seatonmatters.org 

[7 October] I’ve just had to abandon a Covid/flu vaccination appointment at the Tesco car park after waiting an hour, since I’d have to wait another hour before being done. This is despite having an appointment. The core reason for the fiasco is that the NHS grossly underestimated the walk-in demand in the morning, so that people who had waited hours were ahead of the people with timed appointments (there was also a medical emergency which apparently slowed things a little).

All a striking contrast with the orderly vaccination process in Seaton hospital during the pandemic. The NHS obviously just doesn’t understand that 45 per cent of Seaton’s population are over 65 and therefore eligible. They’re trying to do vaccination on the cheap and they are not taking into account that people are rightly still very concerned about catching Covid.

Who will be next? There is no way of avoiding the inescapable fact that this is a seasonal site, remote from the town and exposed to the elements. Who, for example, would really have wanted to venture out last night in the howling wind and rain? – Owl

Mickeys Exmouth is being sold off and closing on October 9

After over three years of trading, Mickeys will be closing after the dinner service on Wednesday October 9.

Adam Manning www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

They say that the closure is planned and the preparation for a sale is subject to final details. Located at Sideshore, Exmouth Seafront Mickeys Beach and Café Patisserie Glacerie opened in April and May of 2021 in line with the reopening of hospitality following the lockdown of Covid-19.  

A further announcement will be made following the completion of the sale where the new owners will be announced.

Speaking about the closure, chef and owner Michael Caines said: “On behalf of all the team we would like to thank our customers and suppliers for your support, we have thoroughly enjoyed serving each and every one of you and making Mickeys and the Café a special place to meet by the sea.  

“I would also like to thank my team for their unwavering support and dedication, despite the challenging times we have had, I am proud of what we have been able to create. 

“We are however delighted to announce the sale of the business to another local business operator who shares a similar passion, for fun relaxed dining.”

A spokesman for Michael Caines said: “For those that have enjoyed Mickeys Beach Bar & Restaurant, head to the Pool House Restaurant at Lympstone Manor Hotel for casual and relaxed dining, overlooking the Exe Estuary and the Vineyard. ” 

Could this be termed a “clean sweep”? – Owl

A number of beaches and popular swimming spots across Devon have been hit with pollution alerts after the rainfall yesterday. The region was battered with heavy downpours and strong winds after the Met Office issued a yellow weather warning.

Molly Seaman www.devonlive.com 

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), a charity and campaign group, has warned people to avoid 29 beaches across Devon today. There is sewage pollution at the large proportion of Devon beaches following the rain.

The sewage warnings come after Devon was battered by thunderstorms, rain, hail and strong winds yesterday. Exeter-based forecasters at the Met Office issued the warning while the Environment Agency warned of the possibility of flash floods.

An interactive map from SAS highlights the areas where sewage has been discharged into the sea and rivers. It is common after heavy rainfall as storm overflows are used to prevent drains becoming overwhelmed.

A sewage pollution alert means “storm sewage has been discharged from a sewer overflow in this location within the past 48 hours”. Meanwhile, a “pollution risk forecast” means there is potential for sewage to be in the area.

Sewage pollution alerts are in place at the following locations in Devon:

1. Firestone Bay
2. Plymouth Hoe East
3. Plymouth Hoe West
4. Mothercombe
5. Coastguards Beach Erme Estuary
6. Challaborough
7. Hope Cove
8. Salcombe South Sands
9. Mill Bay
10. Warfleet Creek Dart Estuary
11. Dartmouth Castle and Sugary Cove
12. Stoke Gabriel Dart Estuary
13. Steamer Quay Dart Estuary
14. St Marys Bay (Devon)
15. Paignton Preston Sands
16. Torre Abbey
17. Meadfoot
18. Teignmouth Holcombe
19. Dawlish Town
20. Exmouth
21. Sandy Bay
22. Budleigh Salterton
23. Sidmouth Town
24. Beer
25. Seaton (Devon)
26. Ilfracombe Hele
27. Woolacombe Village
28. Instow
29. Westward Ho!

SAS is calling for an end to sewage discharges into all bathing waters, and high-priority nature sites, by 2030. In 2023, there were 584,001 recorded discharges across England, Scotland and Wales – an 51 per cent increase on the previous year – with sewage released into waterways for a total of 12,966,322 hours.

“A lettuce purchased here in September 2022 lasted longer than prime minister Liz Truss.”

Blue Plaque Put Up At Supermarket Where The Lettuce That Beat Liz Truss Was Bought

A fake blue plaque has been installed outside the supermarket where the lettuce that famously defeated Liz Truss was bought.

Kevin Schofield www.huffingtonpost.co.uk 

The commemoration is yet more humiliation for the former prime minister, who only last 49 days in office.

It has been erected at a Tesco in Walthamstow, east London, and says: “A lettuce purchased here in September 2022 lasted longer than prime minister Liz Truss.”

The lettuce stunt was launched by the Daily Star as Truss battled to save her political career in the wake of the disastrous mini-Budget.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s package of unfunded tax cuts sent the financial markets into crisis, saw interest rates soar and the value of the pound plummet.

At one stage, the Bank of England even had to step in to prevent the British pensions industry from collapsing.

The Daily Star website set up a livestream, showing the lettuce with eyes and a blonde wig, to see if it would last longer than Truss did in No.10. The lettuce won.

Since leaving office, Truss has struggled to shake off the embarrassment of being defeated by the leafy vegetable.

In August, a banner depicting a lettuce and the message “I crashed the economy” slowly unfurled from the ceiling behind her as she spoke at a pro-Donald Trump event.

Once she noticed it, the former PM left the stage, and the following day wrote on X: “What happened last night was not funny. Far-left activists disrupted the event, which then had to be stopped for security reasons. This is done to intimidate people and suppress free speech.

“I won’t stand for it. Would we see the same reaction if the activists were far-right?”

Better-than-expected returns from East Devon District Council’s investments means it is predicting a budget surplus.

But not out of the woods – Owl

Bradley Gerrard www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

The local authority thinks it will earn just over £2.3 million in investment income in this financial year, compared to the £1.5 million anticipated when it set its budget.

The boost outweighs lower-than-expected income from planning fees so far this year, although the council believes there is “significant potential” for that to improve thanks partly to two major residential planning applications at Cranbrook.

The council had also saved money from its management of public toilets, but its £300,000 target hasn’t yet been met.

However, the investment income again counteracts this, meaning the authority is expecting a surplus of around £500,000 in its general fund.

In its housing budget, which is ring-fenced money, a small surplus of £77,000 is predicted, with higher returns from investment income helping again.

Furthermore, while there is a predicted underspend in its housing capital account – a specific pot of money for the likes of housing repairs – this will either be spent this year or rolled over to next.

Millions of pounds in extra funding to rectify years of under-investment in social housing in the district was approved in July, with the council’s leader then claiming previous efforts to tackle the issue hadn’t worked.

The full council agreed nearly £12 million of additional funding in the summer, mainly to help it cover the cost of increased requirements on social landlords to ensure properties meet high safety and quality standards.

Like many councils, this means East Devon’s housing-related costs are rising more quickly than its income, exacerbated by what several councillors and officers referred to as sustained under-investment.

PCC to wait on criminal investigation into chief constable

The police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall says she’s expecting an update on a criminal investigation into the force’s chief constable in “the next month or so”.

Elliot Ball, Ben Woolvin www.bbc.co.uk

Will Kerr was suspended in July 2023 after an investigation was opened into “serious allegations of sexual offences” in Northern Ireland, which he denies.

Alison Hernandez said she had hoped to receive an update from the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPSNI) in September, but had now been told “they will get back to me in October or in a couple of months”.

Speaking on the investigation following Friday’s meeting of the Police and Crime Panel, Ms Hernandez said: “My timescale is that I will wait until the public prosecution service has decided whether there is a criminal charge or not.”

‘Still waiting’

She added: “If there is a criminal charge I may well not want to wait it out but if there is not a criminal charge I would be interested to what the misconduct element looks like and how long that may take.”

Ms Hernandez said she had written to the PPSNI and “I’m still waiting and I’m putting pressure on for a decision to be made because it’s not just affecting an individual’s life but the whole police force.”

In her attempt to move the investigation on, Ms Hernandez also said she had asked the chief inspector of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Police Services to write to the PPSNI.

“I really am now hopeful that it should be in the next month or so that I get an answer and that helps me make a decision about what I do next,” she said.

The PPSNI said the file it received in May had been significantly progressed but there was no specific timescale for a decision at this stage.

‘Not really acceptable’

Mr Kerr remains on full pay with an annual salary of £197,000, according to the latest accounts.

Councillor Philip Hackett said the Police and Crime Panel had been told in July that it would be informed of Mr Kerr’s position at the meeting on 4 October.

However in Friday’s meeting the panel was instead told the date had been “pushed [forward] another couple of months”.

He said: “It’s basically been punted into the long grass.

“It’s not really acceptable when resources are so tight.”

Several of England’s cleanest seaside swimming spots deteriorate in autumn and winter, an unpublished government report has found. This includes Summerleaze, Exmouth and Firestone Bay

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.com 

Outside the bathing water season, which runs from the middle of May to September, there is no regular site monitoring for harmful bacteria.

However, campaigners have called for year-round testing because of the growing popularity of cold-water swimming, thanks to advances in wetsuits.

The Times can reveal that the Environment Agency (EA) ran a pilot project of winter water testing at several bathing sites. It found year-round testing was feasible despite challenges, and an internal EA document obtained by Greenpeace’s investigative unit, Unearthed, showed three of six beaches in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset became dirtier in winter.

Water quality at designated swimming spots is rated “excellent”, “good”, “sufficient” or “poor” in summer, depending on the levels of harmful bacteria found by weekly tests.

Exmouth fell from excellent in summer to poor in winter, an unsafe level for swimming, the EA project found. Summerleaze, in Bude, and Firestone Bay, near Plymouth, both dropped from excellent to sufficient. Two beaches stayed the same; one, Lyme Regis, improved from good to excellent.

Jo Bateman, a retired physiotherapist who is a wild swimmer in Exmouth, said: “I just think it’s shocking, but not a surprise. It’s totally unacceptable. People swim all year round, and many people use the water in winter here: kitesurfers, windsurfers, kayakers, rowers.”

Bateman, who is taking legal action against South West Water for a loss of amenity — being unable to swim — due to sewage spills, said monitoring of bathing waters should be extended to winter. “One hundred per cent, it’s essential. To say the bathing water quality is excellent, but it’s only for four months of the year, that’s disingenuous.”

Andy Tyerman, a local resident and member of the campaign group End Sewage Convoys and Poollution Exmouth, said: “We are obviously very disappointed that the results for Exmouth were so poor.” The EA is considering legal action against South West Water over sewage discharges at the town in August, when swimmers were told to stay out of the water.

During the bathing water season officials from the EA take weekly tests for two types of bacteria that cause sickness: intestinal enterococci and E. coli, which are found in faeces. Sewage, manure run-off from fields and birds can all be sources of the pollution. Four years of data are usually used to inform classifications.

At a meeting last month the agency showed little interest in taking water samples all year round, but the water regulator did commission a project that tested waters at the six beaches from last October to March this year.

The aims of the project were to see if winter testing was possible and to gauge how bacteria levels differ in winter, when heavier rain can wash more pollutants down rivers to coastal waters.

The deterioration in winter at Summerleaze, Exmouth and Firestone Bay — the latter designated a bathing water spot only last year — was blamed on greater pollution from rivers. At Exmouth, sewage incidents on the beach were also an issue.

Analysis of the types of bacteria at Firestone Bay indicated the source was roughly half human and half cattle — suggesting a mixture of sewage and agricultural pollution. At Summerleaze and Exmouth, farming appeared to have played a greater role.

Rougher seas in winter meant only 60 per cent of a possible maximum of 174 samples were successfully collected across the six sites. Officials said with extra resources catch-up testing could be done on safer days, allowing a dataset for winter to be produced that was comparable with summer’s.

“This story simply states what surfers and swimmers across the country already know — sewage ain’t seasonal,” Giles Bristow, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, said.

“We demand a water quality testing regime which is based on the reality of how the polluting water industry operates and how people actually use our rivers, lakes and seas. It’s 2024, not 1924.”

South West Water said it was aiming for year-round high water quality at all bathing sites. The company has started going beyond statutory requirements, taking daily samples at 14 swimming spots including Exmouth and Firestone Bay. Richard Price, managing director of waste water services, said: “Bathing water quality in our region remains a priority, and we fully support efforts to better understand conditions across the 157 bathing waters we serve.”

The EA noted that 90 per cent of bathing waters in summer met “good” or “excellent” standards. It is understood to have chosen the six beaches as representative of bathing waters across the country and commissioned the project to see how climate change was affecting beaches.

“During the bathing water season, we take more than 7,000 samples at 451 bathing waters to provide people with water quality information to make informed choices on when and where to swim. We will continue to work closely with the agriculture sector, water companies and local communities to ensure the highest standard of bathing waters for the public,” the agency said.

The Times’ Clean it Up campaign has been demanding great regulatory action and investment to improve the UK’s waters.

Cllr Ged Yardy (Lib Dem, Dartmouth and East Dart) told a full South Hams council meeting: “Their system for compensation is utterly disappointing.

“They are spending money on expensive lawyers to defend compensation cases when they should be just paying up.”

Guy Henderson, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Diagram showing the supply to the Brixham and Kingswear tanks (Image courtesy: South West Water)

South West Water has come under fire again for the way it has responded to the cryptosporidium outbreak that hit South Devon earlier this year.

Thousands of homes in Kingswear and Brixham were told to boil their water before drinking it after the bug got into supplies from a small reservoir nearby. 

The disruption lasted for weeks, with South West Water (SWW) having to hand out tens of thousands of bottles of water to worried households. Dozens of people were made ill by the bug, and several were hospitalised.

The water company has been summoned to a ‘summit’ in the coming weeks to explain the outbreak and what is being done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Cllr Ged Yardy (Lib Dem, Dartmouth and East Dart) told a full South Hams council meeting: “Their system for compensation is utterly disappointing.

“They are spending money on expensive lawyers to defend compensation cases when they should be just paying up.”

And Cllr Jacqi Hodgson (Green, Dartington and Staverton) said the £3.2 billion SWW says it has paid in dividends to shareholders since 1990 could have been better spent on improving the company’s infrastructure.

And, she went on: “All of these public services that we have privatised will spend more on lawyers than on the common decency of paying compensation for what has gone wrong.”
 

‘They have an opportunity to address the housing crisis and have decided not to’

Devon County Council is being accused of betraying local families in desperate need of homes.

Guy Henderson – Local Democracy Reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

County Hall has announced that instead of ‘ring-fencing’ proceeds from doubling council tax on second homes and using it for housing projects, it will spend some of the money on fixing potholes instead.

The announcement sparked fury from South Hams district councillors, who wanted all the cash ploughed back into housing. The area has 4,000 second homes, and the £6.4 million raised is the highest of any district in Devon.

“What the county council is doing is a betrayal of the people of Devon,” said Cllr David Hancock (Lib Dem, South Brent). “They have an opportunity to address what they have declared as a housing crisis, and they have decided not to.”

But South Hams’ full council dropped a call for the extra money raised in the district to be kept there, after hearing that they could drive a better bargain by being more flexible.

Members were voting on a motion brought by Cllr Nicky Hopwood (Con., Woolwell), who said the county council should repair road from its existing budget rather than spending council tax funds.

“I would never have voted for 200 per cent council tax if I thought for one moment that Devon would not ringfence it for affordable housing,” she said. 

She said she was ‘bitterly disappointed’, and went on: “We didn’t raise the council tax to give it to the whole of Devon. We raised it to give it to the South Hams.

“If we can’t keep that money in the South Hams, what’s the point of charging it?”

Council leader Julian Brazil (Lib Dem, Stokenham), who also sits on the county council, said while it would be wrong to demand that the money stay in the South Hams, it was right to say it should stay in the housing budget.

He went on: “This is about the county, having declared a housing crisis, betraying the people of Devon by saying they are going to spend money putting a sticking plaster over potholes in the roads.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest tens of millions of pounds into housing we desperately need.

“Our communities are being hollowed out. They are becoming retirement homes for people from up-country.”

Cllr Jonathan Hawkins (Con, Dartmouth and East Dart) said while communities benefit from money brought in by second home owners, there were streets in Dartmouth and Kingswear which had just one local family living in them all year round.

Families were moving out and relocating to Torbay and Newton Abbot, where they could afford homes.

“It is really soul-destroying,” he said.