The parliamentary register of interests shows David Reed received £5K, on 2 August 2024, from 3West Group, the Woodbury based developers of Goodmores Farm Exmouth!

On Monday David Reed MP asked questions in Parliament about EDDC’s failure to plan infrastructure for development of tens of thousands of homes.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST DAVID REED?

Did he declare this at the beginning or his speech in the house on 7 April [Not according to Hansard] or just assume it was OK because it’s recorded in the parliamentary register of interests, so everyone, including his constituents, are bound to know?

Like Jupp’s move to SSW’s parent company Pennon; it’s all within the rules, but it smells.

Here is David Reed’s link to his oral question.

Here is the text of his question from Hansard:

In my constituency of Exmouth and Exeter East, the Lib Dem local council is proposing to build tens of thousands of new homes with little thought for corresponding infrastructure. I have spoken to local councillors, and they believe they have no agency in this process and central Government are telling them what to do. What more can be done to ensure that local authorities are held accountable for their decisions?

Let Owl put the record straight.

Overall Housing Targets

It’s not this council that wants to build “tens of thousands” of new homes it’s the toxic consequence of an historic local plan Tory legacy and the “build at any cost” Labour Government.

It is well recorded in the “Watch” how Paul Diviani, alongside the faithful Philip Skinner, were the architects and driving force behind the EDDC “Build, build, build” strategy from 2005 to 2020. It resulted in the current Local Plan having a development target of 950 houses/year, based on an aggressive “jobs led policy on” scenario.  Where studies showed only around 580 houses/year would be required to satisfy demographic and normal migration growth trends. 

This is an uplift of 370 or 64% on what is strictly necessary and is the target that the current EDDC coalition has inherited. It is the basis on which the government thinks reasonable to set its own growth strategy.

Goodmores Farm is a good example of how a council’s hands are tied once it grants outline planning permission. Seeking outline planning permission has become common practice. In this case it was the outgoing Tory Council that granted outline permission which the incoming coalition were unable to control. For example, along the line, the targets for affordable housing fell from 25% to just 5% as the developer pleaded, successfully, that it would be “economically unviable” to proceed with the higher figure. There now appears to be £5K left for David Reed.

Here are some quotes from councillors at the time:

“The scheme won’t win awards for the layouts”

“Of all the sites, this is the runt of the litter” 

“It is everywhere houses in an everywhere town.” 

“This flagship new housing development says to many younger people seeking a first house, ‘You are not welcome here’.”

So a question for you David Reed is what infrastructure is your sponsor 3Ways Group planning?

Infrastructure

Not all infrastructure is provided by EDDC. Highways is an example; think how long has Exmouth waited for the Dinan Way extension?

The provision of adequate sewage treatment is another classic example. The problem local authorities have is that, although they are the planning authority, they can’t successfully defend an appeal against planning rejection on the grounds of inadequate sewage capacity unless supported by the Environment Agency (e.g. phosphate levels in the Axe) or South West Water.

SWW rarely claim they can’t deliver the required resources – indeed they promised new capacity for Cranbrook which never materialised.

It is also worth noting that the government of the day (Labour) insisted the planning for the new town of Cranbrook should be developer-led including the town center, schools, medical clinics etc.

Building Affordable Housing

Build enough houses and the developers will cross subsidise the building “affordables

That’s the theory but it hasn’t worked in East Devon.

Having gained planning permission on a promise to deliver a certain number of affordables, developers frequently claim later that “viability assessments” mean that they have to reduce the number.

Notorious local examples include Goodmores Farm (25% down to 5%), Evan’s Field in Budleigh (30 houses to 5) and Cranbrook. (67 houses 28% of total reduced to 44 just 18% when EDDC’s policy target is 25% in one zone, and 26% reduced to zero in another).

Who is happy to stick their election posters by the Goodmores site?

Owl would love to become a fly on the wall for such an event!

David Reed has always advocated a softer “on the same page” approach in tackling the local sewage problem with South West Water. Today, Owl posts a correspondent’s frustration at the lack of progress this approach is having.

In the light of his predecessor’s defection to take a job with South West Water’s parent company, Pennon Group (see below), this phrase takes on a whole new meaning.

Owl has heard whispers that David Reed’s second “on the same page” meeting is scheduled for this Thursday 10 April, included are: the Environment Agency, South West Water, Exmouth Town Council, Clinton Devon Estates and possibly ESCAPE (if they are on the same page) .

Definitely excluded, because they’re not “on the same page”, are EDDC, despite EDDC environmental officers having a formal role in every incident.

What if Simon Jupp, David Reed’s predecessor as Tory MP for East Devon, were to turn up?

“Hello David I’m here with the team to talk about working with communities across the region on our future development plans……….”

Can anyone in East Devon now trust a Tory on pollution?

For those not up with the background see: Simon Jupp takes job with owner of water firm he “denounced” – the https://eastdevonwatch.org/2025/04/07/breaking-simon-jupp-takes-job-with-owner-of-water-firm-he-denounced-the-whole-thing-stinks/whole thing stinks!

Owl received this letter a week ago – it now, as his predecessor joins South West Water, seems a particularly pertinent moment to publish it.

Dear Owl, 

In the run up to the general election, I had canvassers come and visit me from our three main political parties: Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats. 

The canvasser on behalf of the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Exmouth and Exeter East understandably spoke highly of the candidate. He stated that David Reed was a former marine who had served the country and was ready to serve his constituents. 

I retained all of the election leaflets as I was determined that whoever was elected, I would hold them to account. 

David Reed’s leaflets:

They make very interesting reading in hindsight.  

“From ending sewage pollution…” I can’t see any results yet.  

*  He has answered constituent’s letters. 

*  He has met with the CEO of South West Water.

*  He has hosted a meeting at Exmouth Town Hall. 

*  He has given comments to Helen Dollimore for her to ask the CEO of South West Water at a recent select committee.

*  He has contributed to the Housing Development Planning Water Companies debate on 12th March. 

BUT HE HAS NOT ENDED SEWAGE POLLUTION!

In the Autumn, Exmouth Town Council wrote to Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment for Food and Rural Affairs inviting him to Exmouth to discuss sewage. I haven’t seen anything to suggest that David Reed has followed this up, or anything in the public domain about the Secretary of State for Environment for Food and Rural Affairs coming to Exmouth. 

“Pushing back on overdevelopment …” 

*  He has contributed to the Housing Development Planning Water Companies debate on 12th March. 

*  He has written articles in the local press about it. 

*  He has wriitten on social media about it. 

31st March, 2025: “Our home cannot accept this lack of joined up thinking, and I will not let this happen on my watch.”

The MP for Exmouth and Exeter East is at a disadvantage to “influence government”  because his party is now in opposition. In the run up to the general election, I’m sure many people enlightened him and his canvassers why they no longer would vote Conservative. 

I’m certain that  many of the constituents in Exmouth and Exeter East, to the right and left of the Conservative Party are wanting their MP to end sewage and over development. 

COULD THE MP FOR EXMOUTH AND EXETER EAST ENLIGHTEN HIS CONSTITUENTS ABOUT WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO TO STOP THIS HAPPENING ON HIS WATCH?

Yours sincerely, 

An Exmouth and Exeter East constituent who would like their MP to end sewage and over development

Richard Foord MP who beat Simon Jupp to take the new seat of Honiton and Sidmouth said: “The water industry is broken, and this is yet another example of just how broken the system is. Frankly, the whole thing stinks …..The revolving door between water companies, regulators and government has to come to an end.”

Jupp has scrubbed his social media profile on X, which previously contained criticism of South West Water.

Former Tory MP takes job with owner of water firm he criticised

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.com 

A former Tory MP who called South West Water’s track record “shameful” has joined its parent company in a move that campaigners said was a case of “poacher turned gamekeeper”.

Simon Jupp, the MP for East Devon until he lost his seat in the general election, had been a vocal critic of the water firm, which serves Devon, Cornwall and small areas of Dorset and Somerset.

After thousands of people in Brixham, Devon, were told to boil their water after the discovery of a parasite in supplies last year, Jupp lambasted South West Water for “unacceptable” behaviour. He also called for a criminal investigation into sewage spilt by the firm at Exmouth in Devon. The former politician has now taken a role at the Pennon Group, the owner of South West Water.

Jupp heavily criticised South West Water after a parasite was found in water supplies last year

Jupp repeatedly boasted of holding the company to account and said he would ensure its pollution was “met with the full force of the law”, adding: “I am determined to push South West Water to deliver the standards expected by local residents, visitors and businesses.” His new role is in Pennon’s regional development team, working with communities across the region.

“The water industry is broken, and this is yet another example of just how broken the system is. Frankly, the whole thing stinks,” said Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat MP for Honiton & Sidmouth, which was created in part from the East Devon constituency Jupp once held. Foord added: “The revolving door between water companies, regulators and government has to come to an end.”

The Drinking Water Inspectorate, a water regulator, is yet to report its findings into the outbreak of the waterborne parasite cryptosporidium last May. Susan Davy, the chief executive of South West Water, recently called the Brixham incident “devastating” and apologised.

Environment Agency figures released last week showed that South West Water discharged raw sewage into waterways for longer than any other company last year. It was spilt from storm overflows for a total of 544,439 hours.

“We have got our programme in place to eliminate pollutions — that is when things go wrong on our system — to make sure we can eliminate those. And then for storm overflows, we have got our 15-year programme to take those flows out of the system so that we can reduce impacts to the environment,” Davy recently told MPs.

Since stepping down as an MP, Jupp has scrubbed his social media profile on X, which previously contained criticism of South West Water.

“This is the latest episode in the farce where politicians and regulators ditch principles and public duty to chase personal gain,” said James Wallace, chief executive of the charity River Action. “Just like the ex-head of [the water regulator] Ofwat taking a job in Thames Water, we see a gamekeeper MP turn water company poacher, conveniently wiping out past misdemeanours to suit a new narrative where the lines between public servant and private profiteer blur. This is how regulatory capture occurs.”

The Times’s Clean it Up campaign is calling for action by companies, government and regulators to tackle pollution in the nation’s rivers and seas.

South West Water declined to comment. Jupp was contacted for comment.

Is Phil Twiss’ campaign in such serious trouble that Alison Hernandez has to politicise her Police Commissioner role so blatantly to provide him with her selfie skills?

Phil is the outgoing County Cabinet Member for finance and the Tories will be desperate not to lose him on May Day.

But can Alison really afford to spend the time from her failing “day job”?

When Alison canvassed three years ago in the by-election called after the sad death of Val Ranger in Newton Poppleford, her presence was also called into question. Then she would seem to have been a liability as the Tory candidate tanked garnering only a paltry 113 votes.

Her success rating must surely have sunk even further since then.

There is the not insignificant issue of us having to pay for three Chief Constables just to have one in post.

The force has been subject to a series of adverse reports from the Police Inspectorate and even placed into “special measures” in 2022.

A couple of weeks ago her own office published a follow-up report, which covers the year to March 2024, identifying several ways in which the Devon and Cornwall Police force has failed to meet statutory requirements.

These include “failing to consistently notify” the police and crime commissioner’s office of complaints that require more than twelve months to resolve, and a “complete failure” to notify it of the outcomes of more serious allegations made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

The report also identifies a “number of wider, systemic concerns about the timeliness and quality of the force’s complaint handling, starting from the initial handling of complaints on first receipt, ongoing quality of contact with the complainant, timeliness and quality assurance of complaint investigations, and consistency and quality of outcomes”.

A couple of weeks ago she hit the air waves blaming the quality of police staff to explain the adverse report.

But Owl can reveal that this is is not the full story.

“The report also shows that her office, which handles appeals against the outcome of complaints and the way complaints were handled, itself completed only 108 such appeals during 2023-24, a third fewer than in 2022-23, and took significantly longer to do so than before.” (Source)

Perhaps things would improve if she stopped wasting her energies on these partisan, selfie, expeditions.

As you are out and about in the market towns of Devon in this election period ask yourself this question: who are you most likely to see a police officer or the Independent Police Commissioner?

“The council wants to create 1,000 new businesses, a 20 per cent increase in productivity, help 5,000 people into work, bring 50 buildings back into use and lift 3,000 people out of poverty.”

Ambitious talk, reminds Owl of our now defunct “Heart of the South West” Local Enterprise Partnership, but if it has government money?

Government officials attend cabinet meeting

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

Government agency Homes England wants to replicate its partnership with Plymouth across the country.

A £50 million revamp of the derelict Civic Centre is to be the centre of a project to regenerat the city centre and build 10,000 new homes.

Homes England looks likely to stump up nearly half the cash.

The homes will be delivered alongside a number of council-led projects already taking place including a community diagnostics centre at Colin Campbell Court and work on Armada Way, both costing around £30 million each.

Work will begin on the 14-storey Civic Centre tower later this year to provide a marine and green skills hub for City College Plymouth in the basement and first two floors, and 144 flats above which won’t be for students.

The college is expected to open the campus in September 2029, training up to 2,000 students a year and running 60 new courses. It wants to help create highly skilled workers and see wages rise in Plymouth, where the average salary is currently £4,000 below the national average.

Housebuilding will begin once sites have been acquired by the council and planning permission given, with areas of Armada Way, the West End and Millbay all on the wishlist for redevelopment.

The council wants to create a city centre on a scale like Manchester and Liverpool, where thousands of people live in the centre and enjoy its night-time economy and amenities. Fewer than 1,000 people live in the centre of Plymouth at the moment.

Officials from Homes England and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government who attended a council cabinet meeting this week praised Plymouth’s ambition for the city centre.

Interim chief executive officer of Homes England Eamonn Boylan told councillors he was delighted to be involved in a partnership that included the council, City College, Babcock International and the Royal Navy.

Babcock’s Devonport facility, which refits submarines, needs to attract 5,500 employees over the next 10 years to sustain its core defence workforce, and a further 2,000 construction workers to deliver an infrastructure contract.

The government recognises Plymouth’s role in defence and that more homes are needed for workers.

Mr Boylan said: “The partnership between Plymouth City Council and your other partners and the agency (Homes England) is an exemplar that we want to see replicated across the country.”

He continued: “We need quality affordable housing that meet the needs of the community, homes for current residents and homes to accommodate the predicted growth. Together we can build a better future for Plymouth, one home at a time.”

Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans (Lab, Ham) said he could not think of another time in the last 50 years when Plymouth had such an opportunity to “drive transformational change” and “to improve outcomes for our residents and with better homes”.

He said the city was at an “economic tipping point” with a £6 billion investment pipeline, which includes £4.5 billion for defence.

The council wants to create 1,000 new businesses, a 20 per cent increase in productivity, help 5,000 people into work, bring 50 buildings back into use and lift 3,000 people out of poverty.

“Chancellor Rachel Reeves mentioned Plymouth last week in the context of large-scale national defence, explaining how it will underpin economic growth locally and nationally, the important role we now play is on the record,” said Cllr Evans.

“This is just the beginning of realising our ambition for Plymouth. Plymouth’s time has well and truly come.”

Over the last two years, Homes England has provided funding to support Plymouth’s vision, and will acquire sites where progress has stalled, if necessary.

Cabinet members approved to acquire the freehold of the Civic Centre from developer Urban Splash for £1 and noted the funding package which includes more than £17 million of borrowing.

A £20 million grant from Homes England will be subject to the agency’s formal approval.
 

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

UK housebuilders ‘very bad’ at building houses, says wildlife charity CEO

Housebuilders in the UK are failing to supply much-needed new homes not because of restrictive planning laws, but because they are “very bad” at building houses, the head of one of the UK’s biggest nature charities has warned.

Fiona Harvey www.theguardian.com 

“There’s planning permission today for a million new houses,” said Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts. “So why aren’t they being built? Why is it that volume housebuilders in this country are actually very bad at building houses, even when they’ve got planning permission?”

Ministers have boasted of their swingeing reforms to the planning system – in a bill that passed its second reading last week – claiming they will clear the way for the 1.5m new homes promised in the Labour manifesto.

But Bennett believes this hope will be in vain because the government is missing the point. “[The reason so few homes are built] is because they [the large housebuilders] love to hold land and wait for the prices to up. A lot of the way that a lot of housebuilders in this country make money is through speculation around land prices, as much as it is about building houses.”

Housebuilders rejected Bennett’s analysis. Steve Turner, an executive director of the Home Builders Federation, said: “Housebuilders deliver a range of high-quality environmentally friendly house types to meet all budgets, and customer satisfaction levels are at an all time high. The myth of land banking has been demolished time and again by independent experts. Housebuilders’ only return on investment is selling homes, and having purchased land and navigated the costly and bureaucratic planning process there is absolutely no reason not to build and sell.”

Bennett will mark five years in April as head of the Wildlife Trusts, a confederation of 46 independent organisations which together boast 2,600 nature reserves (“about 1,000 more than McDonald’s has restaurants”) and 944,000 members. Before that, he headed Friends of the Earth.

The Wildlife Trusts, as a charity, are careful to avoid being party political, but within Charity Commission guidelines there is still scope for civil society groups to take issue with the politicians of the day.

And planning regulation – and the supposed conflict between development and environmental protection – has become a political flashpoint. Green groups have accused the Labour government of “scapegoating” nature and fomenting culture wars, after Rachel Reeves, chancellor of the exchequer, called for businesses to “focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about the bats and the newts”. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has also weighed in, ridiculing the presence of “the distinguished jumping spider” for allegedly halting new homes in Kent.

The government’s combative rhetoric has been informed, Bennett believes, not by careful consideration of the UK’s infrastructural deficits, but by a mixture of a “misinformation bubble”, in which top ministers have absorbed some prejudices of the previous Conservative government, and a belief that they need to set up an enemy to fix on.

Reeves was sounding “more Liz Truss than Liz Truss” on the growth issue, he added, referring to the former Tory prime minister who espoused anti-green rhetoric more often heard from US rightwing politicians. He blames Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief adviser, for a fixation on the Reform party, which threatens Labour in seats across the “red wall”.

Reform’s leaders, Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, have been vitriolic in their condemnation of environmentalists, green concerns over nature and “stupid net zero”, as described by Tice. But Bennett pointed to a survey of 4,000 people’s attitudes towards green issues, which found that Labour voters who were thinking of switching to Reform were overwhelmingly positive towards the Wildlife Trusts. “There’s a lot of the kind of Reform voters who care passionately about this. People who live in the Westminster bubble assume that what the party leadership are doing is what the voters are doing. It’s quite different.”

He has extended invitations to Farage, Tice and the Reform party to meet and discuss these issues. So far, they have not been taken up.

Bennett argues that new housing could sit alongside nature, if housebuilders were given greater direction by the government and built affordable homes instead of the larger and more expensive “executive” homes that deliver higher profits. But he said the poor construction of many new houses, and the failure of developers to build in harmony with nature and incorporate green space, were among the reasons people rejected them.

Bennett added that charities such as the Wildlife Trusts created economic growth while improving society. “We’re now employing 3,700 people across the UK in those communities,” he said. “I get a bit fed up at times when politicians talk about charities as if we’re just like small little things. We are actually really significant employers.” Bennett added that in many areas, wildlife charities “underpin the local economy”, providing tourism opportunities, flood management and employment.

Labour disparaged nature at its peril, Bennett said, arguing that all voters cared about nature on their doorstep. He said: “I see people from every demographic, political [party] or age. The one thing that unites us is how much we care about our local environment, and care about local nature, and want to see it in a better state.”

Owl is hearing from a variety of sources that a number of local Tory candidates are having to be parachuted into county “divisions” well away from their home territory to give reform a run for their money in May’s county elections.

So far the list of those who have successfully completed their “jump” includes:

Brian Bailey of Exmouth set to contest Broadclyst (Currently EDDC councillor for Exmouth, Littleham)

Jenny Brown of Honiton set to contest Axminster (Currently EDDC councillor for Honiton St. Michael’s)

Ben Ingham of Exmouth/Lympstone (in many ways the most experienced jumper of them all) set to contest Seaton (Currently EDDC councillor for Woodbury and Lympstone)