Owl called Parish Chair of the Commins Transport Committee – blinded by the light of his campaign to dual the A303 perhaps – and was quickly rapped on the talons by an eagle-eyed commentator!
He is actually Chair of the EFRA Committee – Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Owl wasn’t blinded by him being a dairy farmer, obviously).
Wonder what he makes of his new Environment boss – Angela Leadstrom – who he supported in the leadership campaign AFTER saying he was a Remainer.
Readers will recall when EDDC got so panicky about vast swathes of undeveloped land at Skypark, on the edge of Cranbrook, that it created the seemingly batty idea to relocate its headquarters ther – 10-25 miles away from its voters and practically in the lap of Exeter City Council.
That was fairly quickly knocked on the head (but not without tens of thousands of our pounds being wasted – Owl wonders how much the mostly- vacant site is still costing us).
So far, there seem to be only two businesses at EDDC’s flagship Skypark – DHL couriers and an ambulance call centre.
In July of this year, St Modwyn put in a planning application for reserved matters on the site, including construction of an office block.
The planning application is:
16/1462/MRES
The erection of an office block, landscaping, car parking and associated access and infrastructure (Reserved Matters application in pursuance of outline planning permission ref: 06/3300/MOUT)
Skypark Clyst Honiton Exeter EX5 2D
Planning application describes:
… creche, 150 bed hotel, cafes, leisure and conference facilities, relocated football ground, clubhouse and facilities, strategic open space (including flood attenuation) …
It was originally submitted in July 2016, and further information was submitted 21 September 2016.
Does anyone recall a hotel, conference centre and football pitch in the original plans? Whose pitch is being relocated?
Here is a paper trail:
https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/simpleSearchResults.do?action=firstPage
Surely such a big change, especially after ten years (2006 – 06/3300/MOUT) should merit a new planning application?
A&E units are struggling to cope because social care services that help elderly people have been cut so much that they are reaching a “tipping point”, England’s care regulator is to warn.
English care home closures are leaving vulnerable people at risk, says watchdog
Hospitals are ending up dangerously full and have seen “bedblocking” hit record levels because of a widespread failure to give elderly people enough support to keep them healthy at home, says the Care Quality Commission.
A worsening lack of at-home care services and beds in care homes are forcing hospitals to admit more patients as emergencies, which deepens their already serious financial problems. “What’s happening, we think, is that where people aren’t getting access to [social] care, and we are not preventing people’s needs developing through adult social care, is that they are presenting at A&E,” said David Behan, the CQC’s chief executive.
Figures contained in the commission’s annual report show that the number of hospital bed days lost through patients being unable to leave because social care was not available to allow them to be discharged safely soared from 108,482 in April 2012 to 184,199 in July this year – a 70% rise.
The fact that growing numbers of mainly frail, elderly people are being left without the help they need with basic chores such as washing, dressing and cooking “creates problems in other parts of the health and care system, such as overstretched A&E departments or delays in people leaving hospital,” he added. GP surgeries are also having to treat patients who became unwell or suffered an injury because they did not receive help they needed.
Behan urged ministers to give social care a higher priority and urgently find extra money for it to prevent its ongoing deterioration causing even worse problems. “We are becoming concerned about the fragility of the adult social care market, with evidence suggesting that it might be approaching a tipping point,” he said.
The CQC’s assessment of health and social care, called State of Care, adds that: “The difficulties in adult social care are already affecting hospitals. Bed occupancy rates exceeded 91% in January to March 2016, the highest quarterly rate for at least six years, and in 2015-16 we saw an increase in the number of people having to wait to be discharged from hospital, in part due to a lack of suitable care options,” the CQC’s annual report says.
The number of people in England receiving local council-funded social care services fell by 26% from 1.1m in 2009 to about 850,000 in 2013-14, at a time of Whitehall-driven cuts to town hall budgets. The number of people with unmet needs has risen from 800,000 in 2010 to more than 1 million last year, according to Age UK.
Growing unavailability of social care was a key driver of the 3% rise in emergency admissions to hospital last year and 11% rise in bed days lost to bedblocking. That was mainly due to patients having to wait for a package of care to be put in place to let them return home or for a place in a nursing home to become available. “The effect of these delays on the NHS is significant, costing hospitals £820m a year,” the National Audit Office says.
NHS bodies, health thinktanks and charities urged government to use next month’s autumn statement to inject extra funding into social care.
Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has already called for any extra funding for the health service to instead be used to prop up social care. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is understood to privately agree. On Monday Stephen Dorrell, the ex-Conservative health secretary, said that the government’s policy of giving social care less and less money was “insane economics and bad social policy” and undermined its claim to be backing the NHS.
Cuts to social care and also mental health and public health mean “the NHS is being stretched to the limit,” said Stephen Dalton, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals. “Relying on political rhetoric that promises to protect the NHS but fails to acknowledge that a cut in social care results in a cost to the NHS, is an economic deception.”
The CQC also disclosed that about 800,000 patients are registered with a GP practice that its inspectors have judged to be inadequate on safety grounds. It is concerned that some surgeries deliver “unacceptable standards of care”. Safety failings include poor management of medicines, inappropriately trained staff and premises that are unsuitable.
The Department of Health welcomed the CQC’s findings that “the majority of the NHS, 72% of adult social care services and 87% of GP practices inspected are good or better – and that improvement is taking place all over the country”.
A spokeswoman said: “The NHS is performing well at a time of increasing demand. The government is investing £10bn to fund its own plan for the future, and crucially is ensuring that the amount of money available to local authorities for social care is rising in future years of the parliament, reaching up to £3.5bn extra by 2020.”
(5 pages)
Summary
“Overview
Integration aims to put the needs of people at the centre of how services are organised and delivered. Models of integration vary.
Co-ordinating resources or pooling budgets between health and social care services can enable joint working. The four nations of the UK have introduced different financial arrangements to support integration.
Data sharing, as well as different incentives and employment terms between sectors, pose challenges for integration.
Assessing the effectiveness of integration schemes is difficult. Evaluation tends to focus on whether integration has relieved pressure on services, such as reducing emergency hospital admissions, which data suggest is not routinely achieved. However, integration may improve user outcomes and experiences, but data to assess these are not consistently collected.”
“CIPFA has called for the creation of independent commission on health and social care to devise how to fund provision in the future after experts raised concerns about how the system would cope with rising demand.
Experts brought together by PF and CIPFA as part of the Public Finance Perspectives series concluded that urgent and radical reforms would be needed. Contributors included The King’s Fund’s senior fellow social care Richard Humphries, The Health Foundation’s director of research and economics Anita Charlesworth and CIPFA’s head of health and integration faculty Jane Payling.
In Funding a Healthy Future, they highlighted the sector is facing increasing uncertainty due to Brexit and its implication for the health and social care budget, research capacity and employment prospects.
Social care was identified as among the most pressing concerns among many contributions as it must function well for the NHS to remain sustainable. However, severe funding pressure could lead to it reducing the services provided, which the experts said would have a knock-on effect on the health service.
An independent commission should be formed to consider what options are available to balance demand and supply. Also, CIPFA called for the introduction of a so-called ‘golden ratio’ of 10%, which is the proportion of national gross domestic product that is ring-fenced for health and social care spending. This would reduce the unpredictability of politically-driven decisions on funding, and provide a logical benchmark for what the nation can afford to spend on the area.
The alternative is that the public would see an increase in the rationing of services, significant tax rises or charges for using the NHS and social care.
CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman stated that without radical transformation, the government would struggle to ensure the NHS and social care system will be sustainable for future generations.
“Indeed, the concerns of leading experts that CIPFA has gathered clearly demonstrate that the sector is already creaking under the strain,” he stated. “To protect services, the severe financial stress the sector is under must be confronted with great urgency.”
This meant tough and politically unpopular choices would have to be made in order to ensure the quality of health and social care services, he added.
“CIPFA believes that a commission must be set up to explore these difficult decisions. It should also introduce a golden ratio of GDP spend on healthcare to protect funding from the unpredictability of short-sighted political decisions.”
Sidford Fields: landowner says is should be built in the AONB because it will be good for the community.
Sidford cycle route by the river or inland in the AONB: landowner seems reluctant to engage with the community in talks.
QUESTION FROM COUNCILLOR VINT
Re: HOTSW and Economic Development Consultation
“When drafting the economic development elements of the Heart Of The South West Devolution Prospectus how were the primary employment, housing and social needs of the region identified, and how were residents and small businesses consulted to help identify these needs?”
REPLY BY COUNCILLOR HART
“On the 19th September 2016, I gave a presentation at a Member Development Session on Devolution which is available on the Councils website at
The presentation is clear in setting out the next steps for the partnership.
In respect of further engagement with key stakeholders in the development of our joint economic priorities; this will be undertaken through the development of a Productivity Plan. This plan will replace the current Single Economic Plan developed by the Local Enterprise Partnership and is an opportunity for all local authority partners and stakeholders to fully engage in developing proposals that will deliver greater prosperity across the Heart of the South West.
The Partnership is starting work on this in Autumn and will be engaging with groups through to Spring. Members will have the opportunity to consider the draft Productivity Plan before final approval.”
This presentation also set out a timetable for formal public and stakeholder consultation starting in the early New Year on the creation of a Combined Authority and a draft deal with Government.
At this meeting I did, however, emphasise that this timetable is subject to Government formally engaging with the Partnership.
I can confirm that the Partnership is not actively engaged in formal negotiations with Government and therefore this timeline will be amended.
The Partnership is clear that it will only go to formal public consultation when it has an offer from Government for the public and stakeholders to consider. I will, of course, continue to keep Members updated on progress with Devolution.
Almost 1,500 care homes have closed in the last six years, figures from the health watchdog revealed yesterday.
Experts say the closures are having a devastating impact on the lives of vulnerable elderly patients.
Many are being kept in hospital unnecessarily, becoming ‘bed blockers’, because there is no room in nearby homes.
The Care Quality Commission said it is extremely concerned about the ‘pace’ of closures – which is driven by a crisis in funding – and warned it could ‘undermine the quality and safety of care that people receive’.
Tomorrow it will publish a damning report that is likely to show that hundreds of the remaining homes are putting patients at risk.
Figures obtained from the CQC by BBC News show there are now 16,614 care homes and nursing homes in England – down from 18,068 in September 2010.
The closures are being fuelled by Government cuts to councils’ social care budgets.
Councils are not paying care home providers enough to keep up with the costs of looking after vulnerable residents.
This means it is not profitable for providers to keep so many homes open, so they shut those that are running at a loss.
But the closures are happening just as demand is steadily increasing due to our ageing population.
Figures obtained from the CQC by BBC News show there are now 16,614 care homes and nursing homes in England – down from 18,068 in September 2010. And the lack of available spaces is leading to rising numbers of the elderly being kept in hospital.
This has a devastating impact on their health and means there is a lack of beds for patients coming in from A&E.
CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care, Angela Sutcliffe, said: ‘It does highlight a concern that the long-term sustainability of high-quality care within this sector could be at risk …
‘We know that the adult social care sector faces many financial pressures, which worryingly could undermine the quality and safety of care that people receive and rely upon every day.’
Tomorrow the CQC will publish its annual report on the standards of care at England’s thousands of care homes, hospitals and GPs surgeries.
Last year it rated a third of the 17,000 residential and nursing homes as either ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement.’
Experts are also worried about a repeat of the collapse of the Southern Cross healthcare group in 2011, which left 30,000 elderly residents having to be urgently relocated.
The provider was forced to close all of its 750 care homes because it could no longer afford the rent.
In a further blow, many providers are cutting back on council-funded home care visits because they aren’t profitable.
This means vulnerable residents who rely on such visits to help them wash and dress are suddenly having them stopped.
Last night Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, which represents care homes, said the Government needed to take ‘urgent action’ to provide councils with more funding.
‘We have been warning about these problems for some time. There is a lot of churn in the sector – contracts changing hands as providers leave and services stopping,’ he said.
‘There is simply not enough money in the system.’ Caroline Abrahams, of charity Age UK, added: ‘Few public services are as important as social care, and yet it is clearly in serious, progressive decline.’
A Department of Health spokesman admitted the current market was ‘challenging.’ But they said ministers were taking steps to help through the creation of a new pot of money called the Better Care Fund.”
A gas-fired power station has been proposed for the East Devon village of Hawkchurch on the East Devon- West Dorset border NEAR an AONB (Area of outstanding Natural Beauty) in Dorset. It was not put out to consultation to the local community.
West Dorset MP Oliver Letwin says of it:
“This development will have an impact on the West Dorset AONB.
“I do not believe it is appropriate, or in line with national planning policy, for industrial installations to be located in ways that have such impact on landscape of national importance. I hope, therefore, that this application will be refused.”
In East Devon, an industrial site is being planned WITHIN the AONB at Sidford – after it had been agreed that it would not be allowed in the Local Plan but slipped in because officers did not offer up evidence to a Planning Inspector to remove it.
The local MP, Hugo Swire, has said …
… absolutely nothing at all.
Question in Parliament yesterday:
“Does my hon. Friend agree that what is different about having a new royal yacht now is that we are sailing into a brave new world, and that we will do, and need to do, many more trade deals across the world? There is a great opportunity not only to support the royal family, but to support the nation in getting those trade deals”
His other parliamentary questions in 2016 have covered. Bear in mind he is a dairy farmer and Chairman of the Commons Transport Committee.
Summary: good to have onside if you are a farmer or use the A303 a lot. Not so good if you are an ordinary voter desperately trying to get on the housing ladder or a struggling seaside town in his area (Seaton is in his constituency) or a pensioner worried about your current or future health!
To be fair: he did speak up at the Feniton development public inquiry – but his written questions fo reflect his major interests:
Questions 2016
The Swansea tidal lagoon – two questions this year
Olympics and doping
Hybrid cars
Veal
Congratulations to Ministers
Broadband – several questions
EU sanctions on Russia
Bsdger Culling
Milk prices
Dualling A303/ West Country roads – many questions.
Eating Well
The dairy industry
Universal Credits
Working with industry instead of bringing in a sugar tax
Stimulating venture capital investment
Farming in general – many similar questions
Police grants
Renewable heat
Onshore gas and shale extraction
Flooding ( after Somerset floods)
Biofuels
Rural areas
This is about Totnes, but could be any town, anywhere:
“There are three easy ways to destroy a town.
First – relax the planning laws so that developers can build what they want, where they want.
Two – build huge amounts of houses all at once, all over the fields surrounding the town; infill any green space inside; make sure the houses obscure everyone else; make sure they are all unaffordable to local people, but attractive to second home owners and buy to let investors; make sure you don’t provide any new infrastructure, no new schools, hospital places, improvements to roads, to sewers; make sure that local industries; the marina, the last dairy farm are closed down and covered in new, ugly boxes with no gardens and in regimented rows.
[Three] You’re nearly there now! Make sure that the roads are so congested with new cars that traffic can’t move and then for your final flourish, sell off its most treasured, vital area, in the case of Totnes, the market and the garden and the central car parks without which a town such as Totnes cannot function.
Wonderful, you’re there. You have successfully choked an ancient and very special place to death; you look at the million pound houses replacing the marina and it looks good; you look at the tacky tacky boxes spreading out over the hillside along the river and you smile to yourself, who needs farmers, they’re mucky – we can buy all we need from the huge industrial intensive farming block in Hampshire. Who needs a market?
The Black Prince may well have given this ancient town a charter, but that was such a long time ago, who needs history? Who needs tourism, there must be other jobs these people can do, well it doesn’t really matter, once we’ve got the locals out and replaced them almost entirely with second home owners, then we won’t be bothered with their complaints – black windows all winter are a bonus.
Look at Salcombe, 70% second homes and no trouble at all. All those ridiculous transition people with their big ideas and their trying to live responsibly, there’s no money to be made in that, what’s the matter with them.
No, lets make sure we do to Totnes what we have done so successfully in the past to Torbay and towns like Newton Abbot, there’s nothing quite so satisfying as ripping the heart out of a marvellous old place and replacing that heart with concrete…”
https://allengeorgina.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/how-to-kill-a-town-a-how-to-guide/
From Ben Bradshaw, Exeter MP, column in Express and Echo. Owl wonders how many other local MPs will take credit for a government minister visit to the area!
“I’m pleased that a Government Health Minister agreed to my request in Parliament on Tuesday to meet local patients and NHS staff during a forthcoming visit to Devon to discuss concerns about controversial changes being proposed to services.
Among these is the loss of a significant number of local community hospital beds, including, possibly, the only community beds in Exeter, at Whipton Hospital.
This is just the first tranche of a wide-ranging set of proposals we’re expecting from Devon NHS managers who are grappling with a record financial deficit.
There can be good arguments for changing services, especially the better integration of health and social care and for shifting resources from beds and buildings to provide better support for people in their homes. But with the NHS already suffering its worst financial crisis ever and social care cut to the bone, we will take some convincing that these plans are genuinely about improving services and not just about filling a financial black hole of the Government’s making.
The House of Commons Health Select Committee, on which I sit, has told the Government repeatedly that current funding levels for the NHS and Social Care are not sustainable. We heard from NHS leaders this week that without significant extra resources the NHS will have to introduce widespread rationing, cuts in services and/or extend charging. So far, the Government appears completely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation.”
bhttp://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/ben-bradshaw-on-syria-nhs-funding-and-hard-brexit/story-29801464-detail/story.html
Our only tourism vehicle at the moment is our Local Enterprise Partnership – which has a small amount of spin and rhetoric about tourism in its ” vision”but no actual plans or extra funding. Basically, tourism is left to the small and medium businesses that barely feature in their plans. Despite tourism having higher growth than any other sector they deal with.
Basically, if there isn’t a nuclear option, they don’t want to know. Tourism will no doubt be on the cards for Hinkley C though!
“Devon risks being sidelined from a lavish Government-backed advertising campaign to get Britons to holiday at home.
Domestic tourism board VisitEngland has been allocated almost £20 million through the Regional Growth Fund, the Government’s flagship plan to get economies outside of London motoring.
The tourist body for Cornwall, VisitCornwall, is among 14 partner organisations that will soak up much of the cash on promoting “staycations” via national media. But VisitDevon is currently not one of them.
The campaign is looking to capitalise on the feel-good factor surrounding the London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next year.
Tourism leaders say the Government is right to invest in the industry as it helps meet the aims of boosting sectors beyond the City of London and reviving areas facing public sector job cuts.
Estimates say if the 13 per cent increase in domestic tourism is maintained until the end of the year it would mean an increase of £2.7 billion for the UK economy – enough to create more than 50,000 jobs spread across the whole of the UK.
The £20 million will be used on a three-year project entitled Growing Tourism Locally.
James Berresford, chief executive of VisitEngland, said: “With this additional money we can mount a serious campaign to stimulate domestic tourism that has the potential to create the equivalent of 9,500 full time jobs in areas across the country suffering economic challenges.”
He said tourism board “partners” will manage parts of the campaign. They represent Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Cumbria, Durham, Kent, Manchester, Merseyside, Newcastle-Gateshead, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Peak District and Derbyshire, and York. Each body is thought to have secured match-funding from the private sector.
VisitEngland, which will buy television, newspaper and Internet space, is yet to decide the size of the slice of the cash each area will get. A series of thematic campaigns focusing on countryside, heritage, coastal and business tourism will run alongside.
Malcolm Bell, head of VisitCornwall, said beaches, coastlines and other “icons of Cornwall” would be deployed as “best products in the shop window” to sell England.
He added: “If you take the coastal theme, you would say isn’t it wonderful to have a seaside holiday in the UK – the product to sell that will be Cornwall. People understand it. This is a good use of public money because marketing works.”
VisitDevon was unable to comment yesterday, but VisitEngland said it could feature in the thematic advertising.”
“Take control” are two of the most potent words in our language that have come to mean just one thing in the weeks since the Brexit vote.
But the desire for more control over our lives is not the exclusive preserve of Leave voters – and nor can it or should it be confined to the issue of immigration.
Our polling shows that people from all backgrounds and with every kind of belief now feel they have lost control over what matters most to them, whether it is the price of a home, the pace of technological change or the poisoning of our planet.
Far from being supporters of the status quo, a clear majority of remain supporters specifically identify big business and corporate elites as having “too much power over their lives”.
By an even bigger margin of 62%, those who voted remain in the referendum say that only a few people in power take all the big decisions, adding that there is not much the average citizen can do about it.
Those decisions now seem further out of reach than ever for millions of people after the party conference season. The government has confirmed its determination to pursue a hard Brexit, even though that risks making matters worse for people who already feel left behind in this economy.
At the same time, many people see opposition parties as being in disarray and deeply divided, leaving some to despair at the prospects for progressive politics ever providing answers, let alone getting the chance to put them into practice.
A storm in our economy and our democracy that has been gathering for decades is now firmly upon us. A torrent of wealth of power is washing away even the fragile footholds people had established in the economy. Many more now face losing control all together in the face of global, technological and climate change.
Yet, even in the midst of all this upheaval, a surge of energy is being generated that can crack open new possibilities for people to take more control right now – not at some distant point in the future.
The New Economics Foundation seeks to give people the tools to take control and change their lives for the better
Today, the New Economics Foundation is setting out ways to shift debate beyond secret negotiations over Brexit in the capitals of Europe, seemingly endless party infighting in Westminster’s opposition, or literal fights in Brussels over whose turn it is next to lead Ukip.
Instead, we are setting out an agenda for people to take control themselves, without having to wait for government to do it for – or to – them.
Our agenda for people draws on real experiences, ranging from those in seaside communities who feel abandoned by the political elite, taxi drivers in London trying to make a living in an Uber-ised economy, small businesses starved of finance, consumers overcharged for energy, and young families hoping for their first home or worried about the cost of childcare.
It seeks to give all of them the tools they need to take control and change their lives for the better. Coastal communities will find ways to revive a clean marine economy which brings together people who care about the environment with those who care about getting decent jobs. We are helping to develop a new taxi app owned and controlled by drivers themselves, from London to Leeds, to give them the chance to share in the vast new digital value being created around us.
The foundation is also drawing up plans to turn the scandal-torn RBS into 130 stakeholder banks that serve local firms rather than expecting them to serve it. We have teamed up with the Switched On London campaign to help communities generate renewable and affordable energy that gives them a real stake in a low-carbon future.
Furthermore, in a project with Citizens UK, we are creating the first maps of vacant public land available for the houses that need to get built. And we are helping parents expand the number of childcare co-operatives so they can not only afford a service fundamental to modern working lives, but also exercise more control over it.
This is not an agenda merely for clicktivists who think change happens on a smartphone screen on the way to a rally. We recognise that the tools people need to take control must be fashioned in partnership with institutions wielding real power, ranging from devolved government, city mayors and forward-looking businesses to trade union and community-led campaigns across the country.
But this is the first time a major thinktank has set itself a bigger ambition than merely influencing ministers or future legislation, or getting included in a political party’s manifesto.
The New Economics Foundation will focus on helping people and communities take control by engaging with new partners – from the Mayor of London and Google DeepMind to the GMB and Citizens UK – to explore new possibilities for change right now.
We are rooted outside the traditional boundaries of politics. We care most about people’s everyday experience. And we will work with communities of all kinds to give them the tools they need to build a better future because there has never been a more urgent need for a new economy than right now.”
Freedom of Information requests to East Devon District Council on the whatdotheyknow website:
“EDDC policy and guidance on conducting public consultations
Response by East Devon District Council to tim todd on 23 March 2016.
Information not held.
Request for information that supports ‘success’ claims made by Cllr Moulding (Premier Inn)
Response by East Devon District Council to tim todd on 29 April 2016.
Information not held.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/east_devon_district_council
“Hundreds of thousands of householders in flood risk areas have failed to install basic protection against rising waters, insurers say.
The Association of British Insurers said even buildings guarded by flood defences should have flood-proof doors in case embankments are over-topped.
The comments add to a complex blame game over responsibility for floods.
The insurers have been criticised by the Environment Agency for failing to protect inundated properties.
Local councils are also part of the melee – they want more cash for flood funding from the government, and more control of how it is spent. They are critical of the Environment Agency.
Ministers are in the fray too, as demands increase for tighter building standards to ensure at-risk homes are made more flood resistant.
Some of these tensions around flood policy are revealed in an unpublicised report to government that ministers plan to launch in coming weeks.
In the report, the Environment Agency blames insurers for failing to prepare for the increased threat of flooding.
The insurers, the agency says, should not simply re-instate flooded homes to their original state – they should ensure properties are resistant or resilient to future floods.
Emma Howard Boyd, who chairs the agency, says: “There is a disconnect between insurance reinstatement and resilient repair of property.
“Loss adjustors and builders do not understand the benefits of resilient measures.
“It is not clear that the insurance industry value property-level resilience or incentivising people to have it.”
That is despite research suggesting that precautionary measures are extremely good value.
The report’s main author, Sir Peter Bonfield, points the finger at householders for failing to improve their homes after flooding. …
… Finally, there remains the public. Comments made to me on trips to flood-hit areas in Devon [Topsham, Radio 4 Today programme today] and Cumbria suggest many reasons why owners of at-risk homes and businesses do not flood-proof their properties.
They include: distrust of builders; inability to get grants unless they have already been flooded; dislike of form-filling; uncertainty about flood protection products; complacency about future flooding; lack of help from insurance companies… or simply (and in many cases most powerfully), they can’t get round to it.”
Hugo Swire has put nothing on his MP web page since a very lukewarm response to East Devon bed closures on 22 September, after which he was made Chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council.
He has done 19 tweets since then: 10 on national or international issues and 9 on local issues – including 5 retweets from other sources.
His three latest (written) questions to Parliament were all about penalties for using mobile phones whilst driving:
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?pid=11265&pop=1#n4
According to his official MP page his wife, who is his paid assistant at £35,000-£39,999 pa, does his website and press releases, though we don’t know if she also does any of his tweets:
http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/exclusive_hugo_swire_mp_in_the_herald_s_hot_seat_1_452145
Perhaps his wife is on holiday.
“The net operating costs of the House of Lords in 2013-4 were £93.1m, approximately equivalent to £118,000 per Peer. So whilst on the basis of allowances and expenses, an additional 100 Peers would cost almost £2.6m, this is likely an underestimate of their true costs. 24 Aug 2015″
A VERY easy thing for Mrs May to fix. Will she fix it?
“The growing size of the House of Lords has become increasingly controversial. Under David Cameron’s premiership, membership rose from just over 700 members to well beyond 800 in just six years, and he appointed to the chamber at a faster rate than any other prime minister since life peerages began (see page 13 here for figures to 2015). Both the Lords’ size and rate of appointments have frequently attracted fierce press criticism. Public figures expressing concern in recent months have included the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Lord Bew, and the outgoing Lord Speaker, Baroness D’Souza.
Just in case Prime Minister Theresa May was in doubt about the strength of feeling on this issue, the incoming Lord Speaker Lord (Norman) Fowler began his term by strongly speaking out for change. Fowler was formerly a cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher, and party chairman under John Major, so has significant gravitas in Conservative circles. In a BBC interview on 16 September he suggested ‘that by the next election, [the Lords] should be at a number that is just less than the House of Commons’, emphasising how the current situation is damaging to parliament’s reputation. A particularly sensitive contextual issue is that the Commons is itself due to shrink in 2020, from 650 MPs to 600, under the government’s proposed boundary changes. In an interview for the House Magazine (reproduced on Politics Home) Fowler commented that ‘I don’t think that we can justify a situation where you have over 800 peers at the same time as you’re bringing down the Commons to 600 MPs’. Conservative chair of the House of Commons Procedure Committee Charles Walker has gone further, suggesting that getting the Lords below 600 should be made a condition for voting the boundary changes through. A cross-party group of peers is pressing for the Lords to vote on the principle of being no larger than the Commons in the near future (notably the UK is the only bicameral country in the world where the second chamber is larger than the first). Conservative chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Bernard Jenkin, has meanwhile asked his committee to launch an inquiry into Lords numbers and appointments.
So this appears to be a reform whose time has come. But the key question is how best to reduce from 800+ members to 600. To succeed, any such reduction must be both sustainable and seen to be fair. Here I argue that this requires four interconnected things: a large number of departures before 2020, a long-term cap on the size of the House, limitations on future appointments, and an agreed principle of balance between the parties (and other groups). Without all four, any attempted reform is doomed to fail.”
We learned recently that the current Stagecoach depot opposite the bus station in Exeter is going to be turned into a massive block of student housing – 557 units.
Now we hear that there are plans for the site of the Honiton Inn, on the roundabout opposite the bus station to be another student block of 101 flats with their own private gym and cinema – opposite a public gym and cinema!
What effect will this have on East Devon?
Well, “Greater Exeter” – whose “Visioning Board” like all such development and regeneration boards in “Greater Exeter” meets in secret – is making arrangements to do the next revision to its 3 Local Plans (Exeter, East Devon and Teignbridge) together.
It will be totally evident (in fact it is already) that Exeter’s main growth in housing will remain student housing. So, where will housing for other people go? Obviously East Devon and Teignbridge.
Cranbrook has natural boundaries beyond which it will soon make its further expansion much more difficult than heretofore. Therefore, it will be towns such as Exmouth, Honiton and Sidmouth – and the green fields in-between – that must be expanded to take in the commuters into Exeter, with a possible massive impact.
None of this is being put before the general public in any of the three areas nor is adequate infrastructure being planned for this big change (or at least we cannot be allowed know of any). And, of course, our Local Enterprise Partnership will “own” the business rates of the Exeter “Growth Area” and will have its fingers in the many development pies.
Time to start talking about the NEXT revision of the Local Plan which may well see even more massive development in East Devon on a much bigger scale than we could ever have imagined and could dwarf the extra numbers already agreed..
Aw, come on, since when did some MPs (and others in positions of influence nearer home) keep to the rules when extra money was on offer? They will say there is no conflict and blithely carry on – unless they get caught in a sting, of course.
“MPs will be forced to drop lucrative outside jobs if they “conflict” with their jobs serving their constituents, according to a proposed new code of conduct.
The MPs’ second jobs will be scrutinised by the Parliamentary standards watchdog for the first time in a major crackdown on politicians’ lucrative work away from the House of Commons.
A new code of conduct will require MPs to ensure that any outside work “does not conflict” with their day jobs representing constituents in Parliament.
The change in the rules – which are still to be approved by MPs – will radically cut back the amount of time MPs will be allowed to spend away from their constituents.
It could also make it easier for the Standards Commissioner Kathryn Hudson to stop MPs using their positions to win paid consultancy work outside the House of Commons.
An undercover investigation last year by the Telegraph found Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind had offered to use their positions as MPs to win contracts. However they were cleared of wrongdoing by Mrs Hudson.
The new code of conduct for MPs proposes an additional rule, which have been introduced following “recent changes to other rules or issues that have become apparent during investigations”.
It says: “A member who undertakes outside employment must ensure that it does not conflict with his or her responsibilities under the Code of Conduct.”
The new draft code – the first for four years – has been signed off by members of the House of Commons standards committee ahead if a six week consultation.
It comes after a study last year from Transparency International found that scores of MPs are being paid millions of pounds a year for outside jobs.
The research found that 73 MPs were paid £3.4million in the past 12 months for “external advisory roles”, including in some cases board positions.
Tommy Sheppard, a member of the committee, said: “Most members of the public will take umbrage when MPs suggest doing this job is not a full time, or your principle, job.
“You should not be doing this on a part time basis; it is a full time wage and if you are doing the job properly it is well more than a 40 hour week.
“There needs to be some clarity in the system that when you are elected as an MP it is expected that it is a full time job and you do it on a full time basis.”
Mr Sheppard said the new presumption would be that MPs “usually” should not take second jobs but there could be exceptions such as for medical professionals or doctors.
He said: “There needs to be some a limit on any outside employment, either by remuneration or by hours undertaken. So that the second job is clearly seen as secondary.
“There are people in this place who in terms of remuneration it would be hard to describe this any anything other than a part time job.”
Mr Sheppard said that the change to the code – which is open to comment from members of the public until November 30 – could be expanded to include MPs who are accused of using their positions to try to consultancy work.
Last year a Telegraph investigation showed how Sir Malcolm and Mr Straw had offered to use their positions as politicians on behalf of a fictitious Chinese company in return for at least £5,000 a day while they were MPs.
Mrs Hudson cleared Sir Malcolm and Mr Straw of wrongdoing”
