EDDC Leader Paul Arnott comments:  “the new government does not appear to know what it is doing and risks doing actual harm – in planning, water & sewage and devolution.” 

Owl recalls this Guardian editorial from 2016 – plus ça change!

Communities…. are reduced to scrabbling for a share of the Treasury’s parachute drop of cash to the city regions. Ministers may talk of a new era of municipal greatness, but it is a hollow sham as long as local authorities lack effective income-raising powers. Unless and until English devolution is reconceived as regions made up from existing counties, cities and boroughs, these arguments will continue, pitting community identity and democracy against economic inequalities and distortions enforced from Whitehall.

How many more decades do we have to wait?

The Guardian view on English local identities: a clash of cash against community

A court case about whether Chesterfield can leave Derbyshire to become part of Sheffield illuminates the inexorable wasting of English local government and identity

Is Derbyshire in the north of England or the Midlands? The question is as old as the redrawing of the map of England following the Norman conquest. But it is no longer such a parochial or academic question as it may seem. Derbyshire’s dilemmas now illuminate what we mean by local democracy and local government in England more generally. That’s because the promotion of English city regions and the money being directed towards the northern powerhouse by the Treasury in London are making a nonsense of historic local identities as well as of England’s long but increasingly derelict traditions of locally rooted democratic municipalism.

Just before Christmas, the high court backed an objection by Derbyshire county council against efforts by Chesterfield, which is in the north of the county, to attach itself to the emerging city region of Sheffield, which comprises Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster, which are all historically part of the various iterations of Yorkshire, its ridings and its more modern subdivisions.

The court did this after Derbyshire complained that if Chesterfield were permitted to redefine itself as part of Sheffield, it would raise the question of whether the county of Derbyshire could be said to exist at all without its second largest town. The county’s case was reinforced by the fact that Chesterfield district has no actual border with Sheffield, from which it is separated by part of the North East Derbyshire district. If Chesterfield were to join Sheffield, it would become an enclave (or, from Sheffield’s viewpoint, an exclave) within its former county. It would be the Nagorno-Karabakh of the east Midlands, leaving the map of Derbyshire resembling nothing so much as a Barbara Hepworth sculpture.

From a financial rather than an identity perspective, Chesterfield’s move makes a certain sort of sense. Faced with continuing financial pressures to cut, sell off or simply abandon swaths of local government services that have existed for generations, English local authorities inevitably clutch at any cash straws they can. The city regions are one of the few straws on offer. They are due to receive £30m in new funding a year and to acquire new freedoms to shape local transport, planning and economic policy.

It is hardly surprising that Chesterfield’s defection was hatched and promoted at the council level, since councillors and council officers are in the frontline of struggling with these austerity-driven realities every day. While the councils did their deal, Chesterfield and Derbyshire opinion was barely considered, the high court ruled, so it must now be properly consulted and taken into account before any decision is taken. An online poll organised by the county council in August, five months after Chesterfield decided to join Sheffield, found 92% of respondents opposed to the move.

That is almost certainly because, for all its proximity to Sheffield, there has never been any serious tradition of Chesterfield regarding itself as part of Greater Sheffield, or of Sheffield seeing Chesterfield as part of South Yorkshire. Chesterfield is today what it has always been, an important town in north-east Derbyshire, famous for the twisted spire of its St Mary’s church, and for having had Tony Benn as its MP in the later period of his parliamentary career. Its possible marriage to the Sheffield city region is overwhelmingly rooted in perceived economic advantage rather than in history or public sentiment. The high court has therefore pitted economic survival against identity and democracy.

The Chesterfield-Sheffield question is of far more than local interest. Local identity matters everywhere. It is tenacious. It runs deeper than the economic or administrative convenience of a bureaucrat’s pen. County identities are medieval in origin but they lurk on in many modern consciousnesses. Ministers mess with them at their peril.

The argument about Derbyshire has only arisen because English local government is in such a desperate state. Austerity in the 2010s is completing the centralisation of local powers begun in the 1980s. Communities like Chesterfield are reduced to scrabbling for a share of the Treasury’s parachute drop of cash to the city regions. Ministers may talk of a new era of municipal greatness, but it is a hollow sham as long as local authorities lack effective income-raising powers. Unless and until English devolution is reconceived as regions made up from existing counties, cities and boroughs, these arguments will continue, pitting community identity and democracy against economic inequalities and distortions enforced from Whitehall.

Guardian Editorial 28 December 2016

East Devon’s most vulnerable residents secured nearly £750,000 in benefits they weren’t claiming and reduced debt levels in just over four months.

Bradley Gerrard, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

Changes to the winter fuel allowance by the government have led to an increased workload for the organisation, with Citizens Advice East Devon boss Dean Stewart stating the first three months of the Labour administration being in power in Westminster had been “fairly busy”.

Mr Stewart told East Devon District Council’s poverty working panel that since July, his organisation had secured nearly three-quarters-of-a-million pounds for residents, either by identifying benefits they were eligible to receive but hadn’t applied for, or through reduced debt burdens.

The winter fuel allowance changes mean that these payments are no longer universal, and are only made to those on pension credit, or other means-tested benefits, such as working tax credit or universal credit.

Mr Stewart said that with just 17 people successfully securing pension credit, those individuals were now receiving a combined £45,000 extra income for the next year.

He added that the charity’s workload had increased as it sought to identify people who qualified for pension credit but were not receiving it, stating that of the 798 clients it saw between July and September, 49 were pension credit-related, with another 38 such cases since then.

The update came as East Devon’s own benefits team said it had phoned 221 households that it thought could be eligible for further benefits than they were claiming.

Sharon Church, a benefits manager at East Devon, said the authority had been making sure that anyone eligible for pension credit, housing benefit, or a council tax reduction, was applying for the benefits relevant to them.

“With rising energy prices, we know a number of pension-age residents will be worrying about heating this winter,” she said.

“If pension credit is awarded to them, then they will get the winter fuel allowance.”

Ms Church added the council had been working with the likes of town and district councils, as well as community groups, to help ensure the take-up of eligible benefits was as high as possible.

She noted that many residents had found the online form to apply for pension credit confusing, given it asks for weekly income rather than monthly.

And she highlighted many were giving up on the calls to the Department for Work and Pensions given waiting times were as long as 45 minutes, adding that some were also being given conflicting information, such as being told they are eligible for pension credit via the online calculator, but then told by phone they were ineligible.

Mr Stewart said that Citizens Advice could help people fill forms in if required.

Our railways here in Devon need investment.

On Tuesday of this week, MPs debated bringing passenger railway services into public ownership.

Richard Foord MP

I think I may share with many people who have written to me about this the following view: I don’t particularly care whether trains are run by the Government or by train operating companies; the main thing is that they run on time!

Late trains are great for business at some of the brilliant cafes, pubs and kitchens on our railway platforms (Axminster comes to mind).

Yet what travellers want above all is to get to their destination.

We have been seeing track upgrades near Honiton lately.

Network Rail has been replacing trains with buses between Axminster and Exeter St Davids for a couple of weeks now.

The trains will finally be running again this Saturday, 23rd November, which is a great relief to all of us for whom the phrase “rail replacement bus service” sends a shudder down the spine.

Of course, track maintenance has to take place.

Yet for those of us who rely on the train service to get to work, college, or a medical appointment, it’s inconvenient when we have to get on a coach, significantly increasing travel time during dark, wet mornings and evenings.

Some rail users in East Devon tell me that they are never quite sure if a train will turn up on time.

Often, the number of carriages is reduced, which means you can end up standing closer to your neighbour than you are comfortable with.

Good luck if you need the toilet on these journeys because it may be blocked by bodies wedged tightly together!

The railways here in the South West have been neglected for years.

The last Conservative government claimed in its dog days that it was cancelling HS2 in order that it might spend the money on other rail projects instead.

If that had been true, it would have been great.

Yet ministers had ploughed billions into HS2, which they later sensationally scrapped, wasting colossal sums of taxpayers’ money.

We could do with some of that money to create an additional loop in the Feniton area, which could improve punctuality on what is otherwise a single-track line.

I raised this with the Rail Minister last December.

I read of trains on the continent, which are clean, run on time, and on which you can be certain of getting a seat.

That description is a long way from the railway we have here.

I am monitoring Government actions following their pledge to improve the reliability of our railways—and I intend to hold them to it.

“My sincere worry…. [is] that on three things which really matter to a district leader the new government does not appear to know what it is doing and risks doing actual harm – in planning, water & sewage and devolution.”

“My old friends want the Labour Party to have more ambition”

Paul Arnott

I took the train up to London last week to celebrate forty years since my casual football team first played a game.

We used to play in something we co-founded called the Phene League, named after the pub in south-west London where we first met with ten other teams to organise fixtures.

Sitting in the Phene Arms bar that night was the late George Best, who was, as was his habit, genially drunk, an addiction which tragically cost him an early death.

Despite this maudlin backdrop, we hired the upper room of the pub.

Our skipper, my best friend, had found a few old photos in his attic, in which I, a free-scoring, slim, dark-haired striker appeared.

I am no longer any of those things, but it was that kind of evening, full of laughter but of course reflection.

When you enter your seventh decade, it turns out that friends who did not seem to have much promise in their early twenties are beginning to retire, some from pretty interesting careers.

Forty years ago, the last thing anyone would have wanted to discuss was government.

I’m not sure we would even have known what it was.

But a couple of them, to my astonishment, were more than happy to buttonhole me on the subject of devolution.

In short, the new government has signalled its resolute will to create huge mayoral authorities to follow the example of Manchester and the West Midlands.

And that the bigger the population, the better, and easier it will be to negotiate directly with the central government to fund the major infrastructure work we all know is needed nationwide.

Our left back had worked at the heart of New Labour all the way through to Gordon Brown’s downfall and is a successful businessman in his own right.

Labour is in his blood.

Our strolling central midfielder is now senior advisor to a proposed devolution deal in the Midlands, also Labour to the tips of his toes.

Huddled at the end of the table, the three of us chatted, and I offered my sincere worry that on three things which really matter to a district leader the new government does not appear to know what it is doing and risks doing actual harm – in planning, water & sewage and devolution.

The latter is because nobody seems to have a clue if Devon will end up in a mayoral unit with Cornwall when Cornwall is saying no thank you – loudly.

Or do we join with Somerset and Dorset instead, leaving the door open for Cornwall one day?

My Labour friends astonished me.

They openly said that the problem was that Keir Starmer was so focused on winning the election that he was not interested in policy.

Tony Blair Gordon Brown and the other big beasts had spent five years before winning in 1997 and came in with over 250 policies, only three of which they did not implement.

In these early months of Downing Street in 2024, they are having to conjure policy from thin air.

It shows.

By the end of this month, the devolution white paper is due.

I wish it well.

This will be a major moment for the new government, and from Devon’s perspective, I will be working with other leaders in districts and at the county to make sure we negotiate the best outcome for local people.

Let’s see.