Daily Archives: 3 Jul 2023

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 Jul 2023

Posted under

Misc

Planning applications validated by EDDC for week beginning 19 June

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 Jul 2023

Posted under

Misc

Housing plans unveiled for posh Devon coastal village

Plans for 42 new homes to be built in a posh Devon village have been submitted. The plans would see further development in the East Devon village of Lympstone – with a third of the homes being affordable.

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com

The plans have been submitted by 3West Group, a privately owned, local house builder based in Woodbury, on land south of Meeting Lane in the town. The development comprises 42 new homes, including 14 affordable dwellings, including bungalows – and include a mix of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 bed homes in a variety of types, sizes and arrangements.

The site has been identified by East Devon District Council as being the most suitable place to build new homes at Lympstone, as part of their Local Plan review process. East Devon have draft allocated the site for the development of around 46 new homes – and the scheme would develop the remainder of the field that was not previously included within the Gulliford Close development that was built in 2018.

A statement with the planning application says: “The proposals have been designed to create a development that sits comfortably on the threshold between the village and the countryside, whilst integrating into its immediate context. It is a landscape led scheme and existing trees and vegetation features across the site have been retained, with the incorporation of ecological buffers.

“Across the masterplan, the position of each house is considered and designed in a bespoke way to respond to its position in the street and contribute to the site as a whole. East Devon District Council currently cannot demonstrate a 5 year housing land supply. The site is a preferred allocation in the emerging local plan, and considered appropriate for development subject to final mitigation measures. We consider that this should be accorded moderate weight in making a decision.”

East Devon District Council planners will determine the fate of the application at a later date.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 Jul 2023

Posted under

Misc

The ‘unique’ UK seaside town so beautiful and friendly nobody ever leaves

The UK coastline is peppered with charming seaside destinations – some in the national spotlight, while others remain more peaceful hidden gems.

[In case Sidmothians don’t read the Express – Owl]

Ollie Corfe, Zhara Simpson www.express.co.uk

Sidmouth in East Devon is a prime example of the latter. Revered by locals and visitors alike, the coastal haven offers a picturesque waterfront as well as a tangle of quaint shops, cafes, pubs and hotels, all nestled between the dramatic cliffs of the Jurassic Coast.

Bricks and mortar there are in high demand in the town of just 13,000 people. Conversations with residents reveal its attractiveness is both a blessing and a curse.

The latest census data reveal 215 properties in the area are holiday homes, used either as occasional retreats by their faraway owners or rented out to tourists. 

Although holidaymakers are crucial to a number of businesses in the area, they are also helping drive up prices – to the point where some Sidmouthians can’t afford to stay.

Sidmouth isn’t the easiest of places to get to without your own car, but this only adds to the secluded and intimate feel of the town.

This is reflected in the number of independent shops and eateries – and the scarcity of chains more common in other coastal resorts – as well as in the sense of community among the locals themselves.

Nikki Morgan is a retail assistant at The Old Sweet Shop on Church Street, which she described as the “best shop in the world.”

Speaking to DevonLive, she said: “On Church Street, we all know each other, and we take in each other’s parcels. It’s a very gentle place to live. I’ve lived in Sidmouth for nearly five years, but used to come here when I was a teenager and I grew up five miles away in Crediton, so I consider myself a local.

“A lot of people like to call Sidmouth ‘olde worlde’, but actually it’s got everything you need and it’s as modern as you need it to be. It doesn’t have a lot of arcades, there are no casinos or nightclubs, but for a lot of people, that’s what makes it so nice. We get the Folk Festival and the jazz festival, we have all of these lovely things going on, so you’re never bored.”

She added: “If there was a problem in Sidmouth, if you can call it that, like with most of Devon, it would be affordable housing and potholes. Not very original.

“I rent, and I was very lucky to find where I live. In the last year, I have only seen four properties in Sidmouth come up for rent, which is not great. 

“So once you come here, they don’t leave, which is lovely, but we have a lot of people who work here who can’t afford to live here, which I think is a real shame. 

“You get all these holiday homes in Devon, we get all these holiday homes, and they are all very welcome. We rely on them for an income and they keep the county going, but it’s a difficult one because there’s nowhere for the locals to live.”

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

Phil Weaver owns The Barber, a few doors down on Church Street. He opened his salon in 2015, and has long taken care to keep it a familiar and intimate place for his customers. 

He said: “I get my regulars who come in for haircuts, shaves and beard trims, then I pick up tourists and wedding parties, like stag dos. People come in for a bit of a man pampering.”

“Sidmouth is a unique and wonderful town. People say it is a retirement town, and it is, but it also has a lot of other things,” he said, adding: “It has a certain buzz to it, albeit at a slower pace.”

“Everyone is friendly, you can walk up to somebody and they can be a complete stranger, but within five minutes you’re chatting away like they’re your best friend. Sidmouth is welcoming.”

Mr Weaver was also keen to emphasize the importance of town’s small independent retailers. He said: “Please use them, don’t go to the big shops because they are chains. If you use a small retailer, you’re helping put clothes on their kids’ backs and it keeps it local.”

Charlotte and Jim McKechine, from nearby Honiton, were celebrating their wedding anniversary by going for a swim on Sidmouth Beach.

Jim said: “We come to Sidmouth quite often, we come probably once a week during the summer for a sea swim, and there’s lots of activities for the children to get involved in. They are also part of the life-saving sea club.”

Sidmouth Lifeboat Station’s Operations Manager Phil Shepperd had been working there for 21 years. He said running the local lifeboat station was a huge achievement, while also being hard work, and that residents were proud to have their own locally-run station.

He said: “So far this year we have had 12 callouts for the lifeboats, and typically throughout the year we will have around 25. We are a lot busier in the summer than we expect to be in the winter. You can’t predict what the callout will be. In the summer you get a lot of children who get blown out on inflatables, broken down boats, missing people. You just don’t know.”

Talking about life in Sidmouth, he said: “It’s very much a tourist destination, and it gets very busy through the summer. Something that is very nice about Sidmouth that I think all the people who live here, and our crew like, is the fact that through the off-season in the winter, it is still a vibrant town. The shops are still open and things are still going on all year round. There are plenty of local businesses and it always seems to be busy.”

Sally Church, Carole Thompson and Ruth Hichcock, who live in Honiton, spoke to DevonLive drying off from their morning dip on Sidmouth Beach.

Carole said: “We live in Honiton and we swim every week either in Sidmouth, Seaton, Lyme Regis Branscombe or Budley. We also swim on special occasions like the solstice, which was fantastic.”

Sally added: “Sea swimming boosts your immune system, even if it’s the quickest of dips, it is very good for your immune system. We have been doing it since lockdown, so three years now, and I haven’t had a cold since. It’s good for your well-being and your mental health. When you go home, you feel really refreshed. It is very cold when you first get in, but once you get your shoulders in, it’s very invigorating.”

Asked to describe Sidmouth, Ruth replied: “We love Sidmouth. We like shopping here. I’m a Sidmouth girl, so I have lived here all my life. I moved away, but came back to live in Honiton. It has changed a lot, it is still Sidmouth though.”

Asked whether she still felt like Sidmouth was a place to call home, without hesitation, she responded yes.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 Jul 2023

Posted under

Misc

Funds for river pollution worse than a decade ago

England’s environmental watchdog is receiving less funding to tackle sewage pollution in rivers than it did 12 years ago, figures released under freedom of information laws reveal.

Reflects “Spreadsheet” Sunak’s “uninterest” in environmental matters. – Owl

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.co.uk

Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, has boasted repeatedly that the government has raised Environment Agency funding over the past year. The agency’s total budget has increased slightly in the last financial year to £1.9 billion — but it had been cut by successive Conservative governments since 2010.

Figures provided to The Times show that the agency spent up to £142 million on fighting water pollution in the last financial year, 7 per cent less than the £152 million spent in 2010-11.

The low point in spending to tackle water pollution was 2018-19, when the figure was only £70 million. At that time Coffey was a junior minister in the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).

The Environment Agency promised this week that it would “ramp-up” regulation against water companies by expanding the number of specialist auditors by 25 per cent to 100 staff.

However, the figures obtained by The Times reveal that, despite a decade of inflation and increasing pressures, including growing populations, the funding for checks on water quality remains below 2011 levels.

The funding refers to the agency’s “environment protection grant in aid”, which covers all environment protection, not only action on water quality. The money is used to tackle breaches of permits that deal with spills of raw sewage from storm overflows, among other issues.

“We are in a freshwater emergency exacerbated by climate breakdown, industrial pollution and population growth,” James Wallace, the chief executive of River Action, a campaign group, said. “Surely Environment Agency regulatory budgets should not just be recovered from the devastating cuts 13 years ago but potentially doubled, not least to cover the costs of inflation.

“The threat of water insecurity has increased significantly in the past decade, while our rivers have declined to the lowest standard in Europe.”

Only 16 per cent of waterways are considered to have a good ecological status in England, the same level as six years ago. The government’s target is for that proportion to reach 75 per cent by 2027.

Beyond the core grant, the agency also raises money from charges and fees from companies, known as the water quality charges income. That stood at £73 million in the last financial year, the same level as 2018-19. A lack of data for before 2014-15 means that it is impossible to draw a comparison with the levels of 2010-11.

The Environment Agency budget is also under pressure from demands for a pay rise from low-paid staff.

Unions have warned of a “recruitment and retention crisis” and staff have been taking industrial action since the end of last year in an effort to secure what they see as an adequate pay rise.

One Environment Agency insider said the regulator had downgraded efforts to tackle water for years and that “it is not just lack of investment from the water companies over the last decade, but a deprioritising of water [by the Environment Agency] over the same period. Only a reversal of this ideology, and the cuts and processes that underpinned this ideology, will go to providing real change towards protection of the water environment.”

The staffer said monitoring of water had been cut and restrictions had been placed on attending minor pollution incidents, meaning that more serious events could be missed. They said that in the five years before the restriction, more than 1,400 serious incidents had been reported initially as minor ones.

Of the promised increase in regulation, they said: “It may be a step in the right direction, but it may be more lip service, which has been commonplace [from the agency] over the past decade. That has resulted in swathes of experienced officers leaving and the morale of those left behind still at rock bottom.”

Defra said: “We continue to work alongside the Environment Agency to toughen up enforcement against underperforming and polluting water companies. That is why we have boosted funding for the Environment Agency — with £2.2 million a year specifically for water company enforcement activity — so that robust action is taken against illegal breaches of storm overflow permits. Annual water company licence charges also fund [the agency’s] regulatory activity in the water sector.”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 Jul 2023

Posted under

Misc

East Devon sewage spills: nowhere to go but into our rivers, then the sea

From a correspondent:

As a Budleigh resident I was looking at the Rivers Trust recently updated Sewage Map for 2022 in relation to the River Otter and the beach. I was diverted by the very large pollution indicators for the rest of East Devon.

Sewage Map | The Rivers Trust This makes very interesting and horrific reading.

The brown spots indicate high discharge levels

The first thought that comes to my mind is that until raw sewage is treated, and I mean treated, with no spillages in East Devon’s waterways, development cannot take place sustainably anywhere in the district.

We are aware that Natural England has effectively put a halt to development around the Axe due to high phosphate levels. I cannot believe that the following pollution episodes that I have picked at random around the district do not have similar, if not worse, problems.

Woodbury Waste Water Treatment Works spilled 65 times (every 5 1⁄2 days) for a total of 1077.27 hours, discharging into the Woodbury Brook. This was equivalent to 45 days.

Aylesbeare’s sewer storm overflow spilled 65 times for a total of 561.10 hours, discharging into the Aylesbeare Brook.

I cannot miss out Honiton. The combined 2 waste water treatment plants had 226 occasions of 2646 hours and if I add the nearby village of Gittisham (2021 census population 838)  283 episodes and the colossal 3252 hours. All going to the small River Otter. 

And finally what about Cranbrook? Agenda item – Public speaking – East Devon

“Further SWW data for 2021 indicates that the main sewage treatment works at Countess Wear, which services Cranbrook and surrounding communities, also released storm water on 72 combined occasions over a period of 230hrs +.  An indication of capacity overwhelmed?”

“South West Water are aware of the issues, in particular the pumping station at Countess Weir which cannot expand due to the SSSI and that they have identified a further pumping station would be required to counteract the issues currently being experienced with Teignbridge, Exeter and East Devon “

So where will the sewage of the latest approved development of 870 houses go on a rainy day? The overloaded Exe? Then into Lyme Bay?

Why are we building with inadequate sewage facilities?

Why are sewage issues not part of the planning process and water companies not included as statutory bodies?

I will leave my beloved Otter with 3252 hours (135 days or 4 1⁄2 months) of poo being poured into it from Honiton last year for another day.