Martin Shaw

There were queues across the car park, people standing everywhere, some looking in through the windows, others unfortunately having to turn away. It was twice the size of the meeting in the same hall in March 2017 after they stole the hospital’s beds, and probably even bigger than one in Seaton Town Hall in late 2016 when bed cuts were first proposed.

We had fantastic contributions from all our speakers, especially Dr Mark Welland of the League of Friends (above) and Richard Foord MP, and also from around 20 people from the floor. There was complete unity on the need to save the hospital wing for use by the League, Re:store and other local groups promoting health and wellbeing (for example, for a palliative care service), and for this to be done by renting or even buying the wing – as long as this is at minimal cost, since the local community paid in full for building the wing in the first place.

We unanimously established a Seaton Hospital Steering Committee to fully represent the local community in all matters relating to the future of the hospital. As organiser of the meeting and de facto acting secretary for the committee, I will write to the ICB and NHS Property Services, who declined to attend, to inform them of its outcome.

Decisions

1. It was agreed to ask all supporters to write to Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the ICB, to support our case (she is the former MP for Totnes and former Chair of the Health Select Committee).

Email her at d-icb.corporateservices@nhs.net or write to Dr Sarah Wollaston, Chair, NHS Devon Integrated Care Board, County Hall, EXETER EX2 4QD. Mark your letter ‘for the personal attention of Dr Wollaston’ & also ‘please circulate to all members of the Board’. [Board members can be found here – Makes interesting reading – Owl]

2. There will be a protest outside Health Scrutiny at County Hall on Thursday 9 November, 9.30-10.30. We will be joining with Teignmouth whose hospital is also being discussed at Scrutiny. The meeting starts at 10.30 and we will then all go inside, where Jack Rowland and I will be presenting the Seaton case at the beginning of the meeting (you don’t necessarily have to stay for their discussion which may be quite a bit later). WE NEED TO ORGANISE CARS & PLACARDS (HOME-MADE WILL BE FINE).

3. We are planning a day of action on Saturday 18 November. The current proposal is to leaflet and collect signatures for a petition in the centre of Seaton (outside Tesco and/or Aldi?), Colyton, Beer etc., but WE NEED YOUR IDEAS.

There will be an ORGANISING MEETING for these actions from 4.15-5.45 on Monday 6 November in the Old Picture House, Harbour Rd, Seaton. 

Please come along if you would like to help – LET ME KNOW by email (saveseatonhospital@gmail.com) so that we have an idea of numbers. Also let me know if you’d like to help on either 9th or 18th but can’t make it on Monday.

Also follow the campaign on: Seaton & Colyton Matters blog

South West Water is being asked to justify its “bland” responses on planning applications, given the rise in sewage spills in Devon’s river and coastal waters.

Alison Stephenson, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

Torridge District Council wants the company to be removed from the list of consultees and an independent organisation to oversee new developments.

And it plans to ask other councils in Devon to support its request to government.

In his motion to council, Cllr Peter Christie (Green, Bideford North) said he is fed up with SWW’s response of “has no objection” when it is asked to give a view on new plans.

“Over the last decade, this is the answer we get, with very few exceptions.

“Clearly, given the current state of our rivers and coastal waters there is a major problem – and it appears to be overlooked that SWW have a vested interest in more development as it means more customers locked into paying them, as water and sewage services are a monopoly service.”

He told the council that according to SWW’s website, in Bideford last year there were 24 sewage spills, 31 in Buckleigh, 144 in Abbotsham, 117 at Weare Giffard and 25 in Torrington.

“South West Water will take the money for every new house but are not doing what they should be doing in tackling the infrastructure.”

He said in the late 1970s and 80s a ‘sewage embargo’  was placed on Bideford and house building stopped for several years because the town’s infrastructure couldn’t cope.

“Nothing has really changed, they cannot cope with the sewage capacity and water availability is also an issue when we have a drought.”

Cllr Annie Brenton (Lab, Bideford West) said there is a large new development under construction in Bideford beyond Atlantic Village and the council needs to be “really careful and scrupulous” about planning details for drains and sewerage.

“At the moment, South West Water’s behaviour is scandalous. They don’t carry out their legal responsibilities. They are continually breaking the law. They prevaricate and fob you off. We really need to make sure we have an independent, honest assessment of our sewage needs in this area. We need somebody with integrity where profit is not the sole consideration.

“The welfare of our people and our rivers and our sea is just as important as making money.”

Cllr Simon Newcombe (Con, Winkleigh) said independent was “all very good” but if it was not legally enforceable it was not worth the money spent on it.

Cllr David Brenton (Lab, Bideford South) said: “We should be getting Ofwat here. They are supposed to be the ones that are regulating and monitoring this, but they don’t.

“They have the teeth, but they don’t use them. It’s a quango of course, we know how loaded they are, but we need to get them here and ask them ‘what are you doing about the spills in our rivers and seas’.”

Tory big beast Ken Clarke has thrown his weight behind Rachel Reeves, praising her “responsible” approach to public finances.

Archie Mitchell www.independent.co.uk

In the latest significant boost for the Labour shadow chancellor, Lord Clarke, who served as chancellor under John Major and was health secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s government, said he had been impressed by Ms Reeves.

But, stopping short of full backing for Labour, he said: “It’s her party that worries me”. Lord Clarke added: “If it was Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves, then I don’t think either of the parties would worry me very much.”

It comes just weeks after the former governor of the Bank of England endorsed the Labour Party in a major coup for Sir Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor. Mark Carney said it was “beyond time” for Ms Reeves to run the economy in a Labour government.

Mr Carney, the 58-year-old who was handpicked by former Tory chancellor George Osborne to be governor, stunned the Labour conference last month with a video address saying: “Rachel Reeves is a serious economist. She began her career at the Bank of England, so she understands the big picture. But, crucially, she understands the economics of work, of place and family. It is beyond time we put her energy and ideas into action.”

Both endorsements come as major donors and business leaders have returned to the Labour fold under Sir Keir and Ms Reeves, having shunned the party under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking to the i newspaper’s Labour’s Plan For Power podcast about Ms Reeves and Mr Hunt, Lord Clarke said: “I don’t think they disagree on very much. They do, of course, politically, I do myself disagree with some of Rachel’s political views, I’m sure.

“But her actual approach, a responsible approach to macroeconomic policy, matches the responsible approach to macroeconomic policy that Jeremy Hunt has which, in the present shambles of British and international politics and the dangers of it, I find rather reassuring – about the only thing I do find reassuring about this election that’s coming up.”

Lord Clarke also warned she would face “a lot of tough, unpopular decisions” if Labour wins power, because “we’re not going to get out of our present financial crisis for at least two or three years”.

Labour grandee Lord Mandelson also threw his weight behind Ms Reeves, saying: “She’s even tougher than I thought she was. I mean, I knew she would be a bit of an old boot, but I didn’t realise that she’d be quite as uncompromising in the way in which she develops policy, sees off her detractors and deals with her colleagues on some occasions too.”

And elsewhere in the podcast, Lord Clarke said Tory demands for tax cuts and a cabinet reshuffle are “daft” and “neither of them will do any good in the sense of winning votes”.

The former chancellor said it was “absurd” to suggest a reshuffle of his top team could turn Rishi Sunak’s fortunes around.