A new Facebook page called “AvoidPersimmonHomes” has been overwhelmed with stories and pictures of homes which occupants are finding impossible to live in. At the time of writing it has 269 members.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/316825475386299/about/
This follows on from a similar page for Bovis homes which has 3,113 members
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BovisVictimsGroup/
The sound of Charles Dickens as he turns in his grave.
“The United Nations has launched an investigation into poverty and human rights in the UK which will examine the impact of the austerity policies of Theresa May and David Cameron over the past eight years.
The inquiry will be led by Prof Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, who angered the Donald Trump administration this month when he concluded after a similar visit to the US that the White House’s contempt for the poor was driving “cruel policies”.
The fact-finding trip is scheduled for this autumn and will be the first visit to a western European country by a representative of the UN’s rapporteur’s office since a trip to Ireland in 2011. Alston’s most recent inquiries into extreme poverty have taken him to the US, China, Saudi Arabia and Ghana.
“The UK has gone through a period of pretty deep budget cuts first under the coalition and then the Conservatives and I am interested to see what the outcome of that has been,” Alston told the Guardian. “I am also interested to look at what seems to be a renewed debate on all sides about the need to increase spending at least for some of the key programmes.”
He said the challenges facing the UK were different to the US, where he has concluded Trump’s policies were “tailor-made to maximise inequality and to plunge millions of working Americans, and those unable to work, into penury”.
Alston said: “In the UK, things are at a different place where there is no great budget surplus to be mobilised. Welfare cuts have taken place but there is now an interesting debate on whether they have gone too far and what measures need to be taken to shore up the NHS and other programmes.”
Alston has not yet determined exactly what he will focus on and will shortly invite submissions from groups who want to suggest matters for him to consider. They could include housing squalour, insecurity at work, in-work poverty, mental health and political disenfranchisement. …”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/28/united-nations-tory-record-poverty-human-rights
So says a writer (Labour) in a Huffington Post blog. No problem in East Devon – most of the dwindling local Tory party membership are already councillors!
Some of the comments seem quite pertinent to East Devon:
” … a council leader who oversees a large budget and thousands of local government workers, is only selected by the party members who live in their individual ward to be a candidate for councillor, from there a vote of councillor colleagues takes place behind closed doors. There is no mechanism for members to have a say on who should be the Labour [or other political party] group leader or to debate the principles, priorities and policies they will lead before they are in place. In practice, there is no recourse for members if the leader chooses to act in a way that undermines the values our party is founded upon – other than to deselect them as a candidate to be councillor when they are next up for election, which may be four years away. …
[Ah, yes, who can forget Diviani being told to save community hospitals at EDDC and voting to close them at DCC]
… Too often we see Council Cabinet members dependent on the grace and patronage of their leader for their income and livelihood – no Cabinet position means no job, and as such very little dissent. In some places even scrutiny chairs – the name should give away what they’re there for – are put in place by the very leadership they are supposed to scrutinise. …”
[Scrutiny – we never did manage to get to the bottom (or even very slightly below the surface) of the relationship between disgraced Councillor Graham Brown, the council and their relationship with the East Devon Business Forum]
Source: Huffington Post
Owl says: Well, some local papers might be fearless and independent- but others are fearful and political toadies – naming no names …!
“Britain’s ‘fearless and independent’ Press is one of the ‘foundations’ of democracy and must be protected, the Culture Secretary has warned.
Matt Hancock has spoken out in defence of journalism as figures released today reveal that more than 300 local and regional titles have closed since 2007 – meaning some large towns are left without a local newspaper.
There are also 25 per cent fewer full-time journalism jobs than there were in 2007, while a quarter of all regional and local publications have closed. …
… The figures released today are part of a report conducted by research group Mediatique and commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
It found that the newspaper industry has been under ‘sustained threat’ for the past decade – with print advertising slashed in half since 2007.
The Mediatique report found that the ‘dramatic changes’ in revenue and number of publications had been fuelled by shifts in consumer behaviour – and the reliance on devices such as phones and tablets.
Figures by Mediatique revealed that there were 1,303 regional and local newspapers in 2007 compared with 982 in 2017.”
KEEP OUR NHS PUBLIC (KONP)
The NHS is 70: celebrate and protest to preserve it
Saturday 30th June 2018
In Exeter
KONP will have a stall at the Respect festival (Belmont park, Exeter) to celebrate the NHS and spread the word about KONP campaigns.
This includes information on accountable care organisations, the Friends of the Sidwell Street Walk-in Centre, and others.
“Half of council workers are thinking of leaving their job for less stressful work elsewhere, according to a new survey by trade union Unison.
Six out of ten council workers surveyed said they don’t feel secure in their job, with over half (53%) saying their workload is unmanageable.
The survey also found eight in ten (79%) council workers have no confidence in the future of local services due to spending cuts, with 83% saying cuts have had a negative impact on their ability to do the job as well as they can.
Over half of those surveyed (53%) believe their council no longer delivers quality services, with 48% saying their employer doesn’t make the right decisions for the public, according to the survey results.
Unison general secretary, Dave Prentis, said: ‘Local services are collapsing and council workers are being left to pick up the pieces and do the best they can amid the chaos. This disturbing survey should ring alarm bells in Whitehall and also alert ministers to the crisis happening in councils up and down the country.
‘Local authorities have had to cut so many vital services that they have now reached a point where vulnerable children and the elderly struggle to get the help that they need, entire communities are suffering, and the public are being put at risk.’ “
https://www.localgov.co.uk/Half-of-council-staff-considering-quitting-their-job-survey-finds/45490
“England’s mainly Conservative-run county councils have warned ministers that the “worst is yet come” over cuts to local services and that several authorities risk going bust unless steps are taken to shore up crumbling budgets.
Only an emergency injection of funds next year to counter a growing financial “black hole” would head off severe cuts to services and potential unrest among local MPs, the County Councils Network said.
It said councils faced having to make “truly unpalatable” cuts to key services such as social care, refuse disposal, libraries, Sure Start centres and roads maintenance while putting up council tax bills and introducing new charges.
There is growing concern about the financial resilience of county councils, which are struggling to meet rising demand for high-cost, high-volume services such as adult and children’s social care.
This year the Tory-run Northamptonshire county council effectively went bankrupt after failing to balance its budget, and the National Audit Office said one in 10 councils with social care responsibilities could follow suit.
A survey carried out by the County Councils Network, which represents 36 councils delivering services to 27 million people, found that a third would struggle to balance their budgets for 2019-20 without extra funding, rising to two-thirds by 2020-21.
A budget analysis estimates that county councils face a £3.2bn gap between income and costs over the next two years, caused in part by projected extra demand for social care services and in part by government cuts.
Paul Carter, the County Councils Network chairman and Tory leader of Kent county council, said: “We will work hard to deliver the savings required this year, but the scope for making deliverable savings has dramatically reduced and decisions for next year will be truly unpalatable if we are to fulfil our statutory duties. Without additional resource, the worst is yet to come.”
Nick Rushton, the leader of Leicestershire county council, said savings of £200m locally since 2010 had cut services to the bone. “Without extra money the consequences could be dire,” he said.
The recent announcement of £20bn of extra funding for the NHS has left local authorities frustrated at the government’s lack of urgency in addressing the simmering financial crisis in town halls and the growing crisis in adult social care and child protection services.
The government recently announced that the social care funding green paper, expected before the summer recess, would not now appear until the autumn.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/27/english-councils-warn-worst-is-yet-to-come-on-cuts
The long-suffering residents of Farringdon and Woodbury Salterton are now one step closer from being a little more confidant with their fears of further growth from the Industrial Business Parks on their doorsteps from Hill Barton and Greendale Business Parks.
These 2 business parks have been growing at a considerable rate over the last 20 years which has provided important business opportunities and employment. However, it has been felt that further growth would be inappropriate in the open countryside some distance away from any major towns.
East Devon Local Plan proposals in the Local Plan approved in 2016 supported planned commercial growth would be at Cranbrook and areas close to Exeter together with other major towns in the district.
However there has been a number of challenges made to these policies with a number of Planning Inspectors hearings and High Court cases to these particular policies.
It was always known that the Local Plan would be challenged for development at these Business Parks and some villages. Therefore, the Local Authority proposed an additional planning document known as the “Villages Development Plan” which is an additional planning document drawn up by the Strategic Planning Department at East Devon which will provide further guidance and clarity to the largest villages in the district and the two business parks.
Finally, after 3 years of deliberation and public consultations, East Devon`s Strategic Planning Committee meeting this week, agreed to recommend to the East Devon`s Full Council meeting on the 25th of July that the “Villages Plan” be adopted.
The Villages Plan has been through several rounds of public consultation and the plan text has been refined to reflect the comments made.
Then followed a Planning Inspectors hearing plus an examination and recently returned by the Planning Inspector with an agreed approval following further changes and amendments.
The result of the Strategic Planning Committees approval and recommendation to the next Full Council meeting to adopt the new policy document will provide clarity and guidance on planning matters to the Villages and to the two Business Parks.
In the case of the Business Parks new planning policies are to be adopted.
Policy VP04 and VP05 which include a map that shows the extent of authorised uses at the Business Parks. Beyond the “Employment Area” shown on the map, any further planning applications will be considered to be in the “open countryside” and will be subject to stringent countryside protection policies.
It is therefore hoped by the rural villages of Farringdon and Woodbury Salterton that this endorsement of restricting further expansion at these Business Parks will provide clarity and certainty for the community for many years.
Answer to a Freedom of Information request:
1. The total amount of land (in acres) currently owned by your Council – 2302 acres
2. The total amount of land (in acres) currently owned by your Council that has been identified as surplus to requirements – 0 acres
3. The total amount of land (in acres) currently owned by your Council that is scheduled to be sold – 0.3 acres
4. The total amount of land (in acres) currently owned by your Council scheduled for joint venture housing development or where such development is already taking place – 0 acres
Date responded: 20 June 2018
“A company co-founded by Jeremy Hunt breached company law before carrying out a restructuring designed to reduce the health secretary’s tax bill by about £100,000, it has emerged.
Hotcourses, which was at the time majority-owned by Hunt, failed to file crucial documents with Companies House for over three years, when the law says they must be filed within 15 days.
It was reported in 2012 that Hunt reduced his potential tax bill by around £100,000 by moving an office building out of the company before a change to the dividend rate.
The Hotcourses’ mistake is a further embarrassment for the health secretary, who recently had to apologise after being investigated by the standards commissioner for failing to report ownership of seven flats in Southampton through a company.
Hunt has admitted breaching money-laundering rules brought in by his government, having failed to declare his 50% interest in the property firm to Companies House.
Hunt’s accountant, Grunberg & Co, said their failure to file the documents was “regrettable” and an “administrative error”, but not Hunt’s error as at the time he was a shareholder and not a director. Hunt referred inquiries to his accountant.
As has been previously reported, Hunt and his business partner, Mike Elms, transferred an office building in 2010 worth £1.8m out of Hotcourses and into their own names. They then immediately started renting the building back to the company.
The two men had to pay dividend tax on this “dividend in specie”, which at the time was 32.5%.
The March 2010 transfer took place just before the tax rate for the transaction rose to 42.5% at the beginning of April 2010. By paying themselves the building as a dividend before the change in tax rules, the two men saved themselves an income tax bill of around £200,000 on the deal.
According to documents filed at Companies House, Hunt and other shareholders signed documents to vary the rules of the company in February 2010. However, it was not until May 2013 that the “articles of association” were sent to Companies House.
Hunt’s accountants said that the dividend in specie could have been paid under the old articles of association, so the tax position would not have been affected by the changes.
Hunt stopped being a director of Hotcourses in 2009 but remained the largest shareholder in the company. Grunberg said it was the responsibility of the directors to file the documents.
Hunt co-founded the educational listings company in 1990. In 2017, the company was sold for £30.1m to IDP Education, a Melbourne-based student placement company that co-owns the popular IELTS English language proficiency test. The sale netted Hunt around £14.5m, which made him one of the richest Conservative MPs. In the MPs’ register of interests, Hunt also declares a half-ownership of a house in Italy.
Hunt’s shares have been held in a blind trust since he became a cabinet minister in 2010.
Hotcourses runs a variety of education-search websites including Whatuni, Postgraduate Search and the Complete University Guide. It also operates sites under its own name.
Hunt, who recently became the longest serving health secretary in history, has said previously that the success of Hotcourses came only after he and Elms had pursued a string of failed ventures, including a scheme to export marmalade to Japan and building children’s playgrounds.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/26/firm-co-founded-by-jeremy-hunt-broke-law
“The Electoral Commission has called for urgent reforms to electoral law after a series of online political campaign scandals, acknowledging concerns that British democracy “may be under threat”.
Following a series of revelations involving the likes of Cambridge Analytica, the elections regulator has asked Westminster and the devolved governments to change the law in order to combat misinformation, misuse of personal data and overseas interference in elections.
Among other recommendations, the Electoral Commission has called for:
A change in the law to require all digital political campaign material to state who paid for it, bringing online adverts in line with physical leaflets and adverts.
New legislation to make it clear that spending in UK elections and referendums by foreign organisations and individuals is not allowed.
An increase in the maximum fine, currently £20,000 per offence, that the Electoral Commission can impose on organisations and individuals who break the rules.
Tougher requirements for political campaigns to declare their spending soon after or during a campaign, rather than months later.
A requirement for all campaigners to provide more detailed paperwork on how they spent money online.
The intervention follows years of debate about the largely unregulated world of online political campaigning in the aftermath of the 2016 EU referendum and Donald Trump’s election as US president.
“Urgent action must be taken by the UK’s governments to ensure that the tools used to regulate political campaigning online continue to be fit for purpose in a digital age,” said Sir John Holmes, chair of the Electoral Commission.
“Implementing our package of recommendations will significantly increase transparency about who is seeking to influence voters online, and the money spent on this at UK elections and referendums.”
His organisation also backed proposals to publish a database of political advertisements that will enable the public “to see what adverts a campaigner has taken out and how much they paid”. Facebook is already due to launch such a facility for UK political adverts within the coming months.
The regulator, alluding to foreign governments such as Russia, also raised concerns that there is currently no explicit ban on overseas organisations buying online political ads aimed at a British audience. …
… A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The government is committed to increasing transparency in digital campaigning in order to maintain a fair and proportionate democratic process, and we will be consulting on proposals for new imprint requirements on electronic campaigning in due course.”
The Electoral Commission has also asked for the power to investigate individual political candidates if they have broken constituency spending limits in general elections. At the moment only the police can investigate such allegations, resulting in the long-running investigation into Tory candidates’ spending on battle buses, which was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service due to insufficient evidence.
Other proposals include pushing political parties to count online advertising targeted at local constituencies within individual candidate spending limits – which can be as low as £10,000 – rather than as part of national campaigns which are allowed to spend up to £19.5m. During the 2017 general election the Conservatives were able to target Facebook ads regarding local issues at individuals in specific constituencies and count it as national spending – just so long as they didn’t mention the name of the local Tory candidate.
Both Labour and the Conservatives spent substantial sums of money on online promotions during the last general election, with digital spending accounting for more than 40% of all advertising spending by political parties in 2017. …”
Monopoly planning:
No affordable housing? Check
Too many houses? Check
Primary school which may never get built and in wrong location? Check
You have 3 ticks – do pass Go and don’t go to jail!
“Controversial plans that would see 350 new homes and a new primary school built on land at the edge of Exmouth are being recommended for approval – despite concerns about a lack of affordable housing and whether a new school is even needed.
The outline plans, for land at Goodmores Farm, off Dinan Way, also seeks outline permission for employment, commercial, and community uses.
The plans, which will be considered by East Devon Council’s development management committee on 3 July, are recommended for approval despite considerable concerns by Exmouth and Lympstone councils, local ward councillors, Devon County Council and residents.
Some objectors question whether there is a need for future housing and a new primary school in the town. Others accept the principle of the development but question if the primary school is in the best location, and they fear that the development will not provide adequate funding of about £2.5m toward the school.
But the council’s officers say the application from Eagle Investments Ltd has been viability-tested and the proposal was “considered to comply with existing planning policies”.”
“A teenage girl has spoke of the moment a grown mum swore at and attacked her and her 14-year-old friend – while a group of children watch on.
The shocking clash, filmed by an eyewitness and shared publicly to Facebook, happened at a park next to St Martin’s Primary School, Cranbrook, just before 10pm on Friday.
The heavily-built woman and her friends loudly challenge a group of teenagers, snapping selfies against that evening’s striking sunset, in front of what appears to be their own children.
A row breaks out and the woman, wearing a flower-patterned dress, walks toward the group and shoves a 14-year-old girl before appearing to slap Angel Robinson, 17, in her face.
The force of the blow sees her knees buckle, as the park erupts with shouting and swearing.
Angel’s mum Sheena Robinson is fuming over the assault on a daughter who “would not hurt a fly” and weighs only six stone.
Speaking with Devon Live, Angel and her mum spoke of their anger and upset over the shocking incident – filmed by her friend Dayna, also confronted in the footage.
Angel said: “Basically, we were up the park and there was a family drinking vodka and wine and getting really, really drunk. “While we were stood taking selfies one of them started shouting at us.
“Another woman then gobbed off and started on Dayna. Then she whacks the 14-year-old. I went in and then she hits me.”
Angel says that, luckily, the swipe did not leave a mark on her.
For Angel, it proves that teenagers aren’t necessarily the cause of anti-social behaviour in the East Devon town.
“You see all over [Facebook community page] Belonging To Cranbrook complaints about teenagers and that we are the problem.
“But these were grown women. The parents are just as bad as the teenagers.”
Angel and her mum say the family at the table are not known to them, and it had been the first time Angel had encountered them at the park.
She says the incident won’t put her off returning with her mates.
Sheena says Devon & Cornwall Police have been made aware of the footage and are looking into the incident.
It wasn’t the only fight to break out in Cranbrook that evening.
Police were called to an altercation between two men at Great Meadow at 6.45pm.
A row led to one of them being shoved into a bush.
Police are using CCTV to help their enquiries.”
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/row-over-sunset-selfies-erupts-1711868
No – it’s not a Heart of the South West plan. They are still searching for suitable levers of power to grasp.
It’s not a detailed plan following up the Government’s White Paper:“Industrial Strategy – Building a Britain fit for the future”, Nov 2017, with its five foundations of productivity (Ideas, People, Infrastructure, Business Environment and Places) either.
Last week John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, unveiled plans for an investment revolution. He proposed all new governments should be obliged to set productivity targets with a revamped Bank of England, and act on them.
McDonnell commissioned Graham Turner, a City economist who advises hedge funds and investment banks, to produce a report. In an interim report, published in December, Turner found our financial system was taking money from sectors such as manufacturing and lending it to invest in property.
Promising growth in new tech sectors was overwhelmingly concentrated in and around London. Politicians and regulators have not ensured that banks play their part in supporting the growth of new businesses. Instead, banks have entrenched their focus on unproductive lending. Turner’s team recommended fundamental transformation of our financial system. Alongside the Bank of England’s (BoE) existing inflation target it should set a 3% target for annual productivity growth, backed by new powers that steer the financial system towards investment to maximise productivity growth.
Most comment of this idea was critical. As David Smith, Sunday Times economic editor, pointed out: by decade, productivity growth averaged 2.2% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.3% in the 1990s, 1.4% in the 2000s, and just 0.5% since 2010. It is not impossible: there have been 11 years in the past 45 when productivity has grown by 3% or more, years of strong economic growth or falling employment.
Monetary policy and financial stability, the Bank’s responsibilities, have no direct links to productivity and adding to its targets merely makes it more likely that it will miss its central one, controlling inflation.
Last autumn, Mark Carney, BoE governor, criticised those who wanted the central bank to solve problems such as productivity. The BoE “cannot deliver lasting prosperity and it cannot solve broader societal challenges,” he said, adding that calls for it to solve poor UK productivity “confuse independence with omnipotence”.
Philip Aldrick, economics editor of The Times, however, took a different view:
“The thing is, though, the closer you look at the powers the central bank has, the more Mr Turner’s proposals seem like common sense. Since the 2008 crisis, the Bank has been given a vast array of tools. It can ration household or business lending, it can drain or flood an economy with finance, it can direct banks how to behave, it can deploy £750 billion of cheap liquidity to grease the financial system, it can inject billions of pounds into the economy through quantitative easing and it can change interest rates.”
“Despite Mr Carney’s claim, the Bank is almost omnipotent but chooses voluntary impotence because using its power would be to stray into politics. For Mr Turner, the Bank’s “deliberate passivity” is contemptible when “credit guidance” could help to fix the nation’s productivity woes. What’s the point of all that power if the Bank doesn’t use it, especially since 2013, when its mandate was updated to “support the economic policy objectives” of the government? If nothing else, his paper asks the question.”
When our Council Leaders accepted HotSW’s ambition, without any detailed action plan, to double economic growth in 18 years, primarily by elevating productivity growth to levels never before sustained, did they realise just how radical a plan might be needed? And will they now be backing Labour’s or something equally tranformative?
John McDonnell’s Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/20/britain-investment-revolution-labour-party
Interim Report (good source of financial data):
Click to access Financing-Investment-Interim-Report.pdf
Final Report:
Click to access Financing-investment-final-report-combined.pdf
Letwin interestingly does NOT blame planners. After this interinpm report he will further investigate and issue a fuller report at some point in the future x no doubt guided by whether what else he finds is vote-losing due to problems caused by his own government. He will further focus on:
lack of transport infrastructure,
difficulties of land remediation,
delayed installations by utility companies, constrained site logistics,
limited availability of capital,
limited supplies of building materials, and limited availability of skilled labour
alleged intentional “land banking” on the part of major house builders
Report:
Click to access Build_Out_Review_Draft_Analysis.pdf
Annexes:
Hernandez was a Tory local politician for many years in Torbay, before becoming Police and Crime Commissioner. Not long ago she attempted to appoint a pal from those days as her Deputy but was over-ruled:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/07/07/what-next-for-hernandez-and-her-pal/
Now she’s appointing a new senior officer just to cover the area. Is she planning a return to local politics there after her current “job”?
“A chief superintendent is being appointed for Torbay and South Devon, rather than a superintendent, to reflect “an increase in demand for policing” and help deal with “significant problems relating to crime in the bay”, Devon’s police commissioner has confirmed.
Commissioner Alison Hernandez said the new arrangement, due to be in place by September, was part of setting up a new basic command unit (BCU) for the area.
The force currently has BUCs for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon and Plymouth.
Ms Hernandez told a meeting last week of the plans, saying she “had become increasingly concerned about homelessness and crime in the area, as well as the increasing complexity of crime”.
She added that a “more senior officer for South Devon” would be part of a “renewed focus on issues there”. Continue reading
“Britain’s ten biggest builders have seen the value of their shares drop by a combined £3.6 billion in the last two weeks as fears grow that the housing market is heading for a downturn.
Fears of a rise in interest rates – and mortgage costs – are growing after three members of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted in favour of a hike.
Bosses at housebuilding firms have cashed in over the past 12 months, with payouts to senior executives running into tens of millions of pounds.
A downturn in share prices in the sector would provoke fresh criticism of managers who have already been accused of making hay due to low interest rates and taxpayer subsidies for the industry, rather than their own skill and merit.
‘There is a fear that interest rate rises could be on the way,’ said Clyde Lewis, an analyst at broker Peel Hunt.
He added that estate agents had flagged a slowdown in the market. ‘With the housebuilders it looks like we are fairly close to the top of the cycle,’ he said. …”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jun/25/footballer-zeli-ismail-rentcharge
Already covered by Owl as regards Cranbrook here:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2018/01/12/cranbrook-herald-reports-on-estate-rent-charges/
and what had to be done here:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2018/01/26/cranbrook-estate-rent-charges-to-be-transferred-to-council-tax/
Yet another retrospective planning application from FWS Carter and Sons! It appears this planning application is yet another example (of many) of the company jumping the gun as the new building already seems to have been built!
“FWS Carter and Sons wish to expand the existing farm shop as well as build a new dedicated classroom facility at the site on the A3052, between the Greendale Business Park and Crealy.
They say they would be making a significant investment in the farm shop, that already makes sales of around £100,000 a week, would create 30 new jobs, and expand on the shop which is a focal point to the rural community which it serves.
The farm shop already employs 68 people (56 full time and 12 part time), but the company says the new proposals would directly create 30 new jobs (8 full time and 22 part time) in documents submitted with a planning application to East Devon District Council.”
Owl wonder why they need a classroom at a farm shop?
Maybe for the training of the Greendale and Ladram Bay management of how to correctly apply for planning permission? Not build it then submit a planning application again, again and again!
Quote from Cllr Geoff Jung the EDA District Councillor.
“I am totally exasperated by their total lack of conformity to the planning system!
However this application will be treated by East Devon District Council in the normal manner as required by the National Planning Policy”
Perhaps new planning guidance should bring in hefty fines for retrospective planning applications?
Swire is a co-director with Barker in a company (Eaglesham Investments) set up to do business in “emerging energy markets”:
Now Barker is dealing with a lobbying firm with close links to Trump:
“Tory peer Lord Barker hires Trump aide to fight Oleg Deripaska sanctions
The Tory peer who chairs Oleg Deripaska’s EN+ has hired a lobby firm with close links to President Donald Trump at a cost of £82,000 a month, as the Russian aluminium giant races to avoid US sanctions.
Lord Barker, an energy minister under David Cameron, has appointed Mercury Public Affairs to engage in “executive branch and legislative branch outreach” on his behalf, according to documents filed with the US Department of Justice. Mercury is charging the London-listed EN+ $109,000 a month for its services. Mercury has approached the French, German, Australian and Irish ambassadors to the US, urging them to lobby the American government in support of a plan put forward by Barker to reduce Deripaska’s influence and therefore avoid sanctions. …”
Source: Sunday Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 