Compass East Devon, a local group affiliated to the national cross-party campaigns group Compass, has come out in support of Richard Foord, Liberal Democrat candidate for Honiton & Sidmouth and Paul Arnott, Liberal Democrat candidate for Exmouth & Exeter East. 

https://seatonmatters.org/

The group says: “Crucial to these endorsements is that both candidates are public advocates for proportional representation (PR), a voting system where everyone’s vote counts equally, politics is fairer and Parliament reflects how we vote.

“This decision is based on Compass East Devon’s close analysis of both seats which shows that these PR-supporting candidates are best placed to win with the help of a tactical voting campaign.“

In a press release, the group also notes that the by-election points to Richard as the main contender in our constituency, and successful local election results in 2023 and 2024 point to a Liberal Democrat win in Exmouth & Exeter East, and that both constituencies are on Labour’s own ‘non-battleground seats’ list -suggesting it is not seriously contesting either seat.  

In other constituencies local groups are supporting parties other than the Liberal Democrats – for example, in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s North East Somerset seat the Compass local group is backing Dan Norris, the Labour candidate.

Compass, through the election-focused campaign Win As One, aims to facilitate collaboration between Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens in key seats to help a progressive government win power and change the voting system. 

Compass local groups aim to back the best-placed progressive candidates who support wholesale reform of our democracy – starting with replacing our First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system with PR.

This is because FPTP stifles productive debate, promotes short-termism, tribalism and timidity, and blocks us from pressing ahead with the bold and transformative solutions that our age of permacrisis demands.

At the next election, voters in these constituencies have an opportunity to elect two Members of Parliament that will fight to change the voting system so that every vote counts, at every election, and every vote can be genuine.

A spokesperson for Compass East Devon said: 

“Just a cursory glance at Westminster politics over the last few years shows our politics is quite clearly not fit for purpose. That’s why we need an entirely new system. To get one, we have to begin with electing people committed to reform – starting with proportional representation.

“With progressive MPs representing Exmouth & Exeter East and Honiton & Sidmouth, we can begin to build towards a new democratic politics where tactical voting is unnecessary, where our vote counts, and where our needs, as a county and country, finally come first.”

Communities in East Devon are being urged to create emergency response plans in case of extreme weather.

Bradley Gerrard www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

Severe weather across the district in the past 18 months has caused several notable incidents, including the flash floods in the Otter Valley in May last year, followed by September’s heatwave and Storm Ciaran in November, which damaged Exmouth’s sea wall.

Matt Blythe, who helps oversee environment and climate change-related activities at East Devon District Council, told its scrutiny committee that Met Office data showed England recently experienced the wettest 18-month period since 1836.

This had contributed to some of the recent events in the district, and showed the need to be prepared.

“There’s a lot of unseen, back-office work required for these type of plans and we have had a couple of relatively large events,” he said.

“We had around 400 weather message warnings in the 2023/24 financial year, and we are trying to get those out to staff and officers so they are aware if they are out and about in the district.

“We also send them onto parish and town clerks, especially for amber warnings and above, to help ensure we’re communicating as widely as possible.”

Several councillors are involved in creating emergency plans in their own communities.

“Anything we can do to encourage communities that don’t have a plan like this to create one is worth doing,” said Cllr Geoff Jung (Liberal Democrat, Woodbury and Lympstone), portfolio holder for coast, country and environment.

“I run my own community resilience group in my village and I go to a lot of the meetings, and any community that could have problems with flooding really needs to have a group set up so it can react when a flood happens.”

He said if just one community suffered flooding because of hyper-localised weather, such that in May last year in Newton Poppleford and surrounding areas, emergency services may be able to help.

“But if there are 20 or 30 communities flooded, the fire brigade can’t get to everyone, so people have to work with what they have got and having a community resilience group with a plan, and people who know what to and when, really does work.”

It is thought that roughly 60 East Devon communities have such plans, but scrutiny committee vice chair Cllr Duncan Mackinder (Liberal Democrat, Yarty) proposed a motion that communities without resilience plans be encouraged to create them.

“It’s been pretty obvious from this debate how important they are,” he said.

The meeting heard how various groups existed to create a multi-agency approach for weather events, such as flooding.

Mr Blythe said that East Devon was involved during an unexploded bomb incident in Plymouth earlier this year, whereby the district could have been  housed some of the potentially thousands of people needing accommodation.

He added that in the case of the Otter Valley floods  last November, East Devon led the recovery effort because the flooding was so localised, even though Devon County Council usually handles flood work.

Cllr Vicky Johns (Independent, Ottery St Mary) asked whether the term ‘localised’ is defined when it relates to the aftermath of floods.

“There isn’t a rigid definition,” said Mr Blythe. “In the case of the Otter Valley floods, it was so obviously in East Devon we couldn’t argue. It’s important to say this is about the recovery element and not the initial response, but a later flood, which in numbers [of properties flooded] wasn’t a lot different, was spread over three districts, so the county took responsibility.”

The committee agreed Cllr Mackinder’s proposal to encourage the district’s communities to develop resilience plans.