage in a public discussion when I am no longer in possession of the facts of the matter.”

What is not in dispute is that Woking had become the most highly leveraged council in the country, with the debt levels of a major city. Yet as a government review revealed last month, it lacked commercial expertise, took major decisions without proper risk assessment or business cases and breached Treasury borrowing rules.

This week’s section 114 notice declaring the council’s insolvency said there was a high probability that much of the internal financial advice that underpinned the council’s investment decisions contained “inaccuracies and misassumptions”. Had these issues been understood earlier, the report suggested, Woking would have struggled to remain solvent as far back as 2018.

Why did the problems not come to light before? In the past three years, Anthony Fraser, a local resident, retired operations director and “armchair auditor” with a keen interest in local government finance, wrote a series of detailed letters to the council, its auditors and ministers at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities warning of the dire risks Woking faced.

Trawling through the council’s published financial documents, Fraser explained how it had become drastically overexposed, had failed to set aside money to service its borrowing and was in effect using Treasury loans to enable its struggling partner companies to meet day-to-day costs, in contravention of government rules.

The town’s borrowing was out of all proportion to its core ability to repay, putting its solvency at risk, he told Woking’s auditors, BDO, in 2021. “In effect, financially we are a relatively small town tacked on to and heavily dependent on the fortunes of a group of big development companies.”

That letter was not answered. Others were politely batted away. It was frustrating, he said, that no one was prepared to listen. Fraser’s concerns were largely borne out by this week’s section 114 report. “You spell it out to the people responsible for overseeing it, and it gets ignored,” he said.

Some still quietly insist the council was right to be ambitious. One local political figure said the dream of town centre regeneration, affordable housebuilding and green belt protection was basically sound, and would have prevailed had it not been for the pandemic. Over time, they said, Woking would be proved right.

But such optimism is rare. Many see Woking’s crash as a consequence of austerity and laissez-faire policies. Councils were hit by huge cuts in funding, and ministers encouraged town halls to be entrepreneurial and find alternative income streams. Government provided councils with billions in cheap capital loans while cutting core audit oversight of their finances.

Woking joins Thurrock, Croydon and Slough on the list of recent local government bankruptcies. All had borrowed heavily from the Treasury to invest in property and regeneration projects. Whitehall is closely monitoring several more highly indebted councils.

Before Covid, Woking’s financial wheeler-dealing brought in £22m a year to fund services, insulating it from the chilliest winds of austerity. Despite a 40% cut in funding since 2010, the council insisted its commercial prowess meant it had not had to close any frontline services for local residents.

Now, however, its future looks very different. The council’s interim director of finance, Brendan Arnold, signalled this week that things had changed. “The enriched service suite that the borough has enjoyed over a number of years will need to be removed,” he wrote.

In plain language, it means Woking faces a fire sale of assets, unprecedented budget cuts and council tax rises. Municipal austerity has finally arrived.

The number of people making money from renting out holiday lets has risen by nearly 40 per cent in a decade, as data shows holiday homes have now become more profitable than buy-to-let investments.

David Byers www.thetimes.co.uk

Figures released by HMRC after a Freedom of Information request show that 63,000 individuals received income from 65,000 furnished holiday let properties in the UK according to the latest data available — up from 46,000 making money from 50,000 properties in 2011-12.

Further statistics show the increasing profitability of owning a holiday let compared with the diminishing returns of being a landlord, with holiday let income rising by an average of 63 per cent in the past decade compared with just 5 per cent for buy-to-let. The average annual holiday let income actually exceeded buy-to-let income for the first time in 2020-21 — reaching £15,600 compared with £13,400 for buy-to-let. A decade ago, holiday lets generated an annual average of £9,600 compared with £12,800 for buy-to-let.

Critics say the figures further illustrate why tax rules that incentivise investing in holiday properties, while turning people against being traditional landlords, are driving up prices in rural hotspots such as the Lake District while simultaneously creating a chronic shortage of rental properties in cities.

For holiday lets, if your property qualifies as a self-catered holiday let — meaning that in England it must be let for at least 70 nights a year and available for at least 140 — you can switch from paying council tax to business rates. However, if your annual business-rates bill is less than £12,000 and you only rent out one property, you are exempt and will pay no tax. In Wales the rules are tighter — properties not let out for at least 182 nights a year and available for 252 are classed as a second home and the council tax bill is doubled. You can also get tax relief on mortgage interest payments, and tax relief on expenses such as furniture.

On the other hand, buy-to-let owners used to be able to deduct borrowing costs and some property management costs from their rental income before paying tax on it, but that has been phased out, ending completely in 2020.

The Freedom of Information figures on holiday lets relate only to those people declaring income in personal names, and therefore excludes anything in a company structure.

David Fell, a senior analyst at Hamptons, who submitted the request, says the number of people investing in holiday lets rose dramatically during the pandemic because so many more people were confined to staycations as a result of international travel restrictions. “While Covid undoubtedly distorted the market, the longer term upward trend in revenue predates Covid, and it’s a trend the government has been increasingly worried about.”

I am incredibly privileged to represent the most beautiful constituency in the United Kingdom. Westmorland and Lonsdale is home to the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the Arnside and Silverdale area of outstanding natural beauty, the Cartmel peninsula and the rolling hills of south Cumbria.

But I’m very sad to say that wonderful and iconic towns and villages here face an existential crisis — a housing catastrophe, which means fewer and fewer homes for people to live in.

There are three principal causes: a lack of genuinely affordable homes being built; excessive numbers of second homes displacing full-time residential accommodation; and a short-term rented sector that has gobbled up the long-term private rented sector.

On the first, I have been proud to support affordable housing developments in every corner of my constituency, but we desperately need more of them.

On the second, this has been an issue I’ve been campaigning on since I became an MP in 2005. People are of course entitled to own a second home — and in many ways you certainly can’t blame them from wanting to own a home somewhere as stunning as here — but it means so many streets and hamlets stand empty for so much of the year.

On the third, this has been a more recent and startling development. Just after the pandemic, we saw a 32 per cent rise in holiday lets in just one year, and that is in the Lake District where there were already a huge number of them.

Those new holiday lets were until recently the homes of local people, who were evicted so their landlord can go to a short-term let, normally an Airbnb, and therefore cash in. There are no other places for those people to go and live so their kids are uprooted from the local school, and they have to give up their jobs and move many miles away, robbing our communities of life and of a workforce. We saw this largely because the government failed to scrap section 21 evictions at the time they said they would.

The consequences are huge and human. I think of the couple with two small children in Ambleside, she a teaching assistant and he a chef. They were evicted from their flat because the landlord wanted to go to Airbnb. They had literally nowhere else to go, so the children were taken out of school, a teaching assistant was lost to the local primary school and a chef lost to a local hotel. They had to move 25 miles away and out of the area.

I think of a mum and her 15-year-old son, who lived their entire lives in a village just outside Grange-over-Sands before they were evicted. Again, there was nowhere they could remain within the community. When people are evicted in communities like ours, there is nowhere else to go.

The holiday lets boom in places like Windermere in the Lake District means that many employees in the tourism industry can’t find anywhere affordable to live, Tim Farron says

Holiday lets obviously bring huge economic benefits to the tourism hotspots like the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. However, it’s gone too far. So many bars, cafés, restaurants and shops in that industry are struggling to recruit the staff they need to operate largely because their potential employees can’t find anywhere affordable to live.

It is not just the tourism economy that is affected, but the care sector and other professions. At one stage, earlier this year, 32 per cent of hospital beds in my local NHS Trust were blocked. Why? The bottom line is that we cannot get people out of hospital because there are not enough carers, because there is nowhere for them to live.

This week a consultation closed on the government’s plans to introduce a separate category of planning use for short-term lets. This is a move I have long been campaigning for and I remember putting it to Rishi Sunak in a debate I led in parliament back in 2019 when he was junior housing minister.

By doing this, we can give local planning authorities the power to put a lid on new short-term lets and instead ensure those homes remain for local people who can raise a family here and contribute to the economy and community life.

I really hope the government don’t waste any more time, crack on and put this into action, so we can start to turn the tide on Britain’s housing catastrophe.

Tim Farron is Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland, Furness and Eden www.thetimes.co.uk