Street cleaning services in East Devon could be hit as the council attempts to balance its budget for the forthcoming financial year.   

Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

Officers at Streetscene, which cleans and maintains public spaces in East Devon including parks, public gardens and council-owned toilets, say an additional £285,000 is needed to meet the demand for its services. 

But in a draft budget brought forward to the council’s cabinet it was suggested that the costs could be simply unaffordable. 

The extra money for Streetscene would be spent on 11 more employees. Officers at Streetscene say that demand has ‘increased greatly’ over the past few years ‘with a notable uplift in visitors and tourism, and an exponential rise in housing developments across the district such as Cranbrook, meaning more residents and use of our towns, parks, beaches, and public spaces’. 

The officers say that there has been no additional investment in staffing for a decade because of Government austerity measures, adding ‘at the same time demand, population and strain on our services has increased’. 

Last year demand for seafront cleaning alone rose by 29 per cent. 

Councillor Geoff Jung (Independent East Devon Alliance, Democratic Alliance Group, Woodbury and Lympstone), portfolio holder for coast, country and environment, said: “We are only going to be able to supply the minimum service that people expect. If we could have had some more funds we could have looked at improving Streetscene and providing an improved service to our residents and it’s a great shame that all we’re doing at the moment is holding our head above the waterline.” 

Councillor Steve Gazzard (Liberal Democrats, Democratic Alliance Group, Exmouth Withycombe Raleigh) wanted people to be made aware if Streetscene services are on course to deteriorate. He said: “We really must let the residents know because it’s going to be the councillors who are elected who are going to take it in the neck if things get worse.” 

East Devon’s cabinet is expected to discuss the financial issues facing Streetscene in greater depth.  

The 2022/3 financial year begins in April, and the budget will be finalised by the council over the coming months. It is already expected that car parking fees at 19 ‘prime’ locations will rise from £1 to £1.50 and that residents will have to pay an additional £5 a year for East Devon’s element of council tax for a band D property. 

Selaine Saxby MP North Devon speaks passionately in debate organised by Tim Farron MP.

Minister of State Christopher Pincher promises to close a loophole “as soon as we can” and to introduce a tourist accommodation registration scheme “so that we can build an understanding of the evidence and the issues that second homes present“. Ah the evidence base!

“Westminster Hall” debates (actually conducted in the Grand Committee Room next to it) started in 1999. In contrast to the two main chambers, the room is laid out in a horseshoe shape. These debates give MPs an opportunity to raise local or national issues and receive a response from a government minister. The motions are general, neutrally worded, e.g. “That this House has considered the matter of second homes and holiday lets in rural communities.” There is no vote for or against.

There is a formal batting order, which makes it relatively easy to skim the transcript (see here) for the salient points:

• the MP whose debate it is to make an opening speech
• backbenchers
• frontbencher from the third largest party to sum up
• frontbencher from the official Opposition to sum up
• the minister to respond
• the MP whose debate it is to sum up (if there’s time)

In this case, the debate was opened by Tim Farron Lib Dem (Environment and Rural affairs plus Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Selaine Saxby MP for North Devon made a strong case for the impact not just in her constituency but in Devon and Cornwall. (See text below).

Many constructive points were made on what could be done by the formal opposition shadow speakers: Patricia Gibson SNP as “third party” speaker (who mentioned the problems of Cornwall as well as Scotland) and Matthew Pennycock Labour shadow Housing, Communities and Local Government who referred back to Selaine Saxby. E.g. Devolve more  powers to local councils, increased supplement on second home stamp  duties and the  need for planning permission for change of use. (Easy to find at the end of the full transcript.)

The Ministerial reply from Minister of State Christopher Pincher was rather predictable, placing emphasis on the need to build, build, build and on the “Help to Buy” and “First Homes” schemes.

He stressed that the government has committed to close the loophole in the business rate system: “we will introduce our proposals to close that loophole as soon as we can”.

He also mentioned reforming the planning system and introducing a new infrastructure levy as in some way helping.

He went on: “I can confirm that we propose to consult on the introduction of a tourist accommodation registration scheme in England so that we can build an understanding of the evidence and the issues that second homes present, particularly when driven by the rise of online platforms such as Airbnb. We will launch that consultation later this year and will begin the process of a call for evidence in the coming weeks”. (aka: “kicking into the long grass”).

As Tim Farron replied: “I welcome the review that the Minister talked about. That is all good—but it is all we got. I was not overwhelmed by a tidal wave of urgency—in fact, quite the opposite. In the seconds that I have left, I want to say to the Minister that inaction is action. It is action on behalf of those who own multiple homes against our communities. I want to see an awful lot more than we have seen today. By the time a part of what we proposed is looked at in a review, which will take years because they always do, there will be another 32% [rise in one year in the number of holiday lets in one Lakeland District] and then another 32%, and the communities at risk of dying that I talked about earlier will be actually dead. We need urgency right now, so I ask for further meetings immediately. The Minister talks about the planning rules, but how about letting national parks pilot the differential in planning use categories? That, at least, would be a start, to demonstrate that it could be possible. I am disappointed by the lack of urgency, but I am grateful for the opportunity.”

Tim Farron Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Communities and Local Government), Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Extract from Opening Speech

….I have been calling for the Government to take action from the very beginning, so I confess to being frustrated and angry that Ministers have yet to do anything meaningful to tackle the problem. As a result, many of us living in rural communities feel ignored, abandoned and taken for granted by the Government, and we stand together today as rural communities to declare that we will not be taken for granted one moment longer.

In South Lakeland, the average house price is 11 times greater than the average household income. Families on low or middle incomes, and even those on reasonably good incomes, are completely excluded from the possibility of buying a home. Although the local council in South Lakeland has enabled the building of more than 1,000 new social rented properties, there are still more than 3,000 families languishing on the housing waiting list. Even before the pandemic, at least one in seven houses in my constituency was a second home—a bolthole or an investment for people whose main home is somewhere else.

In many towns and villages, such as Coniston, Hawkshead, Dent, Chapel Stile and Grasmere, the majority of properties are now empty for most of the year. Across the Yorkshire Dales, much of which is in Cumbria and in my constituency, more than a quarter of the housing stock in the national park is not lived in. In Elterwater in Langdale, 85% of the properties are second homes. Without a large enough permanent population, villages just die. The school loses numbers and then closes. The bus service loses passengers, so it gets cut. The pub loses its trade, the post office loses customers and the church loses its congregation, so they close too. Those who are left behind are isolated and often impoverished in communities whose life has effectively come to an end……

…During the pandemic, I have spoken to many local estate agents across our county. Around 80% of all house sales during the past two years have been in the second home market. Those who have the money to do so are rethinking their priorities, investing in the rising value of property and seeking a piece of the countryside to call their own, and we can kind of understand that. I do not wish to demonise anybody with a second home, or to say that there are no circumstances in which it is okay to have one, but let me be blunt: surely, someone’s right to have a second home must not trump a struggling family’s right to have any home, yet in reality, apparently it does. Every day that the Government fail to act is another day that they are backing those who are lucky enough to have multiple homes against those who cannot find any home in the lakes, the dales or any other rural community in our country…..

Selaine Saxby Conservative, North Devon 1:59 pm, 6th January 2022

Speech in full:

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank Tim Farron for securing this important debate.

I feel like a stuck record for raising the issue of second homes in North Devon again. My constituency is not just rural but coastal, and many of the issues described by hon. Members are exacerbated many times over on the coast, where we have only the sea to draw on for extra residents or houses. Therefore, down the south-west peninsula, in both Devon and Cornwall, MPs have been highlighting this issue ever since I was elected. Although the pandemic has seen a perfect storm, resulting in a rush to purchase second homes in beautiful locations or to convert properties to short-term holiday lets, it is not a new problem. I was contacted during the 2019 general election campaign by the Croyde Area Residents Association, which was concerned even then that second homes accounted for 64% of properties in the stunning surf village of Croyde.

The issues around second homes are well documented with regards to a shortage of affordable properties for local residents. In the past year of the pandemic, we have also seen many evictions of local residents who have rented their homes for many years, so that owners can convert their properties to short-term holiday lets. North Devon has always welcomed second-homers and those visiting our beautiful coast in short-term holiday lets, but what we are now seeing is unsustainable, and we need action to address the problem before we become a complete ghost coast.

Like me, North Devon Council has written numerous times to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and now to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on this matter. In its most recent letter, North Devon Council detailed the following concerns about the critical situation facing our housing market. Average house prices in North Devon have increased by 22.5% in the past 12 months—the second-highest rise in England. There has been a 67% reduction in listings for permanent rental properties in 12 months—the highest reduction in the south-west, and the fourth highest nationally. There has been a 33% increase in the number of people on the housing register in 12 months, a 21% increase in the number of dwellings registered for business rates for holiday lets over 24 months, and a 7.5% increase in the number of second homes in just 12 months.

The number of properties advertised for permanent rental via Rightmove, compared with those available for Airbnb, really highlights the issue. Many of us had hoped the problem would have passed by the end of the summer, but at the start of November in Barnstaple, the main town in my constituency, there were 126 Airbnbs and two private rentals. In Ilfracombe, there were over 300 Airbnbs and three private rentals. In Lynton, there were 104 Airbnbs. In Woolacombe, there were 196 Airbnbs but not a single private rental on Rightmove.

The council’s housing staff are now dealing with a huge increase in the number of people presenting as homeless, and they have also seen a major shift in the type of people asking for assistance. These people are homeless simply because they are forced to present as such, as they have been evicted by landlords who wish to convert their properties from private residential use to short-term holiday use. Given the numbers I have mentioned, it is impossible for them to find alternative accommodation on the open market. I want to take this opportunity to thank the housing team at North Devon Council for their tireless work in trying to help families who find themselves in an incredibly difficult and stressful situation through no fault of their own.

Although tourism is a major part of the North Devon economy, the lack of housing available for permanent residential use is starting to have a major impact on the lives of far too many residents, as well as on local businesses and public services such as health and education, which are struggling to recruit because of the lack of housing and which are also suffering from existing staff leaving the area because of eviction and the lack of affordable housing. Major employers in North Devon have indicated that the lack of available housing is now being considered when deciding whether to invest in the area. Local schools and colleges, and the health service, cannot recruit quality staff because of the lack of housing. Even our much-loved North Devon District Hospital is struggling to find accommodation for just the handful of new students that started there this year.

The recent shift from permanent residential to holiday use, and the substantial increase in house prices, means not only that a permanent home is out of reach for many people living and working in the area. Public attitudes to new house building have also changed. Virtually every housing scheme in North Devon, particularly the larger ones, is meeting substantial opposition from the community, with many objectors citing fears that the properties will become second homes or holiday lets, and that they will invariably be unaffordable for local residents. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that viability challenges raised by developers mean that on average only around 20% of new homes built in North Devon are affordable, by any definition.

A proliferation of short-term holiday lets in an area not only changes the character of a neighbourhood but can also increase antisocial behaviour and noise nuisance, primarily because there is so little regulation of short-term holiday lets. We are already starting to see that, with an increase in the number of complaints received by the council relating to noise, antisocial behaviour, parties, hot tubs and so on.

I recognise that any intervention in the housing market has a huge risk of unintended consequences and potential increases in prices in some sectors, but I very much hope that some steps can be taken to level the playing field between the short-term and the long-term rental markets through the various current tax inequalities, to ensure that the short-term holiday let market is better regulated and that a change of use is required to convert properties from primary residence to holiday lets. It seems bizarre that some of the holiday lets in my constituency have to have a change of use to become a long-term rental, but the situation is not the same the other way round. Restrictions of just 10 months’ occupancy are imposed by local councils for good reasons at the time they were imposed, but those restrictions are now not being reversed. Support is needed for small district councils to enable them to confidently take those steps, if they are able.

We also need to take steps to bring back into occupation derelict properties that have been left empty for months or years. Councils have powers, but the processes are slow and expensive, and the proximity of my own home to derelict houses suggests such powers are not being readily acted upon.

Most people dream of owning their own home, and I fully support the Government’s ambition to help people to achieve that dream. To do that in places such as North Devon, we need to find a solution for increasing the supply of affordable housing and we need to review the guidance and tests in place to assess the viability of developments, to ensure that the level of affordable housing provided is not affected by issues such as an unreasonably high valuation placed on the land.

Our councils need more control and flexibility in access to funding to build affordable homes and to protect them for occupancy by local residents, so that they are available to future generations. New homes need to be available to those who want to live in these rural and coastal constituencies. There are innovative schemes such as rent to buy from companies such as Rentplus, community land trusts for small rural communities need to be more accessible to small planning authorities, and more needs to be done so that our local plans really do reflect the needs of our local communities.

Like many of my constituents, I would like the lights over Christmas to be on in my neighbours’ houses, but far too many closes like mine are deserted through the winter. I very much hope that the new Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has some plans, blue sky or otherwise. During the pandemic, this Government showed that we can act quickly when we need to. The time is now to address the imbalances in the housing market, before the lights go out for good and the whole of the North Devon coast becomes a winter ghost town.

None – Remember Owl waits a couple of weeks before listing planning applications. Experience has shown that changes are sometimes made to the list during the following week. We get a more complete list by waiting.

Are you all keeping up? – Owl

No 10 partying in lockdown: who enjoyed what and when

Rowena Mason www.theguardian.com

15 May 2020

Sources told the Guardian there was a “wine and pizza” party in the Downing Street garden and inside No 10 during the first lockdown when socialising was banned. It is understood to have taken place after a press conference, and was described as having had a celebratory feel with drinking late into the evening. After No 10 denied this, a photograph was obtained by the Guardian showing Boris Johnson, his wife and two officials at a table with wine and cheese, with another 15 officials in the rest of the garden with wine bottles visible. No 10 says Johnson had been having a work meeting and went up to his flat with his family just after 7pm that evening.

20 May 2020

Dominic Cummings lifted the lid on a May gathering in the Downing Street garden, with invites to a “social distanced drinks”, which is believed to have been organised by the civil servant Martin Reynolds. No 10 has not denied that Johnson and his wife attended, with reports of food on tables and drinking. Restrictions on social mixing were still in place at this point.

13 November – Boris and Carrie Johnson flat party

This is the date that Johnson’s chief adviser, Cummings, and communications director, Lee Cain, left their roles. Sources have reported loud music and sounds of a party coming from the flat occupied by Johnson and his wife on this date. Cummings has alleged there had been “other flat parties” and suggested the pair’s “bubble” policy should be investigated. Asked if a party went ahead in his flat on 13 November, Johnson said: “No.”

27 November – Downing Street leaving do

While England was still in the grip of its second national lockdown, a leaving do was organised in No 10 – said to have been for Cleo Watson, a former aide to Cummings. A source told the Guardian that Johnson had personally attended and given a speech, remarking on how full with people the room was, before leaving to continue working.

10 December – Gavin Williamson’s staff party

When London was in tier 2, which only allowed socialising in groups of six outside, the then education secretary, Gavin Williamson, threw a party in his Whitehall department. The most senior civil servant in the department, Susan Acland-Hood, attended and admitted that there had been a “work-related” gathering hosted in the canteen. She did not dispute people had been drinking wine, and appeared to blame Williamson for instigating the event. She recalled he had wanted to “say a few words” to thank staff after a difficult year.

17 December

A quiz was held for members of the private office of Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, who was originally meant to be investigating the reports of parties in No 10. Invitations were sent out titled “Christmas Party!” and about 15 people were thought to be in attendance over Zoom. Responding to the claims, a government spokesperson said it was a virtual quiz with a small number of people from the office taking part from their desks. “The cabinet secretary played no part in the event, but walked through the team’s office on the way to his own office. No outside guests or other staff were invited or present. This lasted for an hour and drinks and snacks were bought by those attending. He also spoke briefly to staff in the office before leaving.”

18 December 2020 – Downing Street Christmas party

A party was held in No 10 when London was in tier 3 restrictions, which banned social events, according to multiple sources after the Daily Mirror first broke the story. Several dozen people – a mix of civil servants and political staff – reportedly attended and were told to bring “secret Santa” presents, with cheese and wine laid on. While Johnson’s spokesperson insisted no rules had been broken and then denied any party took place, a video filmed four days after the event was published by ITV. The leaked footage showed Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s then aide, rehearsing for televised press conferences and laughing and joking with aides about a party on 18 December. Stratton all but confirmed the event had taken place by laughing it off as a “business meeting” but added: “It was not socially distanced.”

15 December 2020 – a festive No 10 quiz

A Christmas quiz was also organised for No 10 staff, with invitations emailed to everyone who worked in the building. Some guests were said to have dialled in by Zoom but others apparently attended in person and sat in groups of six, some wearing Christmas jumpers. A photograph later emerged in the Mirror of the prime minister taking part.

25 December 2020 – Christmas Day socialising

The prime minister’s “bubble” has come under scrutiny before, after his spokesperson did not deny that Nimco Ali, a close friend of Carrie Johnson, stayed with them over Christmas. One of the explanations offered was that Ali was considered part of the Johnsons’ childcare bubble. However, under the rules, the arrangement was meant to be purely for a second household to look after children, with the adults not meant to be socialising.

Bankruptcies happen gradually, then suddenly, an Ernest Hemingway character famously deadpans in The Sun Also Rises. Yet the aftermath of insolvency can play out painfully slowly, as observers of Carillion’s collapse, four years ago this week, can testify.

Jasper Jolly www.theguardian.com 

Carillion had its fingers in a lot of pies, to the point where it is difficult to explain what its main business was: was it construction, or something woollier like “support services”? Cleaning and maintenance are crucial to almost any business, but they are also shockingly easy to outsource to complex and faceless conglomerates. That complexity extended to accounts built on the directors’ “increasingly fantastical figures”. To borrow the Queen’s question about the credit crunch, why did nobody notice?

Carillion’s crash was so severe that it has sparked years of navel-gazing by accountants and their regulators. The latest chapter will open on Monday, when a tribunal in London will look at allegations that KPMG, a former partner at the auditor and certain current and former employees issued “false and misleading information and/or documents” to the regulator, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). KPMG declined to comment ahead of the tribunal.

KPMG self-reported the latest problems, which relate to information handed over during standard FRC inspections of audits of Carillion and Regenersis, a London-listed IT company later renamed Blancco. The regulator will not allege misconduct in the audits, nor that the financial statements were imperfectly prepared, but the tribunal will probably shine more unwelcome light on a profession that has taken a beating ever since the global financial crisis.

The existence of a dominant “Big Four” is not usually a good sign in any industry. Safe to say that Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC have all had their scandals (try Autonomy, NMC Health, Conviviality and BHS respectively) in recent years. Smaller hangers-on such as Grant Thornton have also had their moments (Patisserie Valerie and Sports Direct).

The FRC and the broader audit profession have also been in the proverbial dock in recent years. At one point there were no fewer than five separate “Whither auditing?” inquiries, and the government is close to publishing a set of reforms to audit and corporate governance that it hopes will make it much harder for balance-sheet black holes to slip past auditors unnoticed. The FRC will be replaced by a new Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority, probably in 2023.

However, recent reports suggested that business lobbyists had got their claws into the reforms, watering down some more controversial elements in favour of a “business-friendly” regime fit for a wheeler-dealer post-Brexit Britain. Gone, according to the Financial Times, will be proposals to make directors personally oversee financial reporting controls; this will be demoted instead to the corporate governance code. The code sets the standards, but companies can opt out as they see fit.

There are other options for seeking accountability. This week’s tribunal is one of three investigations the FRC is still running on the Carillion collapse – there is another into KPMG’s audit itself, as well as one into the company’s former directors. The government’s Official Receiver has filed a claim form suggesting that it could seek damages of as much as £1bn from KPMG for audit negligence. (KPMG has promised to contest any claim, though none has yet arrived.)

Yet industry sources suggest that readers don’t hold their breath for a payout on that scale. The Carillion fallout keeps coming – but we will have to wait even longer for answers on why it happened, and how we can avoid a repeat.

Homeowners will still be able to object to individual planning applications after the government confirmed a U-turn on reforms to the system.

Melissa York www.thetimes.co.uk 

Ministers had planned to replace the planning application process with a zonal system and mandatory housebuilding targets, stripping homeowners of their right to object.

The Times reported in September that the shake-up of planning laws was to be abandoned after a backlash from voters and Conservative MPs in southern England. A change of approach from the government, however, was contained in a submission to the Lords built environment committee.

In the report it said: “There will be a continuing role for public consultation as part of the planning application process. Even where the broad principle of development is agreed . . . all the details would still need to be consulted on with communities and statutory consultees, and approved by officers or committees where appropriate.”

The government’s submission added: “Our reforms will give communities a greater voice from the start of the planning process . . . We also want to see more democratic accountability, with communities having a more meaningful say on the development schemes which affect them, not less.”

In response to the move, Tom Fyans, director of campaigns at the countryside charity the CPRE, said: “It appears the government now genuinely understands the need for local communities to have a powerful voice in planning decisions. These are encouraging signs that suggest a fundamental change of approach when it comes to determining what gets built where.”

The Lords report warned that ministers would not hit their target of building 300,000 new homes a year unless they stopped dithering over planning reforms. The cross-party committee said that uncertainty and delays in overhauling the system had had a “chilling effect” on housebuilding.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe, chairwoman of the committee, said: “The most important aspect in terms of housing supply is planning. Frankly all the twisting and turning over reform has had a chilling effect, creating uncertainty for housebuilders and planners.

“The government needs to bite the bullet and actually build housing of all types and tenures.”

The report said: “The challenges facing the housing market have been well documented: too many people are living in expensive, unsuitable, poor-quality homes. To address these complex challenges in the long term it is necessary to increase housing supply now.”

Local councils should be forced to come up with a plan for their area, Neville-Rolfe said, as more than half do not have an up-to-date strategy for building more homes.

Help to Buy, the government’s flagship homeownership scheme, is criticised for pushing up prices. The £29 billion cost of the scheme would “be better spent on increasing housing supply”, the committee said.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “We share the ambition to reform the planning system to meet the demand for more high-quality homes and create a fairer housing market. We delivered more than 216,000 homes in England in 2020-21, well above the 186,500 forecast for the whole of the UK, and are investing a further £12 billion in affordable housing over the next five years.”

Ministers and officials are spending billions of pounds on projects that are never properly evaluated, according to the head of the National Audit Office.

Oliver Wright www.thetimes.co.uk 

Gareth Davies says that too often the government has not learnt from its failures and has “little information” on “what difference is made by the billions of pounds being spent”.

In an article for The Times Davies, who took over at the spending watchdog in May 2019, says that he was concerned to see that lessons that might have helped the government to deal with Covid had not been learnt.

He says there is little evidence that things have improved even though it has “never been more important that the government makes the right choices” after the pandemic.

Recent research by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that only 8 per cent of big government projects had robust evaluation plans in place.

“Prior to the pandemic the government did take forward many lessons from the simulation exercises it undertook to prepare for potential pandemics,” Davies writes. “However, it did not act on some warnings that would have helped it prepare for a pandemic like Covid-19.”

He adds: “What we have found by auditing government’s work is that many of the interventions carried out by government are either not evaluated robustly or not evaluated at all. This means government is not learning from its successes or failures, and has little information in most policy areas on what difference is made by the billions of pounds being spent.”

Davies cites the Kickstart Scheme, launched amid much fanfare last year to fund employers to create high-quality six-month work placements for people aged 16-24. He says that the Department for Work and Pensions had “limited assurance over the quality of the work placements created by the scheme”, or whether the jobs created “would have existed anyway”.

“Without having done more during the scheme’s operation to monitor what kinds of jobs and training employers are providing in practice, the department will find it much harder to deliver a robust estimate of the scheme’s long-term impact,” he writes.

Davies also says that there are no consequences for failure or not robustly assessing projects and pulling the plug on those that are not performing. “The incentives to evaluate and learn what works and why must be stronger than the instinct to avoid evaluating in case it uncovers bad results,” he writes. “At present public bodies face limited consequences if they do not evaluate their work. This needs to be addressed.”

When Michael Gove was Cabinet Office minister, he pledged to set up an internal Whitehall unit to assess all government projects against their aspirations and pull the plug on those that were not performing well.

“There can be a tendency in government where you get ‘vanity of authorship’, ” Gove said. “It is, ‘I launched this programme and I’ll defend it come what may’. We want people to know that the government is not simply trumpeting the fact that x amount of money has been spent on a new scheme but we go back to citizens and say: ‘This is what we tried. This worked. This didn’t work. This was the basis on which we acted.’ ”

However, Gove has since moved on to levelling up and housing and there have been no more announcements about the proposed evaluation unit.

 

A very unsatisfactory non-answer to Simon Jupp’s question – Owl

Simon Jupp Conservative, East Devon

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce the successful local authority bids in the third tranche of the Active Travel Fund.

• Hansard source(Citation: HC Deb, 7 January 2022, cW)

Trudy Harrison Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department intends to make an announcement on this matter very shortly

Sadly, looks like the slow death of Exeter’s “high street” to Owl

Exeter city centre has seen vast changes over the past few shops with many shops coming and going from independent traders to massive chains such as Debenhams, Topshop and House of Fraser.

Anita Merritt www.devonlive.com

The presence of them remains unforgotten in Exeter, especially because where they once stood still remains the empty shell of what once stood there.

This week, some welcomed good news was received with the announcement that after five years since Jamie Oliver’s chain Italian restaurant closed its doors in Princesshay, the independent owners of existing popular restaurant and wine bar Margoux in Mary Arches Street will be moving into it.

An opening date will be announced shortly, but it is hoped to be in late February or March when it launches as a restaurant and cocktail bar.

The fate of the city centre’s numerous other vacant shops remains unclear.

Ann Hunter, board director of Exeter Chamber and InExeter Business Improvement District (BID) manager said: “Exeter is a city bursting with culture and a huge variety of retailers from award-winning independents to new eateries.

“Compared to the national average, Exeter has a low high street vacancy rate. We’re seeing a number of innovative and High Street changing developments coming through which will continue to drive growth for the city.

“St Sidwell’s Point which brings a leisure offer to the heart of the city, together with Colson’s Parade bringing a hotel and hospitality, are among some of the new and exciting developments due to open this year.

“We also have new leisure and hospitality businesses in the pipeline, so it is a really positive and encouraging time for the city.

“Footfall remains very positive here in Exeter, although down slightly on 2019. However, the national high street average is down 25 per cent. We are therefore continuing to see many people enjoying our vibrant city and we encourage them to continue to do so in accordance to government guidelines.”

Here is a reminder of the shops Exeter has lost while hope remains that they could be taken over during 2022 to bring more visitors to Exeter:

Argos

Argos in Exeter’s Guildhall Shopping Centre (Image: Devon Live)

Among the shops to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic is Argos in the Guildhall Shopping Centre.

In September 2020, Argos wouldn’t confirm whether several Argos branches across Devon, including its Exeter city centre, would reopen.

It has remained closed and signage on the outside now directs customers to how they can shop online.

Gok Wan’s Bling

The former TV show setting of Gok Wan’s Bling (Image: Devon Live)

A sudden spark of three weeks of excitement was injected into the Guildhall Shopping Centre this summer when TV celebrity host Gok Wan took over the vacant unit opposite H Samuel.

The former home of The Works, which has stood vacant for a long time, was temporarily taken over by film crews after Exeter was chosen as the perfect location to host brand new daytime ITV series Bling.

Filming took place in a unit opposite H Samuel for the new ITV show Bling, hosted by Gok Wan (Image: Devon Live)

Gok and the first contestants arrived on Monday, July 12, to begin filming. Over three weeks they shot 20 episodes which have since been broadcast.

During his short stay in Exeter, Gok revealed he hoped the series would be making a return to could some more bling be brought back to life in the shop again?

The Boarding House

The former Boarding House and Animal shop (Image: Devon Live)

Established specialist BMX shop for bikes and parts, plus skateboards, snowboards and streetwear The Boarding House has moved to various locations in the city.

It recently relocated from Fore Street to the Guildhall Shopping Centre inside what was Animal. However, its stay there was short-lived and it moved to smaller premises opposite in Waterbeer Street.

The premises was the home of Surf shop Animal – a concession within Tony Pryce – until July 22, 2018.

Signs of a new lease of life are already evident with scaffolding erected around the building and signs of work going on inside.

Axe-throwing at a Boom: Battle Bar venue

In October, Devon Live reported how an application for a premises licence had been submitted to Exeter City Council, which could see a Boom: Battle Bar coming to the Guildhall.

As yet, Boom: Battle Bar’s official website is giving little away about the proposed Exeter venue other than saying that it’s ‘coming soon 2022’.

The quirky bars offer food, cocktails and an eclectic mix of fun games such as axe-throwing, skee ball, American pool and mini-golf.

Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe

Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe in Exeter (Image: Devon Live)

Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, the UK’s largest family of traditional sweet shops, opened its first store in 2004.

After five years in Exeter, Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe relocated in January 2017 to its new home in Church Street, Sidmouth.

Sadly Sidmouth’s gain was Exeter’s loss because the shop in North Street remains unlet.

Store Twenty One

Store Twenty One in Exeter (Image: Devon Live)

The company went into administration in 2017, and the Exeter shop has remained closed ever since.

It also had branches in Honiton and Tiverton.

Nationwide, the chain employed more than 1,000 people and had around 125 high street shops.

Ladbrokes

Ladbrokes in South Street (Image: Devon Live)

Another pandemic casualty in the city centre is Ladbrokes which disappeared from its prominent position on the corner of South Street in 2021.

The betting chain had previously announced hundreds of Ladbrokes and Coral betting shops could be closed after a boom in online gambling during the pandemic.

Last March, Ladbrokes and Coral owner Entain said in its annual results this week that online earnings from customers betting through its smartphone apps and websites were up 50 per cent as users shifted online during the pandemic.

The Plant Cafe

The Plant Cafe (Image: Devon Live)

The independent vegetarian cafe in Cathedral Yard was a popular place to eat in Exeter for many years.

In October 2020, it was listed for sale for £119,000. It still currently remains on the market.

Before its closure, it was the subject of an investment. It provided 20 inside covers, and in excess of 30 alfresco covers, the latter of which proved very popular and valuable, in particular during the summer months.

The Edinburgh Woollen Mill

The Edinburgh Woollen Mill in Cathedral Yard (Image: Devon Live)

A long distant memory in Exeter is when The Edinburgh Woollen Mill, which faces Exeter Cathedral, was still trading.

A reminder of how long it has not been trading can be seen from its dilapidated sign which now has letters missing from it.

In 2020, years after its closure, it was announced more than 50 stores were to be closed and 600 jobs axed by the company behind Peacocks and Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

House of Tweed

House of Tweed (Image: Devon Live)

The specialists in creating luxurious handbags and accessories using bespoke designed tweed fabrics took over the former premises of Laura Ashley, but its time there was short-lived.

The womenswear and home furnishings retailer in the High Street was first turned into the Gift Company ahead of Christmas 2020.

Laura Ashley was one of a number of businesses that endured a prolonged closure following the Royal Clarence Hotel fire in October 2016.

Costa Coffee

The former Costa Coffee in Exeter High Street (Image: Devon Live)

A reminder of the impact of the Royal Clarence Fire is the coffee shop in the High Street which was located next door to Laura Ashley.

The building was damaged by smoke and water caused by the fire in the building behind.

It has never reopened. Costa Coffee confirmed it would no longer occupy the unit more than two years after the Royal Clarence fire.

It remains to let or with the option of possibly being bought.

L’Occatane

L’Occatane in Exeter High Street (Image: Devon Live)

Award-winning natural skincare, beauty and organic cosmetics products high street retailer L’Occatane had a prolonged closure following the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, but then announced in June 2020 it would be reopening – but at a new location.

It moved from its home in the High Street next to Waterstones to Princesshay where it remains today.

The unit in the High Street remains empty.

Las Iguanas

Las Iguanas in Queen Street, Exeter (Image: Devon Live)

In August 2020, it was confirmed that Exeter’s Las Iguanas would not reopen following a takeover of the company.

Casual Dining Group was taken over by The Big Table who have acquired the Las Iguanas, Bella Italia and Café Rouge brands.

It had already previously been announced Exeter’s Café Rouge will remain permanently closed.

However, the good news is that finally, a new lease of life is due to be injected into the premises. Last November, a notice on its window revealed the venue in Queen Street is set to be transformed into a Revolution bar.

Inventive Service Company Limited has applied to Exeter City Council for a licence to serve alcohol and play live and recorded music between 10am and 2am daily.

It is also applying to provide late night refreshment between 11pm and 2am daily with the premises looking to operate from 8am until 2.30am Monday to Sunday.

The Real Food Store

The Real Food Store by Exeter Central Station (Image: Devon Live)

The community-owned food store beside Exeter Central station announced it would be closing at the end of September after “weathering a few storms” in the 10 years since opening.

The Real Food Store competed with the big food chains to bring local produce into the city. But after having to move from its successful base in Paris Street, its finances were knocked sideways by Covid.

The store was evicted from Paris Street in 2018 to make way for the Exeter city centre bus station redevelopment.

Announcing closure, the store’s board said: “We are proud of our record in bringing local produce to the city centre providing you with an alternative to the national chains. But pride is not enough to sustain our business through the unprecedented challenges and changes we have faced over the past 18 months.”

Cafe Rouge

Cafe Rouge in Princesshay (Image: Devon Live)

After much speculation, in July 2020 it was finally confirmed that Cafe Rouge in Princesshay would never reopen after a prolonged closure.

High Street dining parent company Casual Dining Group plunged into administration with the loss of 1,909 jobs.

The restaurant was renowned for selling delicious French-inspired cuisine.

The Cove

The Cove in Princesshay (Image: Devon Live)

Tucked away at the bottom of Bedford Street, The Cove launched in 2010.

Since then it has diversified to offer a wide range of facial treatments, waxing (including permanent hair removal) alongside the classical treatments such as manicures.

It moved out of Princesshay into neighbouring Banrfiled Crescent and the shop remains vacant.

JD Sports

JD Sports in Princesshay (Image: Devon Live)

In June 2019, it was announced the national sportswear chain would be moving from Princesshay to take on units formerly occupied by Burton Menswear and Evans on the High Street.

It meant the branch of JD Sports in Princesshay, which replaced USC at the shopping centre in 2009, closed and it has remained empty ever since.

A spokesperson for JD Sports said at the time: “We are moving to larger premises which will let us present a fuller range of our products in the store.

“We have not got a confirmed date for the move and reopening, however, we anticipate it will be the first half of 2020.”

Debenhams

Debenhams in Princesshay (Image: Devon Live)

In January 2021, online fashion retailer Boohoo confirmed it had bought the Debenhams brand for £55 million and would relaunch the department store as an online-only operation.

Bosses said the deal, worth £55million, would not include saving Debenhams’ stores which would close for good as part of a structured winding down of the business.

The large Exeter department store in Princesshay reopened for a closing down sale – but then closed its doors for good.

Topshop/ Topman/ Selfridges

Topsham/ Topman/ Selfridges in Princesshay (Image: Devon Live)

Topshop was among those who did not reopen following the coronavirus lockdown, despite droves of hopeful customers peering through its windows for a flicker of life.

In February 2021, Asos confirmed it had sealed the takeover of Topshop and three other brands from the collapse of the Arcadia retail empire for £265 million.

The online fashion retailer bought the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands from administrators.

It meant Exeter’s store was among the shops that closed permanently as the brands become online only.

BrightHouse

BrightHouse in Sidwell Street (Image: Devon Live)

The rent-to-own high-street store went into administration in March 2020. The chain had stores across Devon and Cornwall, with outlets in Exeter, Torquay, Plymouth and St Austell.

It is believed to have closed after facing an influx of compensation claims for selling to people who could not afford to repay.

The firm had 200,000 customers and was the largest operator in the rent-to-own sector.

Rent-to-own customers make monthly payments for household items, in effect renting goods until they have paid in full.

The Sidwell Street site still has fencing outside the store to prevent rough sleepers from taking shelter outside the premises.

Timpson

Timpson in Sidwell Street (Image: Devon Live)

The shop which offered services from key cutting to shoe repairs closed in Sidwell Street, but customers can still go to its other location in the Guildhall Shopping Centre.

Sharps Bedrooms

Sharps Bedrooms (Image: Devon Live)

For many years a familiar sight along Sidwell Street was Sharps Bedrooms.

The nearest showroom is now believed to be Taunton. The business offers bespoke fitted wardrobes and home offices, with storage solutions tailored to customers exact needs.

Details of EDDC’s arts and culture strategy can be found here, including invitation to tender for strategy process with 18 January closing date – Owl

John Astley, local author and facilitator of Exmouth community in this week’s Exmouth Journal writes:

Readers of this column will be familiar with my pieces on art and culture. For example, ‘Problems with Art’ (June), ‘Champions of art and culture help connect communities’ (October) and ‘Art and Nature’ (November).

All of these pieces were linked to my role of Education Champion for Arts and Culture East Devon (ACED) which has made a good start in bringing together artists in the widest sense. to discuss their own practice, and crucially their role and how it is played in the everyday life of East Devon. You may know that EDDC has now taken this Arts & Culture initiative a step further by inviting responses to a call for tenders for the new East Devon Culture Strategy (go to the EDDC or Thelma Hulbert Gallery (Honiton) websites for details. The tender documents reiterate the aims. aspirations and priorities of the East Devon Culture Strategy:

I. Better homes and communities for all

2. Greener East Devon

3. A resilient economy

The documents, with quotes from Councillor Nick Hookway EDDC portfolio holder for tourism, sport. leisure and culture. emphasise the social and economic value of the arts and heritage industries to East Devon. This whole initiative raises many key questions about the nature of arts and culture, or perhaps that should be culture and the arts, in East Devon. There are some institutional arts and culture agents already established in that locality. but there are also a very large and diverse number of artists of many practices across our communities. Many of these individuals, and small scale organisations, are actively engaged in creating and promoting the arts within our communities. The diversity of artists who are currently members of the ACED network is impressive, and they bring a great deal to this new cultural strategy They are also looking forward to the successful implementation of the Arts & Culture strategy to help them to continue. and develop as practising artists.

At our most recent Network Forum meeting a good deal was said about the Creative Industries, which is a term that covers a range of economic activities which are concerned with the generation and exploitation of knowledge. information. and artistic endeavour across a wide spectrum. This approach reflects the idea that human creativity is the ultimate economic resource, on a personal and social scale. This seems to be at the heart of the EDDC strategy.

However. we also need to consider the idea of the Culture Industries: a more focussed generalisation of the way artists work within a range of everyday conditions that affect their practice. Are with talking about the solo painter or illustrator, the musician, the filmmaker, the dancer or singer, local galleries, the cinema, the local theatre groups and so on? They are all economically active, it is their labour and livelihood; but it is also their vocation, the way in which their aesthetic values drive them to do what they do.

So, the motives of those engaged with art and culture are inevitably diverse, with some practitioners and organisations being much more profit-driven than others. Many artists in East Devon have created a CIC or Social Enterprise. through which to do their work in a not-for-profit manner. Many artists are very wary of the manner in which the profit motive often trumps aesthetic values. The idea of Culture is also central to this arts and culture strategy because I would argue that ‘culture is ordinary’: it is the lived culture of a particular time and place, our everyday lives which includes our creative and artistic labour ‘Our’ culture also has a history to it, and usually with most artists. ideas about what a future social life should be like, could be like, given more leadership and encouragement. More opportunities. support and access to resources, and less bureaucracy!

So, all of these issues, ideas and arguments about aims, motives and the like, will need to be discussed, and decisions made in the most democratic way possible. Don’t be left out of this discussion!

Dominic Cummings’ claim of another rule-breaking No10 party to be investigated

ITV News www.itv.com 

Fresh allegations made by Dominic Cummings of another rule-breaking Downing Street party will be investigated as part of the ongoing Whitehall investigation into claims of other such events.In a blog on Friday, Mr Cummings alleged a party took place in May 2020, around a week after the outdoor drinks gathering the Guardian pictured last year.

Boris Johnson‘s former top aide said an email was sent out inviting people to a “socially distanced drinks” event which he warned could break Covid regulations.

But the event “definitely happened” despite his protests, the former political adviser said, after he went home for the day.

ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston said it had been confirmed to him Sue Gray, the top civil servant appointed to investigate several parties allegedly held on Downing Street during the pandemic, will expand her investigation to cover Mr Cummings’ latest claims.

Mr Cummings said in a lengthy blog there would be an email chain linked to a senior government official Ms Gray could track down.

The government has previously denied that rules were broken on Downing Street during the pandemic.

It is also understood that the garden gathering reported by the Guardian which is said to have taken place five days before the event mentioned by Mr Cummings in his blog, will also be covered by Ms Gray’s inquiry.

Mr Cummings also claimed there was a party in the Number 11 flat shared by the PM and his wife Carrie on the evening he left Downing Street for good on November 13, 2020.

“Staff in the press office said they could hear the music playing loudly in the press office below (the press office is directly below the flat),” he said.

He added: “Officials I spoke to in 2021 said to me and others that there were various parties after I left and the PM was aware of them. I have also been told there are other photos of other parties against the rules in 2021, some picturing the PM.”

Claims by Mr Cummings add to at least 10 allegations of Covid-rule-breaking carried out by members of the Tory party during the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the government’s denial that rules were broken on Downing Street during the pandemic, a leaked video released by ITV News showed Number 10 staff laughing about attending a Christmas party in 2020.

The video sparked swathes of new allegations and a number of resignations.

But Mr Cummings has insisted a gathering in the Downing Street garden where staff were pictured with cheese and wine during the first lockdown did not break rules and was not a party.

Mr Cummings himself can be seen in the image.

The former No 10 adviser said: “It is alleged by many that this shows ‘a party’, ‘rule breaking’ and so on. This is wrong.”

Following meetings that day, he said: “Someone brought a bottle of wine out to the table. It may have been Martin (Reynolds, who is Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary) but I think it was the PM himself who went inside as I was packing stuff up and brought out wine.

“We carried on chatting about Covid, about domestic priorities, and about how to sort out the Cabinet Office which had totally collapsed. Shortly after Carrie joined us.”

Mr Cummings said that No 10 staff were “encouraged” to meet in the garden between April and August because it was “safer” during the pandemic.

When asked about the image last month, the prime minister also said the image showed people working.

“Those were people at work talking about work,” Mr Johnson said.

“Those were meetings of people at work talking about work. This is where I live, it is where I work. Those were meetings of people at work, talking about work,” he added.

A Downing Street spokesperson also claimed the gathering was a work meeting and that Mr Johnson went back to his flat at 7pm.

Back in December, the prime minister’s spokesperson said: “In the summer months, Downing Street staff regularly use the garden for some meetings.

“On 15 May 2020, the prime minister held a series of meetings throughout the afternoon, including briefly with the then health and care secretary and his team in the garden following a press conference.

“The prime minister went to his residence shortly after 7pm. A small number of staff required to be in work remained in the Downing Street garden for part of the afternoon and evening.”

To put this grim milestone in perspective; these deaths number more than the entire population of East Devon (148,000 in 2020) – Owl

Miranda Bryant www.theguardian.com 

More than 150,000 people have died in the UK from coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to government figures.

Britain on Saturday became the seventh country to pass the milestone after the US, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.

It comes after an additional 313 deaths were recorded, bringing the pandemic total to 150,057 people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid.

However, separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 174,000 deaths registered in the UK where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate.

In the past seven days, 1,271 people have died, a 38% rise on the week before.

It comes as an additional 146,390 Covid cases were reported on Saturday, bringing the overall total since the start of the pandemic to 14,333,794.

In the past seven days alone, 1,227,288 people have tested positive, according to official figures, marking more than a 10% rise on the week before.

Last January, the UK became the first European country to pass 100,000 deaths.

While the latest wave of the virus, driven by the Omicron variant, has not led to deaths rising as quickly as during previous waves, hospitals are under increasing pressure as admissions and Covid-related staff absences rise.

Earlier this week, Boris Johnson insisted England can “ride out” its biggest ever Covid wave “without shutting down our country once again”. But the prime minister admitted that parts of the NHS would feel “temporarily overwhelmed”.

While England is currently under plan b restrictions, which include mandatory face masks in most public indoor spaces and advice to work from home where possible, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have introduced tougher measures, including for socialising and events.

Across the UK, 18,454 people were in hospital with coronavirus on Thursday, according to government figures, a 40% week-on-week rise and the highest number since 18 February.

Well over 100 of the Conservatives’ 361 MPs are aligned with one or more of a string of internal pressure groups. Here are the main ones:

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com

Covid Recovery Group

Led by the former chief whip Mark Harper and the former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the CRG’s size and opposition to new Covid rules is essentially the reason why England has notably fewer restrictions than other UK nations. While informal in structure, the CRG has organised and disciplined messaging, employing an external PR consultant. Support estimated at 80 to 100 MPs.

Net Zero Scrutiny Group

Set up in the lead-up to the Cop26 climate summit, its members insist they are not climate emergency sceptics but believe policies such as emissions targets and the phasing out of conventional cars have not been fully thought out and will adversely affect poorer Britons. The NZSG has 18 MPs as public supporters and claims “many” more.

Common Sense Group

Partly based around culture war issues, and what its chair, the Tory backbencher John Hayes, terms a struggle against “subversives” such as Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion, its 136-page policy booklet sets out ideas on everything from immigration to the legal system and family life. Sixteen MPs contributed to the booklet.

Blue Collar Conservatism

Originally launched by Esther McVey in parallel with her brief leadership bid to succeed Theresa May, with policies including redirecting foreign aid to domestic priorities, it boasts 159 MPs as official supporters including several cabinet ministers. However, it is less active in terms of openly agitating for policy change.

Northern Research Group

Led by the former Northern Powerhouse minister Jake Berry, this is a geographical faction aimed at boosting spending and investment in the north of England, north Wales and Scottish borders. More than 50 members.

All-party group on fair fuel

Very low key, and not officially a party faction, as it has two Labour members and one from the DUP. But it is Tory-dominated, and is arguably the most financially significant pressure group anywhere in the UK. It has been central to parliamentary and media efforts to keep fuel duty frozen for 11 years and counting, a policy that has cost the Treasury somewhere north of £100bn.

European Research Group

The model for the other factions. Set up in 1993, gradually moving from being the voice of Euroscepticism to that of hardline Brexiters. Hugely influential in the Commons revolts that saw off May’s limited Brexit compromises, and then ejected her from Downing Street. Largely quiet now, in part as many members have moved on to other pressure groups.

Chair of the East Devon Alliance, Martin Shaw, writes in this week’s Exmouth Journal

I hope you’ve managed to have a good Christmas despite Covid. I’m sure we’re all hoping that 2022 will be better than 2021. and I want to pick out some signs of hope for the new year.        

But first we have to get through a very serious health crisis-without a responsible government to protect us. In the short term. the Omicron variant has up-ended much of the progress we were making towards normal lives. Its effects on people who’ve been vaccinated and/or had Covid seem to be less than previous variants on average, but because it’s far more infectious. far more people are getting ill.

The numbers being hospitalised are shooting up in London and the South West is likely to follow in the New Year. Local hospital, GP, ambulance and social care services are already under huge pressure. Omicron is adding a new wave of hospital Covid outbreaks which will take doctors and nurses out of action.

While I can’t emphasise enough that health professionals will always try to help you. and you should always call for help when you need it. we’re in a situation where you just don’t know whether the NHS will be able to respond adequately. Take extra care to avoid Covid, and indeed accidents or illness of any kind. Since the South West is behind London in this wave, we could have been saved much of Omicron’s effects if the Government had taken decisive action. Instead they’ve left it up to individuals – and largely abdicated responsibility for the workers and businesses who are financially affected. £6000 grants are better than nothing but they won’t stop many Devon businesses going under.

I suppose the good news with the fact that in 2021 most voters finally saw through Boris Johnson. In 2022. hopefully they’ll realise that Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss or any other Tory wouldn’t be much better. We’ve had eleven years of this party taking the country – and especially the South West – for granted. and enough is enough. Much fuss was rightly made of North Shropshire. where voters overthrew a bigger Tory majority than either of our MPs has. But do remember the sensible progressive politics that we have pioneered in East Devon.

Here, my East Devon Alliance colleague Paul Arnott heads an open and honest local administration. based on effective cooperation between EDA, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Labour.

Hope can spring from small local beginnings, but it also needs to look out to the wider world.

2021 saw fine words agreed once more on climate justice we must make 2022 the year when these are turned into more radical policies.

2021 saw mass vaccination across the world – we must make 2022 the year that it is really brought to every town and village in every country We don’t know exactly where Omicron originated, but it was probably somewhere where vaccination rates are still very low.

Could next year be the year where we finally realise that none of us are safe until we all are?

2021 was the year where when we realised that Devon’s health, agriculture and university sectors – and the UK economy as a whole – are being progressively damaged by Brexit and the way it has driven away Europeans. Could 2022 be the year when we actually push the government to restore free movement and full UK access to the Single Market?

2021 was also the year when the public revolted against the cruel attitude which would condemn helpless refugees to drown in the Channel. Remember the huge surge in donations to the RNLI when they insisted they would always rescue people at risk in our waters?

In 2022. let’s press for genuine safe routes to allow people fleeing war and persecution to claim asylum in the UK without risking such dangers – and locally, support the admirable Ottery Refugee Response group. A very happy new year to you all!

In normal times, the absurd Jacob Rees-Mogg would have been regarded as, at best, a political curiosity, a self-consciously self-manufactured, affected toff who goes around with a plummy accent and double-breasted suit merely to goad members of the Labour Party.

www.independent.co.uk 

Indeed, while David Cameron and Theresa May were running things that is precisely how Rees-Mogg was regarded by some. Not even the most junior of ministerial roles would be awarded to the young fogey. Now, in the post-Brexit world, it would seem, he is a power in the land, clashing with the prime minister and, most recently, the chancellor of the exchequer. The government looks, and is, deeply divided, and “JRM” is becoming the leader of the internal opposition within government.

With an almost admirable impertinence he reportedly argued with the UK chief scientific adviser about Covid, and derailed Boris Johnson’s attempt to extend plan B before Christmas. Johnson was reduced to asking how Rees-Mogg would answer questions about it at a Downing Street press conference. Rees-Mogg gamely replied that he’d ask the British people to be responsible. Perhaps he mistook Johnson’s challenge for an invitation to chair the next live media presentation.

Emboldened by the prime minister’s visibly draining authority, on Wednesday, it’s reported, Rees-Mogg had the audacity to challenge Rishi Sunak (and Johnson) about the scheduled rise in national insurance in the spring. He wants the increase scrapped, because of the cost-of-living crisis. His policy is similar to Labour’s, but he doesn’t mind about that.

It is mark of how weak Johnson has become that he is being pushed around by Rees-Mogg. It is a measure of how fractious the cabinet is that Sunak can be told to abandon a central plank of his fiscal policy by this elegant anachronism. The post Rees-Mogg occupies, leader of the House of Commons, is an ancient and honourable one, but in brutal political terms one of the positions a premier will give to someone they want to marginalise or humiliate, or both. It has been used by prime ministers to park troublesome critics. The very notion of a minister given his job (and the right to attend cabinet) for a laugh chucking his weight around with the PM and chancellor should be ludicrous.

It is not, of course, because JRM is a veteran fundamentalist Brexiteer, a former chair of the European Research Group, a Eurosceptic long before the careerist Johnson clambered onto the bandwagon. JRM has a fan club among the “Spartans” and the wider, substantial, body of Tory MPs fed up with Johnson behaving (in their eyes) like a horrific cross between Jeremy Corbyn and Greta Thunberg.

They see JRM, even more than the likes of Liz Truss, as their champion in cabinet; and they are right to do so. Rees-Mogg is part-high priest, part-shop steward, part-kingmaker for a large faction of the parliamentary Conservative Party, and it is no joke for Johnson.

It is strange. A child of the Sixties (the 1660s), Rees-Mogg fits exactly into the pantheon of past colourful parliamentary eccentrics with reactionary views, now largely forgotten figures such as Nicholas Fairbairn, Sir Gerald Nabarro or, in our own time, Michael Fabricant. Norman St John-Stevas, a now half-forgotten figure, was a similar personality, a parliamentary boulevardier and “wet” Tory who was retained by Margaret Thatcher on sufferance, until one too many of his private jokes about “The Leaderene” made its way back to her ears, and he found himself relieved of his light duties as leader of the House of Commons.

The difference now is that Rees-Mogg is unsackable, even after his disastrous scheme to save Owen Paterson did so much damage to the party. If and when Johnson is replaced, Rees-Mogg will survive and probably prosper. The throwback is here to stay and, for the time being, debates in the British cabinet are increasingly a battle of wills, if not ideas, between two posh blokes who went to the same school. Floreat Etona!

“There must be no bullying and no harassment; no leaking; no breach of collective responsibility. No misuse of taxpayer money and no actual or perceived conflicts of interest. The precious principles of public life enshrined in this document – integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest – must be honoured at all times; as must the political impartiality of our much admired civil service.” (Boris Johnson in his forward to the Ministerial Code 2019)

David Conn www.theguardian.com 

The Conservative peer Michelle Mone referred a business to the Cabinet Office for potential multimillion pound PPE contracts before it had even been incorporated as a company, it has emerged.

The business, PPE Medpro, was fast-tracked by the government through its “VIP lane” for politically connected firms following the referral by Mone.

Within weeks of the company’s incorporation on 12 May 2020, PPE Medpro was awarded contracts worth £203m to supply millions of masks and gowns.

The Guardian revealed on Thursday that leaked files appear to suggest that Mone and her husband, the Isle of Man-based financier Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in PPE Medpro, despite both consistently denying any “role or function” in the company.

It has now emerged that Mone’s referral of PPE Medpro occurred five days before the company was formally registered.

Responding to a recent parliamentary question from the late Labour MP Jack Dromey, health minister Edward Argar said: “Departmental records indicate that Baroness Mone identified Medpro as a potential supplier on 7 May 2020 and highlighted this opportunity by email on 8 May 2020.”

Mone referred PPE Medpro to the office of her fellow Tory peer Theodore Agnew, a Cabinet Office minister responsible for procurement during the Covid pandemic. PPE Medpro was then added by Agnew’s office to the VIP lane, which analysis later showed gave companies a 10 times greater chance of being awarded a contract.

PPE Medpro was not incorporated in the UK until 12 May 2020, five days after the initial referral. The UK company was effectively a subsidiary of another PPE Medpro, registered in the Isle of Man on 11 May. The director of both companies was Anthony Page, who works for Barrowman’s Isle of Man-based financial services firm and runs his family office.

Lawyers for Mone, who ran a lingerie company before David Cameron made her a member of the House of Lords, have always said she “was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity”.

They also said she had no “association” with PPE Medpro, and “never had any role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded” to the company.

Contacted on Friday, Mone did not respond to questions about why she referred PPE Medpro the week before the company had even been incorporated. Both Mone and Agnew have declined to say what, if anything, she disclosed about her own links to the company when she referred it.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said Mone’s emailed referral is considered “private correspondence” that would not normally be publicly disclosed.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, wrote to Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay on Friday, expressing concern about “the lack of transparency around the award of significant sums of public money to PPE Medpro”.

“I would ask now that the government … commits now to place all correspondence and records relating to the award in the library of the House [of Commons] for parliamentary scrutiny,” Rayner said in her letter.

The timing of Mone’s referral of PPE Medpro also appears to be significant because it seems to have occurred days before the company had even secured the crucial business deal that enabled it to supply PPE to the NHS.

Documents seen by the Guardian suggest it was not until 11 May – the same day the Isle of Man PPE Medpro was registered – that the company secured its agreement with a London importing company, Loudwater Trade and Finance.

Under the terms of the business deal, documents suggest Loudwater promised to supply the PPE, whereas PPE Medpro appears to have committed to use its “extensive network to seek to secure … contracts with the NHS and other government bodies within the British Isles”.

It appears PPE Medpro undertook that commitment just days after Mone had made the referral to the Cabinet Office.

Documents seen by the Guardian also appear to show Barrowman was personally involved in setting up PPE Medpro’s deal with Loudwater’s director, Maurice Stimler, as well as related business matters.

Barrowman’s lawyers have also repeatedly distanced him from the company, saying he was not an investor, director or shareholder. They have said the Guardian’s reporting amounted to “clutching at straws” and was “largely incorrect”.

Mone’s lawyers have said the Guardian’s reporting is “grounded entirely on supposition and speculation and not based on accuracy”, adding: “She is under no obligation to say anything to you.”

They have also said that after she took the “very simple, solitary and brief step” of referring the company to Agnew, she “did not do anything further in respect of PPE Medpro”.

However, WhatsApp messages believed to have been sent by Mone in late June 2020, over a month after the referral, appear to show her discussing the gown sizes and purchase order details with a person in PPE Medpro’s supply chain.

The messages, which Mone appears to have sent shortly before taking off in a private jet, occurred shortly before PPE Medpro secured its second contract with the government.

Mone’s lawyers said she could not be expected to comment on “unknown and unattributable WhatsApp messages allegedly sent 19 months ago”.

Her lawyers have also refused to be drawn on why, according to a Financial Times report, Mone was in contact with officials as recently as February 2021, and appeared to be “incandescent with rage” over the treatment of PPE Medpro.

The government’s failure to enable local politicians to meet virtually is hampering councils, worrying older councillors and shutting out new participants, according to Jackie Weaver, who shot to fame thanks to a video clip of an ill-tempered council meeting 10 months ago.

Alexandra Topping www.theguardian.com 

Weaver, who became one of the most unlikely breakout stars of 2021 after footage from the Handforth parish council meeting she was attending went viral, has issued the rallying cry amid fears that current high infection rates could hit participation in local politics hard.

In April the high court ruled that from May council meetings in England must take place in person – after coronavirus restrictions which allowed virtual meetings lapsed.

“It is completely unreasonable that we are having to cancel council meetings or hold them only in emergencies for goodness knows how long. Where is democracy?” said Weaver in an interview conducted, inevitably, over Zoom.

This week Lawyers in Local Governmentthe Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO) launched a petition calling for councils to be allowed to meet remotely because “they know best” what type of meetings work in their area.

After a tumultuous 10 months in which Weaver, the chief officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils, has played herself in the Archers, opened the Brit awards as “Weaver the Cleaver” and featured on Celebrity Mastermind, she is also calling for legislation that will, once again, allow council meetings to be held online.

The public can only hope that it will lead to more filmed exchanges like the Handforth meeting that gripped the nation in the dark days of last February’s lockdown, when Weaver was commanded by Aled’s iPad to: “Read the standing orders, read them and understand them!”

Weaver said: “Despite everyone and their cat and dog saying it should be local councils that are able to determine how they hold meetings, that legislation has lapsed and the impact is quite profound.

“Because of the demographics of many of our parish councils, we have a lot of parish councillors still very reluctant to attend. And should we even be encouraging attendance?”

She said the lack of virtual meetings was a blow to the government’s “levelling up” agenda, making democratic participation more difficult for those with caring responsibilities and disabilities. A recent Local Government Association (LGA) survey of councils, conducted before the emergence of Omicron, found that 72% had recorded a drop in councillor attendance at statutory council meetings and 73% had reported a fall in public attendance.

The LGA has called on the government to urgently bring forward emergency legislation, saying the gathering of up to 200 people in one room is an “unnecessary public health risk”.

James Jamieson, the chair of the LGA, said emergency legislation would help curb the spread of the virus and make sure “councils can continue to make democratic decisions, even during times of emergency”.

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said it was considering a call for evidence on the matter, which closed on 17 June, and would be responding shortly.

Reflecting on the year that made her a particularly British type of hero, Weaver said that while she relished being given the “opportunity on a plate” to spread the word about the importance of local government, the line between Jackie the local government champion and Jackie Weaver the viral star had become blurred in recent months.

“I can’t say it annoys me, that just would be ungrateful,” she said. “But at the same time, it costs.”

But with the no-nonsense good humour that saw her booting several Handforth parish councillors out of the meeting during the infamous fracas – two have since stepped down – she brushed off any suggestion she was indulging in a “pity party”, expressing her dislike of moaners and admiration for people who get stuck in.

“People feel like the only way you effect change is from the top, and I don’t subscribe to that at all,” she said. “I think often we end up doing nothing, because we can’t change the world.”

As for her own future, after writing a book, You Do Have the Authority Here, based on her own wisdom, she “doesn’t have a plan as such” for this year beyond calmly carrying out her day job and continuing to bang the drum for local government.

“I hope that every time we’re coming up to elections, there is something that helps us capture ordinary people’s imaginations and makes them feel that they actually can make a difference,” she said. “For me, that is always the most important thing.”

According to Thursday’s Western Morning News: “The initial focus will be on restoring England’s water courses and helping native species to recover.”

By Claire Marshall www.bbc.co.uk 

Farmers and landowners in England could be paid to turn large areas of land into nature reserves, or to restore floodplains, under new government agriculture subsidies.

When the UK was part of the EU, farmers were given grants based on how much land they farmed.

Following Brexit, the government has pledged to pay based on how farmers care for the environment.

But environmental groups say the new plans lack detail and may not deliver.

In what the government describes as “radical plans”, landowners and farmers will be allowed to bid for funding to turn vast areas of land – between 500 and 5,000 hectares – over to wildlife restoration, carbon sequestration, or flood prevention projects.

“What we’re moving to is a more generous set of incentives for farmers doing the right thing,” Environment Secretary George Eustice told the BBC.

“We can have both sustainable, profitable food production, and see a recovery for nature as well.”

Agriculture is a devolved issue meaning that each UK nation has its own plans. Wales, for example, has said its new funding scheme will promote environmental benefits and be in place from 2025.

Improving the environment

Under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, farmers were given taxpayers’ money largely based on the amount of land they farmed: the more land they held, the more cash support they got. In 2020 about £3.5bn was handed out.

Now the government says that instead of rewarding farmers for how much land they work, it wants to encourage farmers to introduce practices that improve the environment.

Farming creates 10% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and large-scale agriculture has long been accused of degrading the environment.

Applications will shortly open for the first wave of “Landscape Recovery” projects. Mr Eustice said the scheme would lead to “fundamental land use change” creating new woodlands, restoring peatlands, and other “intensive interventions”.

The aim of these pilot projects is to create 10,000 hectares of restored wildlife habitat, which could help sequester carbon and restore England’s rivers and streams. Mr Eustice said he hoped it would lead to more large-scale rewilding projects like the Knepp estate in West Sussex.

But Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said the “golden opportunity” of the agricultural transition was in danger of being “wasted” .

“While we’re hearing the right noises from the government, the devil will be in the detail, and the detail is still not published nearly six years after the EU referendum,” he said.

James Robinson, a farmer in Cumbria with 300 acres of land, said it was difficult to judge the proposals because they still lacked detail.

“It will make a difference but we need action now. The way farming has been run for the last 40-50 years has been for field production at the expense of environment. We can’t keep going as we are, we need to make a change now, and as farmers we need to step up and make a change. But we also need government support to do that and it’s still not quite there yet,” he said.

There were also concerns among tenant farmers about how they could take part. George Dunn of the Tenant Farmers Association said: “Payments are being removed from tenant farmers in real time while we have a vague commitment for further work to be undertaken on how tenants can access schemes”.

Dr Alexander Lees, from Manchester Metropolitan University, said the schemes fitted well with the challenges of reversing declines in Britain’s most endangered species – those on the Red List. But the aspirations of the pilot seemed “simultaneously low and over-ambitious”, he said.

“It would seem very hard to reverse biodiversity loss for the ‘most threatened species’ in just 10,000 hectares,” he added.

“If we are serious, then we need to be racing towards the 300,000 hectare target as fast as possible.”

An additional plan, called the Local Nature Recovery scheme, will pay farmers to deliver on small-scale environmental priorities, such as “creating wildlife habitat, planting trees, or restoring peat and wetland areas”.

Mr Eustice said it was “about individual farms or groups making space for nature on part of their holding, perhaps creating water features on some of the less productive land, or hedgerows for breeding sites for birds.”

The government says, by 2030, the policy aims to:

• halt the decline in species
• put up to 60% of England’s agricultural soil under sustainable management
• and by 2042, restore up to 300,000 hectares of wildlife habitat

Details of the broader Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), which aims to support sustainable farming practices, were revealed in December.

The Wildlife Trusts, National Trust and RSPB were highly critical of the SFI plans, saying they were “deeply concerned” that they did not go far enough.

According to the Wildlife Trusts, the SFI allows 30% of arable soils to be left bare over winter, which is damaging to soil health. The standards also do not address the damaging impact of pesticides and artificial fertilisers on soil, it said.

It also claimed that farmers would be left to measure and assess their own management plans.

Mr Eustice said judging how successful the plan is would be a “complex” thing to do in the years ahead.

He said: “We’ve been running agri-environment schemes in one form or another for well over 20 years, and each of those have been evaluated. It may not be perfect, but we think it’s reasonably accurate. And you have to work on something.”

No 10 party inquiry to name ‘people in charge’

The official investigation into Downing Street Christmas parties will not blame the junior officials who organised them but will instead identify their bosses, Whitehall insiders believe.

Henry Zeffman, Oliver Wright http://www.thetimes.co.uk

Sue Gray, a former Whitehall ethics chief, took charge of the inquiry into alleged rule-breaking last month, shortly after The Times revealed that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, who had been leading it, had been aware of a Christmas event in his own office.

The inquiry was primarily asked to look into claims that staff at No 10 held a party on December 18, 2020, when London was subject to severe restrictions, but will examine other alleged lockdown breaches too.

It has been widely reported that the December 18 event was organised by civil servants in a WhatsApp group. But Gray is much likelier to find fault higher up the chain of command, senior figures say.

“I don’t think she would reasonably expect an office junior to carry the can for senior people who ended up attending any events,” a source said. “I don’t think she is looking for scapegoats in that sense. If somebody junior was asked to do something that will be reflected, but it will be reflected who asked them to do it.”

Whereas Case’s inquiry was thought to be fairly close to publication before he recused himself, Gray is conducting extensive new interviews. One ally said she was surprised by the limited nature of the work she inherited from Case.

Gray has emailed more than a dozen people, including Downing Street officials, special advisers and departed staff. Some in government expect Gray’s report to be tougher than Case’s would have been. “I think she has to now deliberately go harder than Case because she’s so publicly associated with it,” a source said.

Gray was expected to interview Case in his role as cabinet secretary when the alleged Downing Street parties took place, although he is not accused of having attended them. It is not clear whether Gray has yet done so.

Several people present at the December 18 event have said there was cheese and wine, music and that it went on until 2am. No 10 has denied that it was a Christmas party.

There are suggestions that up to seven lockdown-breaking gatherings took place in November and December 2020. Gray’s investigation will also examine a reported leaving event for a No 10 aide on November 27, which was said to have been attended by Boris Johnson, and a party at the Department for Education. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has said that Gray will be free to investigate other events.

Downing Street staff were also photographed drinking in the No 10 garden during the first lockdown in May 2020. The government has insisted that it was a work meeting. The Cabinet Office declined to comment.