Sarah Randall Johnson, dubbed “Scandal” Johnson by Private Eye, has announced through the Midweek Herald that she will be standing down from Devon County Council after 30 years as a councillor.

She will be remembered for two “achievements”: her pursuit of “development led” growth during her nine years from 2001 to 2011 as Leader of East Devon District Council (EDDC); and  her pursuit of closures of community hospitals as Chair of the Devon Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee.

In 2017 Owl’s predecessor wrote about how her political career stalled in County after her defeat in the District by Claire Wright, despite having been a District Leader for nine years:

“Randall-Johnson was Diviani’s predecessor as Leader of EDDC (until being ignominiously trounced by Claire Wright in local elections) but has failed to rise to such a dizzy height again at DCC (and may – or may not – have scuppered her chances of ever doing so with her recent behaviour).

Until her recent appointment as Chairman of the Health Scrutiny Committee she had to content herself with appointments to the DCC Pensions Board, East Highways and Traffic Orders Committee, East Devon Locality (County) Committee and the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority.

And few of us can forget that she was the unsuccessful “Cameron’s Cuties” competitor for the Tory Totnes seat won by Sarah Wollaston.”

Taking a longer view of her chequered political career, Owl would also give her full credit for galvanising the opposition to, and eventual defeat of, her style of conservatism in East Devon. 

Her nine years coincided with a rising feeling that EDDC, under her leadership, lacked transparency, accountability and was rotten at the core. 

For example, between 2004-13 EDDC subsidised a lobby group of developers and landowners, the East Devon Business Forum, that had a disproportionate influence on planning policy and decisions in the district.

In 2005 she oversaw a key appointment, that of Karime Hassan as Corporate Director (he had come from Exeter City Council in 2002). Together they set up the Exeter and East Devon Growth Point, the forerunner to the creation of the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP). 

They also foisted unpopular regeneration plans across the seaside towns: Exmouth (Ocean bowling alley and Elizabeth Hall), Budleigh (Longboat), Sidmouth (Knowle) and Seaton (Tesco and others). Furthermore, EDDC started devising a local plan based on high population growth assumptions and imposing significant housing in inappropriate areas from Cranbrook to Feniton.

These decisions taken on Randall Jonson’s watch haunt us today.

In February 2011 Karime Hassan rejoined Exeter City Council as the Director of Economy and Development after about six months of sharing his time between Exeter and East Devon before, controversially,  being appointed both Chief Executive and Growth Director of Exeter City Council in 2013.

It was in 2012, a year after Sarah Randall Johnson was rejected by the voters, that Graham Brown, former Chair of the said Business Forum, was caught on camera and named offering to obtain planning permission for cash in a nationwide Telegraph sting. After a lot of prevarication Brown resigned in 2013. A formal investigation was kicked into the long grass. We now know something very similar happened one year later, when the first alerts over safeguarding with regard to John Humphreys were made at County in 2014. John Humphreys was convicted of historic rape and jailed in 2021. 

As a result, across the District, like minded individuals from disaffected groups coalesced to form the East Devon Alliance in 2013. Its aim was to hold EDDC to account and encourage and support independent candidates to stand for election. Candidates signed up to a set of core beliefs and the Nolan principles. 

Ultimately this grass roots movement bore fruit. In 2011 the EDDC Tory councillors numbered 43, in 2015 it fell to 36 and in 2019 their majority was wiped out as their numbers fell further to 19 (out of 60). Although a minority they formed a coalition which fell apart within the year and the Tories finally lost control in 2020.

Part of this opposition was the creation of blog sites to publicise these “goings on” in EDDC, in the absence of effective scrutiny. The Sidmouth Independent News (SIN) started in 2012 and the broader based “East Devon Watch” followed in 2014. 

Letter from Martin Shaw: Seaton’s hospital was left vulnerable to proposals

Midweek Letters www.midweekherald.co.uk

Councillor Sara Randall-Johnson tells your reporter that she regrets that more wasn’t done to improve health outcomes during her eight years as chair of the Devon Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee.

She blames NHS waiting lists on the Covid lockdowns, but they were already ballooning before the pandemic, as a result of the cuts to the NHS by the Conservative government which she supported.

Cllr Randall-Johnson will always be remembered in Seaton for her 2017 vote to block government scrutiny of the decision to strip our community hospital of its beds, which sealed the fate of our campaign.

This left the hospital, paid for by local donations, vulnerable to the new proposals to partially demolish it which came in 2023 – which we are still working to overcome.

Martin Shaw
Seaton