Author Archives: East Devon Watch

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12 Nov 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Health and Social Care (local)

“Cost of care will take up most of council tax within two years”

”Most of the council tax people pay will need to be spent on providing care for children and adults within two years, the LGA has warned.

It said almost 60 pence out of every £1 of council tax be taken up by the rising demand for social care and children’s services by 2020, leaving less money for other vital local services, like collecting bins, fixing potholes, buses, street lighting and food safety.

The LGA is calling on the Government to use the Autumn Budget to allow local government as a whole to keep all the business rates it collects to plug funding gaps.

Cllr Claire Kober, Chair of the LGA’s Resources Board, said: “Demand for services caring for adults and children continues to rise but core funding from central government to councils continues to go down. This means councils have no choice but to squeeze budgets from other services, such as roads, street lighting and bus services to cope. Councils will be asking people to pay similar levels of council tax while, at the same time, warning communities that the quality and quantity of services they enjoy could drop.

Local government in England faces a £5.8 billion funding gap by 2020. Even if councils stopped filling potholes, maintaining parks and open spaces, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres, turned off every street light and shut all discretionary bus routes they still would not have saved enough money to plug this gap in just two years.”

Cllr Kober will be interviewed by ITV News today and the story is running across Sky News bulletins.”

Source: Mail p8, Times p2

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12 Nov 2017

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Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Developers/ Development, Inequality

“Number of pensioners living in rented homes may treble by 2035”

Of course, rich people will be able to afford flats in PegasusLife developments – with annual service charges higher than most people’s annual rents.

“Almost 1 million pensioners could be trapped in the private rented sector in 20 years, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation from rogue landlords, according to a renters’ rights campaign group.

There are 370,000 pensioner households currently paying rent to private landlords in the UK.

But campaigners expect that figure to almost treble to 995,000 by 2035-36 if housebuilding remains at current levels.

The Generation Rent campaign group has warned that these pensioners will be forced to rely on housing benefit to cover their rent, which will then pile pressure on the welfare budget.

New research from the lobby group also revealed that older renters are more likely to prefer secure tenancies with rent controls and tenancy guarantees.

Dan Wilson Craw, director of Generation Rent, said: “With most debates on housing focused on young adults, politicians risk neglecting the vast numbers of people who are already too old to get a mortgage and face a lifetime of renting.

“As they start retiring in greater numbers, the state will have to pick up the tab unless it makes some fundamental changes to the housing market.

“The answer is not further cuts to housing benefit, because that will only further immiserate people who have nowhere else to turn.

“Instead, we need years of investment in new homes to bring down rents and a transformation of the private rental market into a professional provider of long term homes.

“This means giving tenants protection from unfair evictions and putting a limit on rent rises.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/11/number-of-uk-pensioners-renting-homes-may-treble-by-2035

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12 Nov 2017

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Austerity cuts, DCC, Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

“Social care could drain local services cash dry, warns LGA”

“For every £1 of council tax, almost 60p could be spent on social care by 2020, taking away from “vital day-to-day services”, the Local Government Association has warned ahead of the Budget later this month.

The umbrella-group has called on the government to ensure councils could keep raising the local tax to keep providing services as the money is “running out fast”.

Clair Kober, chair of LGA’s resources board, said: “With the right funding and powers, local government can play a vital role in supporting central government to deliver its ambitions for everyone in our country.”

She added: “Demand for services caring for adults and children continues to rise but core funding from central government to councils continues to go down.

“This means councils have no choice but to squeeze budgets from other services – such as roads, street lighting and bus services – to cope.”

The association projected 56p could be spent on caring for the elderly, vulnerable adults and children, up from 41p in 2010-11, and that this would take away funds that could be spent on services such as waste collection, road repairs and bus services.

Almost half of all local authorities (168 councils) will no longer receive any revenue support grant funding from central government by 2019-20, the LGA point out in a new analysis.

Uncertainty was growing over how local services would be funded after 2020, as the Local Government Finance Bill, which was passing through parliament before the election, was not reintroduced in the Queen’s Speech, the association said.

This has made it uncertain whether councils would be able to keep all their income from business rates by the end of the decade.”

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/11/social-care-could-drain-local-services-cash-dry-warns-lga

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11 Nov 2017

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Accountability, DCC, Democracy, East Devon Tories, EDDC, Inequality, Local Enterprise Partnership

EDA Councillor Shaw: “Pursuit of elusive ‘devolution’ deal is leading to a new layer of bureaucracy: an unelected, one-party ‘Heart of the South West’ combined authority”

“This week’s DCC Cabinet meeting approved a Conservative proposal to set up a formal Joint Committee with Somerset (report at item 7 of the agenda). Objections were raised to aspects of the proposal by the leaders of the Liberal Democrat and Labour groups, and I spoke on behalf of the Non-Aligned Group (which comprises the three Independents and one Green councillor). You can watch the debate, and read my speech below:

“I think we know what is going with devolution. We have a government which is ripping the heart out of local government spending, pushing services to the border of viability; this is causing enormous difficulties for this council but also driving down local incomes and so weakening our regional economy. But at the same time it is holding out the carrot of giving us limited extra powers and returning a modest bit of the lost funding, if we jump through its ‘devolution’ hoops. The government barely seems to know what it’s doing over ‘devolution’ and the hoops keep changing, but we still have to guess what they are and do our best to jump.

And so we end up with the papers in front of us today. We are asked to endorse a ‘vision’ of higher productivity and economic growth and create an extra layer of bureaucracy to support it. The problem is that the vision bears little relation to reality. The ambition is to double the regional economy in 18 years, i.e. to increase its size by 100% – this requires a compound growth rate of 3.94%. In the real world, the actual growth rate in the SW over the last 18 years has been 30% and the annual rate 1.47%. Nationally, the UK economy has never grown by more than 3% p.a. in any of the last 18 years, and is currently veering downwards below 1.5%.

So we are asked to believe that we can increase local productivity growth from below the national average to well above it, and thereby buck not only regional but also national growth trends. How are we going to that? By waving the wand of the Hinkley nuclear white elephant and hoping that it somehow spreads some stardust over Devon? I can tell you that so far the LEP has produced almost nothing which offers help to the economy in the rural, small-town, coastal Devon which most of us represent.

Let’s take a reality check – if I come to the budget meeting and tell you, ‘the economy will grow by 4%, business rate receipts will shoot up, so spend, spend, spend’, you are going to look on me as a madman, and rightly so. So why should Devon County Council buy this phoney prospectus? And why should we embark on radical constitutional change to support it?

I know this is only a proposal for a Joint Committee, with limited financial implications. But it is clearly presented as enabling us to ‘move relatively quickly to establish a Combined Authority’ if that is deemed necessary. We already have 3 tiers of local government. This is the beginning of creating a fourth tier, without a mandate, without elections, and without balanced political representation.

95% of the people of Devon don’t even know they’re living in something called the ‘Heart of the South West’. It says everything about the lack of democracy in this so-called devolution that we are using this PR-speak rather than the county names which people understand. I know the Government prefers cross-boundary devolution projects, but Cornwall got a stand-alone deal, and we are much bigger in both population and area.

Apart from Hinkley there is no strong reason for us to tie ourselves to Somerset rather than Cornwall or Dorset. Our local government is being distorted to support an anachronistic nuclear project – for the benefit of companies owned by the French and Chinese states – instead of developing renewable energy for which we have a good basis in the SW.

I have this Cabinet down as a group of a level-headed people. But here we have fantasy economics, making claims which are about as credible as the figures on Boris’s battlebus, and constitutional change which means that Devon people and their councillors are asked to start handing over democratic control to a one-party quango in conjunction with unelected business people.

Since the Government is always changing its mind about devolution, there is no reason why we shouldn’t change our minds too. I ask you to

go back to the Government with a realistic agenda for Devon, that addresses the needs of all areas of the county and all sectors of our economy and society
back off from this unnecessary proposal for a joint committee.

Pursuit of elusive ‘devolution’ deal is leading to a new layer of bureaucracy: an unelected, one-party ‘Heart of the South West’ combined authority

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11 Nov 2017

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, EDDC, Greater Exeter, Infrastructure, Local Enterprise Partnership, Paul Diviani, Planning System, Rural communities, Scrutiny

Local campaigner’s brilliant analysis of “development” in Devon

Georgina Allen is a local campaigner based in Totnes – suffering similar problems to East Devon. This has been published by the Campaign for Rural England (CPRE). For further information, see the South Devon Watch Facebook page

“The papers at the moment are full of grim warnings about the Green Belt. It is anticipated that seventy percent of new builds will be built within the Green Belt, very few of which are going to be affordable, none of which, I suspect are going to be well built or add anything to the landscape or to the lives of people who live there.

Our countryside is under threat is the general theme, but it is more than under threat, it is under attack. Already thousands of acres have been swallowed up by new mass developments. Little towns are consumed under the weight of great new estates, so often built without thought or reason other than to make money for distant shareholders.

This government has removed, as it loves to do, much of the restraint and red tape around the building industry. A few well placed lobbyists, the understanding that the ‘conservative’ part of the Conservative Party was on its way out and the housing plan was hatched. It’s all been very cleverly done.

The housing crisis was basically used as a smokescreen to hide the fact that the building industry was going to be used to prop up the economy. It’s a short term solution of course, not much of a solution at all really. It’s been used in so many other places and at the end fails, not until a lot of land has been ruined of course, but at least a few people make a lot of money.

We don’t have a shortage of homes, of course. What we have is a shortage of houses that people can actually buy. I was 35 when I bought my first house. The mortgage was three times that of my teacher’s salary. It was a stretch, but I coped and then, of course, house prices soared; my little house became a valuable asset and when I sold it, the price was above the reach of a similar teacher in my area.

This is the problem.

If the government actually wanted to solve the housing crisis, they would put money into social housing, control land value tax and limit the amount of housing that investors from overseas can buy. But of course they don’t. Osborne was caught on tape saying that he had no interest in social housing, – it only bred Labour supporters. At least that was honest. What isn’t honest is the way they’ve gone about building the myth of housing need to cover up the fact that they are lobbing enormous amounts of our money to the building industry.

I went to look at Canary Wharf recently. It’s still an impressive sight, all jostling, shiny towers, cranes everywhere, but a little investigation revealed that many of the new skyscrapers, the residential ones at least, are left empty. Investors come in right at the beginning, when the ink on the architectural drawings is still wet and buy the whole build, neglecting often to rent the new flats out – and why should they? If they are allowed to use our buildings as gold bricks, then it seems reasonable that they should keep the value of their investment high.

It makes sense to ensure that demand continues to outstrip supply and that the number of houses available to the public is limited. Thousands of new-builds are breaking the skyline in East London and yet this huge amount of building is yet to bring prices down. People move out of the centre because they can’t afford to live there and migrate to the outskirts, the outskirts get more expensive, so they move further out, dislodging the inhabitants there, who are moved even further out and so on and so on, the ripples continuing across the country. Our major cities are hollowed out and people live in areas they don’t necessarily want to be in, finding themselves dependent on their cars and transport to get them back to the place where they have a job.

By the time the ripples get to Devon, they’ve changed slightly.

These ripples are the people who have decided they no longer need to commute to the city. They discover they can buy two houses in Devon for the price of their one in the South East and realise that they can fund their retirement/break through a buy-to-let. This has been the pattern of movement around us in South Devon recently.

The new-builds, which were of course spun to seem as if they would solve our local housing issues, have often gone to people moving into the area. These builds come with all sorts of assurances as to improvements in infrastructure – anything over 14 houses is supposed to trigger money for healthcare, transport, leisure, – all sorts of things are promised. Local councillors talk grandly of new parks, new hospitals, but of course that doesn’t feed into the ultimate aim of all this building, which is to make money, so the government has cleverly inserted all sorts of get-out-of-jail free cards, which the developers are only too happy to take on.

Viability studies are the worst of these.

S106 monies are promised before the build at planning stage. The local council pauses, – they know that this new build on the edge of AONB will severely impact local roads, local services, destroy a farmer’s land, restrict access to a town, but they might well run the risk of being sued if they say no and at least afterwards they can point to all the lovely benefits – all that money coming in to improve the swimming pool, health care etc.

Planning permission is granted, work starts, ancient hedges are ripped up, protected trees are undermined, the wildlife disappears. Then a viability study is done. Ah, it appears that we won’t make enough profit if we build more than 10% of these houses as affordable, so here are our new plans. Also, sorry, but we have no money for S106s, as it proved a little more expensive than we realised to flatten this hill, so that money has gone too.

The council, hamstrung by the more than 40% overall cut to its budget and short of legal expertise and planners, has to agree. For example, we’re getting 1,200 houses around our little town of 8,000 and are yet to see the great improvements, any improvements in fact to our town’s infrastructure. There’s a need for housing we keep getting told. There’s a need for actual affordable housing and improvements to roads, we reply and are greeted by silence.

But the worst spin of all is the calculation of need. We need houses and to deny this is selfish and this is said across the political spectrum. So how is local need calculated?

Here in Devon, during devolution at least; local need was worked out by a group called the Local Enterprise Partnership, the LEP. These groups have evolved out of the old rural business development model and are in place across the country. Their primary role is to support business and investment in their region. and they are paid vast sums of money by the government to invest locally. So far, so good.

Just a quick look at their board. Our one at least seems to be made up almost entirely of property developers, arms manufacturers and the CEOs of major construction companies; almost all of the construction companies at work in the South West seem to be represented. Their conflict of interest declarations cover many pages. So these are the people who came up with the figures of housing need. The fact that they could benefit personally from having high figures here, does not seem to have been challenged in any meaningful way.

How did they come by the figures? They do not need to say, they are not an accountable organisation and the calculations behind these figures are not accessible to the general populace. There are three or so councillors on the board [our own Paul Diviani is one and he’s responsible for housing!]; they represent the democratic will of the people, the rest of their work is none of your business. The LEPs are not democratically elected, their meetings are held in secret, their minutes are concealed, their work is surrounded in mystery and yet they spend our money. They are funded with public money.

The audit office has criticised them, our councillors have criticised them, everyone does, but they are the creation of government and can take the criticism. The people on the board benefit directly from much of the building they do with the public purse. Their companies build the roads that lead to the new developments, their companies finance the new developments, their companies profit from the new business parks set up around the new developments. The conflicts of interest are so huge they seem to be forgotten about.

Newton Abbot is a case in point. Despite the fact that the population of Newton Abbot has hardly grown at all in the last five years, it was calculated by the LEP that the town housing stock would need to double in the next ten years.

I asked the head of Teignbridge planning – Why? The answer – Housing need. How was this calculated? Ah well, its a very complex process, which I personally do not fully understand. Ok, can you point me in the direction of someone who can explain? No. And that’s the typical response you get for any of this type of questioning.

The LEP was given a multi-million growth fund payment from the government. It’s widely understood by local councillors here that the 40% cut to council budgets has reappeared as payments to the LEP. Our council’s money has in part gone into financing a group we have no say over. £46 million of the growth fund money is going into the Newton Abbot expansion, despite the rejection of this plan by local residents. The money is going into widening the roads and building further access. Who is building the roads? Galliford Try. The CEO of Galliford Try is on the board of the LEP. Who made the decision to spend this money in Newton Abbot? The LEP. Who gave planning permission for this huge expansion into the green belt around Newton Abbot? The leader of the council led the decision. The leader of the council is on the board of the LEP.

I am not of course, saying that this is corrupt. It is not illegal, – it is happening the way it was intended by central government. These are the sweeteners to keep the building going. The government can say they’ve built new houses, – they point to these spurious housing need figures. The building industry is delighted of course, – they can build cut-price housing in the most desirable areas for the greatest returns. Local councils have been so starved of cash that the promise of new homes bonuses keep them pliable and if they complain, if doesn’t matter, they have no money to mount any type of challenge to development anyway.

The building trade and certain powerful councillors have formed alliances through the LEP, where they all profit through the public purse and can talk happily of growth and building. The only people left out of this equation are the people who actually need houses, local people, who are completely sidelined and ignored. Their wishes and needs are irrelevant.

The biggest loser though, of course, is our countryside, our most valuable resource. In survey after survey, the British people cite the NHS and the countryside as the most precious and valuable assets we have. Our countryside is invaluable really and to see it treated the way it is at the moment, for the profit of shareholders and government is sickening.”

Source: CPRE magazine

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10 Nov 2017

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Why is Swire the only politician to get a column in the Cranbrook Herald?

That’s a question two residents are asking in the latest Cranbrook Herald.

A full page, too. And just a rehash of an item on his blog.

Why indeed.

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10 Nov 2017

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Consultation, Cranbrook, EDDC, Local Plan

Cranbrook (Preferred Approach) consultation opens

PRESS RELEASE

“Cranbrook Plan – Preferred Approach

We are delighted to advise that East Devon District Council are consulting on the above plan and we would welcome your comments that need to be received by us by

9:00 am on Monday 8 January 2018.

The Cranbrook Plan Preferred Approach documents set out proposals for the future development of the town and they include a masterplan that shows the proposed location of differing types of buildings and land uses including homes, shops, community facilities and open spaces. In the consultation documents we provide details of evidence and background reports that support the Cranbrook work and we also have a schedule of potential future policies for Cranbrook development and a sustainability appraisal.

The feedback we receive from this consultation will help inform production of a formal development plan document (or DPD) for the town that we hope to produce and consult on in 2018 and then to formally submit for independent examination. You can find out more about the Cranbrook Plan – Preferred Approach, look at supporting documents and find out how to make comments by visiting our web site at:

http://eastdevon.gov.uk/planning/planning-policy/cranbrook-plan/cranbrook-plan-preferred-approach-consultation

and

http://eastdevon.gov.uk/planning/planning-policy/cranbrook-plan/get-involved-share-your-views

Do please contact us if you have any queries or would like further information. We would advise that we are contacting you because your details are logged on our planning policy database or you have previously responded to Cranbrook consultation events. If, however, you no longer wish to be contacted by this Council in respect of planning policy documents do please advise us and we will remove your details from our database.”

Yours faithfully
The Cranbrook Team
East Devon District Council

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10 Nov 2017

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Accountability, Economy, Spin

Jobs, how many? It depends on who is doing the counting

Press releases say that 500 jobs have been created at the new Lidl depot in East Devon.

PLEASE note that this is NOT the same as 500 full-time jobs. It is quite possible that many jobs are for a limited number of hours.

Newspapers are sloppy about this. Often the number of promised jobs, when converted to full-time equivalent hours (FTE) can be half this number or even less.

ALWAYS ask “How many full-time equivalent jobs?” and get it in writing from the employer.

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10 Nov 2017

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When is a lobbyist not a lobbyist? When he’s Swire or meets with Swire?

A correspondent writes:

“Something rather hypocritical about Swire’s comments about transparency and privileged access? Wasn’t privileged access the very reason he said he was a better MP than Claire could have been? [He made this claim when he said he could NOT speak about the local NHS in Parliament but did p
have privileged access to Jeremy Hunt]. Though fat lot of good that did us!

Penultimate paragraph on this link:

“The Tory MP Hugo Swire, a former Foreign Office minister, said in the Commons on Monday that Patel’s meetings raised questions about the influence of lobbyists. “What people want is transparency and accountability. It is time, finally, to address the issue of privileged access and lobbying and funding, if we are not to have this repeating time and time again,” he said.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/08/lobbyist-organised-priti-patels-meetings-with-senior-israeli-officials

Bear in mind that Swire is Chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council and asks MANY, MANY questions on such things as boosting tourism in Egypt and accompanied (and maybe still accompanies) British arms manufacturers on their sales trips.

Is this lobbying? Can an MP lobby?

Or is this lobbying – getting fast access to Ministers – which Swire embraced when he was at the FO?

The Tory “access for influence” buddy system that pairs high-ranking MPs (including our own Hugo Swire) with multinational corporation executives

As Owl keep saying:
“Methinks he doth protest too much”

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Stripped back local government and its consequences

“This week, the Grenfell Recovery Taskforce issued its first report into the response of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea after nine weeks of research. The findings are damning, as anyone following the story would expect, and focus on particular cultural failings in the council that worsened the response.

The report speaks of “a leadership vacuum”, with a “distant council” and a lack of emotional intelligence in dealing with survivors and the community. It says empathy and emotional intelligence need to be put at the heart of its recovery plans. “We have seen many good intentions, which have gone unrecognised by residents,” says the report.

“Often what has been lacking is the appropriate ‘style’ of delivery, where an approach that had empathy at its core would have had greater positive impact. Systems, policies and practice need to be designed with people’s current needs at the heart as opposed to what is good or convenient administrative practice.”

This comment speaks to one of the main failings of the council: to understand what the community needed, not just in terms of temporary accommodation, rehousing and the release of funds, but with regards to people centred response services. Many complained that the council seemed robotic in its responses, focusing on defending its approach rather than accepting and understanding that people viewed its actions as inadequate and working out precisely why.

It was a council that had become insular, disconnected and in particular distant from communities similar to those on the Lancaster West estate. Despite the tragedy being unprecedented, the council appears to have become fixated on behaving as though the recovery could be dealt with within traditional local government frameworks, notes the report, which says the council needs to be bolder.

The taskforce urges the government to encourage a “highly innovative” response responding to residents’ needs, rather than being “bound by tried and tested bureaucratic response systems that are not appropriate in these circumstances”. …

Kensington and Chelsea is an extreme example of the stripped-back local government we now see across Britain. This is due not just to austerity hollowing out council accounts and making it impossible to deliver services, but also to a philosophical shift in the way councils operate. Too many have shifted from providing hands-on, local services with a high level of resident involvement, to an aloof, threadbare service that consists of both councillors and staff who eschew frontline work and meetings for a rigid managerialism and dismissal of residents as obstacles and annoyances. …

Local politics is far closer to everyday lives than national politics; by its very nature, empathy and emotional intelligence are absolutely imperative to a functioning council. It’s tragic that the Grenfell tower fire and external criticisms were necessary for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to understand that.”

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/nov/10/grenfell-council-lack-empathy-local-government-austerity-britain

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Broadband outage and missed appointments compensation

Bet there will be a lot of claims from East Devon! Shame it starts only in 2019.

“Householders who receive poor service from their telecoms provider are to get automatic compensation, the regulator Ofcom has announced.
From 2019 they will get £8 a day if a fault is not fixed, paid as a refund through their bill.

This is less than the £10 that was proposed when Ofcom began its consultation earlier this year.

Providers will also have to pay £5 a day if their broadband or landline is not working on the day it was promised.

If an engineer misses an appointment, they will have to give £25 in compensation.

Ofcom has estimated as many as 2.6 million people could benefit from the new rules. …”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41940505

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“Fewer social homes being built than at any time since Second World War, official figures reveal”

The article says the Government is concentrating on “affordable homes”. Affordability is calculated at offering a discount of 20% on the average price of other houses on a development. So, if the development has an average cost of £300,000 an affordable home (smaller and usually sited at the least attractive part of a development) would be £240,000. There is no such thing as a private “affordable rent”.

Social housing is built and controlled by councils or housing associations and rents are lower than in the private sector.

“Fewer social homes are being built than at any time since the Second World War, new official figures have revealed.

Government data shows just 5,380 new social homes were completed across England last year – down from 6,800 the previous year.

The number has plummeted from 39,560 in 2010/11 – the year the Conservatives came to power. …

… Responding to the latest figures, Labour said immediate action was needed. John Healey MP, the party’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, said: “After the Grenfell Tower fire Theresa May admitted the Conservatives haven’t given enough attention to social housing. These shocking figures show she was right.

“The number of new social rented homes being built is now at the lowest level on record, and the number of new low-cost homes to buy is at just half the level it was under Labour. After seven years of failure on housing the Chancellor must use the Budget to tackle the housing crisis.”

Housing and Planning Minister Alok Sharma said: “These latest figures show progress but we know there is more to do. That’s why we have increased the affordable homes budget to more than £9bn and introduced a wider range of measures to boost building more affordable homes, supporting the different needs of a wide range of people.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fewer-social-homes-second-world-war-local-authorites-councils-housing-tenants-right-to-buy-a8047011.html

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What the Tory council did next after Grenfell Tower tragedy

“The council responsible for Grenfell Tower has been accused of wasting huge sums of money after it emerged it was trying to recruit more than two dozen communications staff to spread the message about its work in the aftermath of the fire.

Kensington and Chelsea council is advertising for as many 28 “communications and engagement professionals” on one-year contracts. With salaries ranging from £26,500 to £49,500, the move could cost as much as £1m….”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/09/grenfell-council-accused-of-wasting-up-to-1m-on-communications-jobs

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Accountability, Claire Wright, Hugo Swire, Lobbying, Otterto

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Why do Ladram Bay owners like Hugo Swire so much?

Perhaps this from Swire’s 2016 blog sheds some light on why the Carters are so fond of him (see earlier post today). Owl wonders what he now thinks of local lobbying after he demanded that transparency about it should be increased because of Priti Patel’s involvement with lobbyists?

And remember, the words below are his own, from his own blog, not a puff job from Ladram Bay owners. Ah, except that Mrs Swire, his parliamentary assistant, is said to work on his blog – so he might have had a bit of help from her.

Wonder when we can expect to see Swire is a caravan that doesn’t belong to an Arab sheikh?

“East Devon MP Hugo Swire was given a behind-the-scenes tour of a major holiday park in his constituency this April after it put the finishing touches to a £10 million redevelopment project.

The family owners of Ladram Bay Holiday Park near Budleigh Salterton invited Mr Swire to see the changes and to meet park staff as it gears up for the 2016 holiday season.

He was accompanied on his tour by park directors Zoe House and Robin Carter, two of the four siblings whose family has owned the park for over 70 years.

The MP, who is also Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, heard that holiday bookings are already up by 10 percent compared with this time last year.

Helping to provide an even more memorable experience will be the new facilities completed last year, including a new swimming pool complex and Jurassic-themed adventure golf course.

This winter has also seen further improvements such as the newly made-over customer reception area which Mr Swire declared officially open during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Mr Swire commented: “It was a pleasure to visit Ladram Bay once again to open their new reception and view their new facilities. The business continues to thrive and grow, which is good news for local employment and the wider East Devon economy”.

The MP also toured Ladram’s bright new park shop which puts a special emphasis on locally sourced food and drink, from artisan bread to Devon-brewed craft ales.

Other developments fresh for 2016 include improvements to Ladram’s Seaview Shack on its private beach where families can hire boats and watersports equipment, and enjoy light refreshments with stunning views along the coast.

There are also additional brand new holiday homes with the emphasis on five-star comfort, and early summer will see the installation of new super-luxury glamping pods.

Mr Swire was also shown a pair of colourful historic gypsy caravans which the park has had in its proud possession for many years, and which have now been renovated using traditional construction skills and hand-painted decoration.

The MP congratulated the Carter family on their long history of providing top quality and good-value holidays to tens of thousands of Devon visitors each year.

The park’s high standards have been recognised with a raft of awards, and Ladram now boasts a top five-star accolade from VisitEngland, putting it among an elite of UK holiday parks.

Zoe House said the family was delighted that Mr Swire was able to take time out to visit the park and officially open the new reception area. …”

https://www.hugoswire.org.uk/news/seaside-parks-£10m-splash-wins-mps-backing

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Misc

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Dorset positive about national park – we can’t join up as Diviani doesn’t want to lose control of assets

Dorset enthusiastic, Diviani more worried about losing control of assets and Clinton Devon Estates (a big landowner) now running things on our side of the border – chances of an East Devon and Dorset National Park? Less than zero.

“The Government has said it is minded to support a move to two unitary local authorities in place of the present nine Dorset councils. How would the proposed Dorset National Park work with a possible new unitary system?

The National Park would be an asset and a valued partner for any future councils, under existing or possible new arrangements, helping to deliver a shared agenda for a successful, thriving and healthy Dorset, and benefitting our communities, economy and environment. As Purbeck District Council noted this summer, a Dorset National Park can help to keep Purbeck special. Within any new unitary system, a National Park would increase the representation, voice and influence of rural Dorset and its communities. …”

http://www.dorsetnationalpark.com/single-post/2017/11/07/DNP-partnering-with-future-councils

Meanwhile, here in East Devon:

“It has been suggested that the area might secure some £10million of annual central government funding with more than 90 per cent of this being invested in the local economy.”

Responding to the question, council leader Paul Diviani stated that EDDC is not directly involved in the proposals and awaits further consultation as it progresses through the process of consideration.

When asked if he agrees with claims that a national park would bring significant economic benefits to the district, Cllr Diviani said: “National parks and AONBs are not about making money. The AONBS are much more localised than national parks ever can be.

“It is an opportunistic type of approach that people in Dorset are taking about our assets here in East Devon.”

The Dorset and East Devon National Park Team behind the bid claims the new status is the ‘natural next step’ to protect the area’s greatest asset.”

https://eastdevonwatch.org/2016/08/08/control-of-assets-more-important-than-creating-a-national-park-says-eddc/

AND now even more unlikely:

“An East Devon landowner is set to play a significant part in the future of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

Clinton Devon Estates, which owns and manages 25,000 acres of land across Devon, has pledged its support to the Jurassic Coast Trust which is taking over the management of the 95-mile stretch of world heritage coastline, from Devon and Dorset county councils this July.

The landowner is joining the Trust as one of four Lead Business Partners, currently the only partner in Devon alongside three based in Dorset, and will pledge £3,000 per year to the charity, helping to safeguard its future.”

https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/08/11/clinton-devon-estates-to-take-over-work-of-jurassic-coast-trust/

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9 Nov 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Corruption, Democracy, Scrutiny, Sleaze, Sovereignty, Tax avoidance

UK politics and corruption – it’s not (only) “Johnny Foreigner” to blame

This article, written in December 2016, foresaw developments this week. We have had the warnings, but where is the path to change when all the paths are obstructec by the corrupt?

“… Our media likes to write about crime and corruption as though they are the funny fetishes of Johnny Foreigner: Italian mafia, Russian oligarchs or Mexican drug lords. But this year alone, the former banker and anti-corruption campaigner Roman Borisovich made the claim that three-quarters of the money looted in Russia comes to Britain, the Italian mafia expert Roberto Saviano described the UK as “the most corrupt place on earth”, and our biggest bank was sued for its involvement in laundering Mexican drug money: appropriate, given than HSBC was founded by criminal drug dealers on the back of the Opium Wars.

This racket is big enough to have vast control over our politics. An enterprise dogged by criminal charges can pay to hush up the nation’s biggest broadsheet. It’s hard to look at party funding in the last two UK general elections without concluding that it was the donations of the financial sector and prominent tax dodgers which put David Cameron into Downing Street twice to ensure that they weren’t regulated after the 2008 crash.

And it’s not just the Tories. After trade unions, the biggest ‘donors’ to the Labour party before the 2015 elections were the accountancy firm PricewaterhoueCooper, who ‘gave’ in the form of £600,000 of research ‘help’. Then shadow-chancellor-now-TV-dancing-supermo Ed Balls effectively outsourced £200,000 worth of policy work to these much criticized wizards of tax accountancy for the mega-rich, while shadow business secretary Chukka Ummuna got £60,000 worth of ‘support’.

Not wanting to miss out on the action, the Liberal Democrats accepted 1371 hours of policy ‘technical support’ from PwC in 2015 alone, the year after the Luxemburg Leaks revealed the firm’s significant involvement in helping the hyper-rich slash their tax bills through complex accounting arrangements. It’s worth pondering on who wrote the maze of loopholes into the laws in the first place…

Once they leave office, the deal only gets better for our prominent politicians. Former British foreign secretaries like Malcolm Rifkind, Jack Straw and David Miliband have auctioned access to themselves for huge sums of money. Former British health secretaries like Alan Milburn, Virginia Bottomley and John Hutton have all quietly slipped from government into the private healthcare sector, and now make millions of pounds between them cashing in on NHS privatisations they (and their cousins) pushed through. Former British Chancellor George Osborne has seen his best man’s firm rake in £36 million from his bargain-basement privatisation of the Royal Mail. Former British prime minister Tony Blair used the links made in office to secure vast sums of money running round the globe as a lackey for the violent royal dictators of the United Arab Emirates, and working as an advisor, lobbyist and spin doctor to a cast of characters including Nursultan Äbishuly Nazarbayev, the dictator of Kazakhstan and Aleksandar Vučić: once Slobodan Milošević’s Information Minister, now Serbia’s prime minister.

Our country is represented in the world by a trade minister who was previously sacked as defence secretary for allowing a businessman funded by companies which “potentially stood to benefit from government decisions” to sit in on at least 40 meetings and a foreign secretary whose time as London Mayor included overseeing property deals described by the former chairman of the government’s Committee on Standards in Public Life as “having the smell of semi-corruption” involving large donations to the Conservative party. Do either of them have an eye to the second career profits of their predecessors? We’ll have to see.

And those who wish to buy influence get their way. David Cameron promised “no ifs, not buts, no new runways” at Heathrow. Theresa May came out publicly against the scheme. Boris Johnson and Zac Goldsmith both tied their reputations to their opposition to it. But it is going ahead, costing the Tories an MP and a bucket of political capital across marginal seats in West London.

It seems to me that there is a simple explanation for what would normally be seen as an astonishing act of political self-harm: as the organisation 10:10 puts it: “15% of the population took 70% of all flights in 2014. People in that 15% group earn more than £115,000 a year. They tend to have a second home abroad. And their most popular destinations? Tax havens.[1]” The third runway only makes sense if seen from the top of the towers of Canary Wharf. But in Britain, that’s the view that matters.

The scar of living in a country run by and for the rich is marked by more than a runway, though. Even if you ignore the vast quantity of wealth hidden in tax havens, Britain is the sixth most unequal country in the OECD, after Chile, Mexico, Turkey, the USA and Israel. This is a level of inequality of the scale that tears whole societies apart; or is only possible in places that have already been rent asunder: three of those countries have governments at war with their own citizens; and the USA just elected Donald Trump.

By some measures, the UK has nine of the ten poorest regions of Northern Europe, while London is the richest. We produce 18% less per hour worked than the G8 average, and real wages have fallen 10.4% since 2007: a figure only matched across the OECD by Greece. Children in England are among the least happy in the world, and in 2013, the UK was criticised by the UN for a mortality rate among under 5s that’s higher than in countries including the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Meanwhile, the bonfire of the London housing market sucks in ever more of our cash, ensuring the nation’s wealth is squandered on making homes in the most expensive city on earth ever-more expensive, rather than investing that capital in anything productive.

For those of us who seek answers to serious questions about how to build a just, sustainable economy in this archipelago, one of the first questions must surely be what vehicle we have to do this through. And whilst government is certainly necessary, the ancient British state; built to run an empire, seems utterly unfit for the purpose. Without the modifying influence of the EU, though, it’s all that England is left with.

In this context, any conversation about tax in Britain must include a thought about the constitutional position of our tax havens. Any discussion of regional inequality has to look at the vast centralisation of power in our supposedly sovereign parliament. Any talk of financial regulation has to ask why the City can have such vast influence within our politics. Any look at income inequality must also survey inequalities of political reach. Because once you accept that the state has a decisive role in our economy – and it does – you need next to ask who runs that state, in whose interests, and how that can change.

In 2016, millions of British people voted to leave the EU because they wanted to ‘take back control’. The remaining question, then, is a simple one: to whom will that control be returning? Will it be the same ruling class, using the same holes in the same wood-wormed constitution to squirrel away wealth and power and plunder the country like they plunder the planet? Or will the process force us to realise that Britain’s problem aren’t the fault of foreigners from whom we can escape; but come instead from our own failure to free ourselves from Medieval subjecthood, and fight for real democracy?

[1] This research was done by the Tyndall Centre, using the PwC list of tax havens.”

https://www.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/britain-is-not-what-it-thinks-it-is/

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Austerity cuts, Inequality

Free child care ? Only if you can find it and that’s not easy

“The chaotic rollout of 30 hours’ free childcare policy hit families in high-rent metropolitan areas the hardest, HuffPost UK can reveal.

Inner London, Outer London, East of England and the South East suffered most from the botched policy launch in September, with as many as 40% of parents unable to access the free childcare promised to them by Theresa May.

Cities in the Midlands and Yorkshire were also left with a vast shortage of places, with cash-strapped providers telling the Government they would have to charge for a place or face running at a loss.

The Government has also admitted 10% of eligible families across the country were still unable to access free childcare today, more than two months on from the policy’s launch.

Labour’s shadow early years minister Tracy Brabin MP said: “This is yet more evidence that the Government’s 30 hour free childcare policy is seriously under-funded, something that is being felt particularly starkly in areas where property costs are typically higher. …”

https://t.co/zb5RdUQ5Gz

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Accountability, Hugo Swire, Neil Parish

MP travel and accommodation costs

Conservative East Devon:

Hugo Swire:
£9,201 in travel expenses
£8,324 in accommodation(including £3,000 buildings insurance, £2,778 council tax plus bills).

Neil Parish:
£20,580 in rent
£6,584 in travel

http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/how-much-your-mp-claim-747380

Amazing that our MPs can claim against council tax and buildings insurance for a home they presumably own and even that they can claim travel expenses when people from their areas, earning much, much less than them, must pay 100% of their commuting costs.

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Accountability, Air pollution, AONB, Claire Wright, Developers/ Development, EDDC, Hugo Swire, Otterto, Transport (local)

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Claire Wright: “Director of Ladram Bay Holiday Park attempts intimidation at public meeting”

Carter family (Ladram Bay, Greendale Business Park and other businesses) prefer absent Hugo Swire MP to present DCC councillor Claire Wright. Surprise, surprise!

“A director of Ladram Bay Holiday Park ordered me to be silent and leave a public meeting last night, which was called to discuss traffic concerns associated with his business.

The meeting, which was held in the restaurant of Ladram Bay, was arranged at the behest of myself and Otterton Parish Council, following widespread concern over the level of traffic and size of vehicles travelling to and from the caravan park.

It was attended by around 70 Otterton residents, who were largely exasperated and angry about the problems caused by the continually expanding caravan park.

At the end of the meeting I outlined three key concerns that I had heard in the meeting, in order to seek assurances from the management team. They were on:

• frequent use of retrospective planning applications
• continual expansion (a huge increase in the number of lodges and caravans)
• level of traffic and size of vehicles travelling to and from the park and funding potential mitigating road improvements

But before I could get more than a sentence out, Robin Carter approached me and asked me to stop talking. He added that I wasn’t welcome and that I should leave.

His co-director, Zoe House, added that the members of the public were there at their invitation (I had just mentioned my letter that was delivered to every house in the village).

The room sort of erupted at this point and there were shouts of:

“Let her speak!” “She’s our representative!” “Leave her alone!”

Robin Carter, whose family also own the controversial Greendale Business Park at Woodbury Salterton, told residents that I wasn’t their representative. Hugo Swire was. He added that I was not going to “canvass for votes” on their property.

I replied that I was Otterton’s Devon County Councillor and was entitled to speak at a public meeting.

I said I would like to finish my points. But after almost every sentence, Mr Carter interjected with similar remarks – and to more shouting from outraged residents.

One of my points was that if highways officers identified any road improvements whether Ladram Bay might consider contributing funding. Seeing as Robin Carter was standing right in front of me, I directed this question at him.

He then moved so close it felt as though he was actually squaring up to me. Someone called out: “That’s intimidation!” I asked him to move back, which he did but only slightly. He glared angrily and carried on addressing me in a low menacing voice.

Mr Carter said that if I had these points to make I should raise them in a private meeting, not in public and that I should hurry up and finish what I was saying.

I replied that I had already attended a private meeting with his co-director, Zoe House and the parish council in August. That many of these points were already made and surely now was the time, with residents present, to provide these assurances.

Cue further glaring and, no answers.

Many residents came up to me afterwards to thank me for standing up for them, and to Mr Carter.
***************************
The meeting started with a PR video set to music, which struck me as entirely the wrong note. It was the sort of video that would have been more appropriate for investors. Then the Ladram representatives read out a list of accolades awarded to the company.

Management team Steven Harper-Smith and Will Tottle who ran the presentation and fielded questions seemed out of their depth at times and as a new member of staff, Mr Harper-Smith was unaware of the continual retrospective planning applications.

People complained they couldn’t hear. It wasn’t helped by the loud thumping music coming from downstairs, which I asked to be turned down. It wasn’t.

Some of the management team’s points, such as the new £10 fee (increased from £5) for parking on site, which they claimed reduced congestion in the village and was “not a money making scheme” was met with understandable derision. How can this improve traffic and parking in the village?!

They said that their letters to visitors included a line about driving carefully through the village. That this was “a journey” and the start of a positive relationship with the parish council.

A traffic survey carried out in August by a group associated with the parish council found that around 35 per cent of traffic travelling through Otterton is generated by Ladram Bay. Another survey is imminent.

The incredible claim by the management team that traffic hadn’t increased much over the years and that all roads were busier, was met with loud and understandable frustration. The park has expanded massively over the years, with hundreds of pitches – and the traffic has increased with it!

I should add here that on my visits to Otterton I have observed a genuine and real problem with the level of traffic on the road and the absolutely enormous caravans and lodges that make their way through the village and residents tell me, knock walls down, erode banks and damage trees and hedges.

There was acknowledgement of this damage and a promise to repair it. How further damage is prevented is another issue, when the road is simply too narrow for the size of the loads.

Someone asked for a commitment for a maximum number of lodges so the village could have peace of mind on further development. This was supported by clapping.

The management team did not commit to this.

Someone else suggested that the lodges should be brought in by barge instead.

One resident said the number of cars increasing in the village was not related to Ladram Bay. It was due to people having more cars. It was clear that this view was not shared by the vast majority of residents.

Someone else described the traffic situation as “horrendous.”

Then the thorny subject of planning was raised. Ladram Bay is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in a coastal preservation zone. The landscape is highly protected under a number of strong policies. Yet planning consent keeps being given for expansion. And many of these planning applications are submitted after the building has taken place.

One resident spoke on this in a very informed way about this. He asked why the dog walking area was now a car park and said there was no point in objecting to the planning application as the trees had already been removed. The team were vague on this but the new general manager did say that in future what they did would comply with planning consent.

Parish council chairman, John Fudge told the meeting that the parish council had objected to the application but it was approved by East Devon District Council’s planning committee.

This started a bit of a debate in the room and how people are not notified about planning applications. And why there is one rule for them and another for Ladram Bay.

An attendee asked the Ladram Bay owners to liaise with the village and said that the park should “have the decency to talk to the village” over planning applications and it was no surprise that there was “distrust and a complete lack of confidence” in the business by residents.

A resident of Ladram Road said she had been hit twice by vehicles and there needed to be speed deterrents. The management team agreed.

A resident of Fore Street said that she takes her life in her hands every time she leaves her house and that traffic is travelling too fast.

Someone replied that community speedwatch found few cars travelling over 30mph but that was too fast anyway. That the village needed a 20mph zone.

(This is something I have been investigating and will continue to do so).

John Fudge, parish council chairman spoke at the end of the meeting to thank people for coming. He said the parish council would work with Ladram Bay to improve the situation. He said he believed there was a genuine desire on the part of the caravan park to improve things.

Directors, Robin Carter and Zoe House remained silent throughout the meeting. Until I spoke at the end.

What do I think of Robin Carter’s behaviour? I think it was aggressive and an (unsuccessful) attempt at intimidation. It was totally inappropriate and completely unnecessary. I am a key representative of Otterton people and I am entitled to attend and speak at a public meeting.

A thriving business on the edge of Otterton is a positive thing. Otterton Mill is also a successful local business. Yet I haven’t heard a single complaint about Otterton Mill. All the complaints I have heard have been about the attitude of the senior management team at Ladram Bay, their lack of consideration and the effect that their continual expansion plans have on the village.

I am hoping that this will be the start of a more positive and considerate relationship between residents and Ladram Bay. Local people deserve better.”

http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/director_of_ladram_bay_attempts_to_silence_me_at_public_meeting