Rural funding screwed:
http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/services/rural-dismay-at-governments-funding-announcement
Rural carers overwhelmed:
http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/analysis/are-rural-carers-overwhelmed-by-need
Mobile coverage ‘worse than Albania’
http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/services/rural-mobile-coverage-worse-than-albania
Add reduced bus services, potholed roads, no social or affordable housing, fewer shops and post offices – and the countryside is no place for quality of life these days.
Richard Cohen has not had a good year (well, actually he has, as he remains Deputy CEO and Relocation Manager for EDDC).
He came under fire last week for saying (twice) that the DMC had “stymied” relocation plans – though actually if anyone stymied anything it was PegasusLife putting in a planning application that was unfit for purpose.
Just so show this wasn’t a one-off, let us remind ourselves of this is transcript of part of a speech by a well-known Sidmouth businessman with experience of property development, made at a Sid Vale Association Meeting at the Unitarian Church, Sidmouth, 9th December 2014.
The speech begins with a discussion of Cohen’s estimate of total relocation costs at about £10 million.
“The numbers are completely, hopelessly and scandalously wrong. They are useless, they are terrible and have to be challenged vigorously and strenuously. These numbers are rubbish. They don’t include the green travel plan, they don’t include compensation for the staff, they don’t include the cost of the move itself, they don’t include the costs of hubs the other towns and, most importantly, they don’t include the cost of officer time and members time that is involved in all of this.
The expert, Mr Steve Pratten from Davis Langdon, he is going to cost £1million or more on his own. It doesn’t include the legal costs in all this. I say to the District Council that I have estimated the real costs to be £20million. That figure was not disputed – Richard Cohen did not say it was exaggerated – he said he didn’t recognize the number. What that means is that I was bang on the money.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are trusting Richard Cohen to mastermind this whole process and we are assuming that he’s accurate in the mathematical calculations. This is the same man who measured the Knowle 40% smaller than it turned out to be! He got it wrong by 40%. Robin Fuller had to write a paper, he was rubbished in the press and it turned out that he was correct. The Knowle is 40% bigger than Richard Cohen thought it was.
This is the same man who was responsible for four attempts to compose the economic impact assessments rejected by his own planning committee. He can’t get simple mathematics right. This same man tells us that energy prices are going to go ahead for the next 20 years at 10% over inflation. He is alone in the entire world in thinking this. Nobody else believes that including your energy companies who will fix your energy costs for the next four years. That instantly takes £1.5million out of all the savings that are supposed to be made by moving, so he hasn’t even bothered to explore that possibility.
He is also the man who shifted the southern boundary of the Knowle to include the second tier of parkland without telling anybody and in contradiction to the specific instructions of the Development Management Committee. I was told this would not be investigated because the Inspector would look at it, which he would not do because it was not in his remit. So that has never been investigated by anybody at the Knowle.
He did it without managing to record that process; without managing to record any conversation with any individual, without writing a single email, or keeping a single note or sending any kind of correspondence to any third party. Because I made a freedom of information request, and there was nothing there.
He did it unilaterally, on his own, secretly, and he didn’t tell a single soul, and I only found out by accident.
This is not the kind of person I would trust to do these calculations. Now when he says it is going to cost £15.9million to refurbish the Knowle, I would tell him that that’s a load of bunkum. This relates to the entire building, which nobody advocates retaining. Why is anybody working in a bathroom when the Knowle is two and a half times the size of the building EDDC says it needs? How can that be possible? Mr Cohen in his calculations also asserts that there is nil chance, not 1% chance of local government reform in the next 20 years.”
“Eileen Doyle, who was appointed interim Chief Operating Officer at North Middlesex Hospital in May, is on twice the Prime Minister’s salary. …”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hospital-chiefs-300000-year-pay-9476332
Here in Devon and Somerset, we have no idea what our LEP has spent our money on in the past (only vague headlines), no idea who is spending it on what now. We don’t even know how many staff the LEP has, how much they and board members are paid or even where they work from. They boast about securing “economic growth” yet we have no evidence that they are making any impact whatsoever.
Each member of the LEP board has a post that wants to attract “growth funding” to themselves – be it the Chairman of Midas builders or the MD of Supacat which has designs on getting more involved in the nuclear industry – each one has a vested interest in getting the biggest possible slice of the growth cake and ensuring that, even if they don’t get the biggest slice, that there is no cake left for anyone else.
Here is what the Public Accounts Committee has to say.
Additionally, someone somewhere ensured that our LEP was top-heavy with unelected business people and light on local politicians who could at least be voted out. Whose bright idea was that?
“The Public Accounts Committee has issued a renewed warning over scrutiny in devolution deals, saying the government has still not set out how combined authority mayors will be held accountable for public money.
“MPs called on the government to specify what it is trying to achieve through devolution and communicate this clearly to citizens and service users.
The Devolution in England report said that every pound spent by a combined authority mayor – which will be elected for the first time next May – must be traceable by parliament to maintain transparency and accountability.
For example, the review highlighted the ‘opaque’ nature of accountability for the activities of local enterprise partnerships – designed to bring together the public and private sector – which are currently negotiating a revised round of local growth deals funded to the tune of £12bn over five years.
The Department for Communities and Local Government must also do more to demonstrate the link between devolution and economic growth, according to the committee.
PAC chair Meg Hillier said the government’s devolution plans in England have significant implications for the lives of millions of people. …
… Hillier said the government still has serious questions to answer about the benefits of these proposals as “generalisations about the potential benefits” would not be enough.
“The public care about the future of vital local services; about jobs, housing, education,” she stated.
“They want to know not just who is spending their money and to what end, but also how well it is being spent.
“When things go wrong, they want to know who is responsible and how they will be held to account. And, when they elect their first mayors in May, they want to be confident the government has done all it can to protect their interests.”
According to the MPs, there is a “considerable scope for tension” between local government, which is required to deliver and maintain services within a devolved budget, and central government, which provides funding in areas such as skills and transport, and in Greater Manchester, health.
Central government must not “absolve itself of its responsibility to ensure that devolved areas receive adequate funding for sustainable services”, the report stated, and DCLG in particular must ensure devolution benefits work for all local areas and not just central zones or key cities covered by combined authorities, says the committee.
“The government’s annual report on devolution, published this month, does nothing to address these concerns nor to set out a detailed strategic vision for the programme,” Hillier added.
“Every pound of public money spent by an elected mayor, local enterprise partnership or other body must be a pound Parliament can trace. Spending must face robust scrutiny.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2016/12/pac-repeats-warning-importance-devolution-scrutiny
As reported by Save our Sidmouth website.
Owl says: isn’t it time to draw horns in and manage – with creative ideas – with Exmouth and Sidmouth? Wouldn’t that be the most sensible choice now?
The Relocation lead officer, Richard Cohen, reporting last night to EDDC’s Cabinet meeting at Knowle, found himself roundly rebuked by Cllr Cathy Gardner (East Devon Alliance, EDA) for his subjective stance. Cllr Gardner was “shocked to hear Mr Cohen being scathing about the Development Management Committee (DMC) decision”, as these comments were wholly inappropriate for an officer’s report. She was certainly not the only one to think so.
Referring to the DMC’s refusal of the PegasusLife planning application for Knowle (6th December 2016) , “We have been stymied twice” was the turn of phrase chosen by Mr Cohen, who is also EDDC’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer. “You languish in old buildings’, he told councillors. He appeared to belittle the DMC’s decision, describing the refusal as “purely about planning”, “because of a listed curiosity”, and “arguments about Care Provision”.
The outcome of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting was an agreement to “decouple’ the twin aspirations to relocate to Exmouth and to Honiton. In a unanimous vote, it was decided to fast-track the refurbishment of Exmouth Town Hall (despite estimated costs having already increased by almost 70% , and borrowing being necessary) to provide a new ‘hub’ , accomodating 90 new desks for staff.
The mood was more muted about Honiton. Uncertainty about PegasusLife’s future intentions regarding Knowle, could continue, according to Richard Cohen, for around 6 months. In any case, delay in obtaining finance for newbuild offices at Heathpark is inevitable.
So the Council has turned its focus on how best to manage its office space at Knowle, acknowledging the site’s “potential capital appreciation”. The intention is to identify areas that “can be mothballed”, although Richard Cohen’s comment that Knowle’s “more modern buildings are in a more decrepit state ” than the former hotel, was somewhat surprising.
Next week’s Full Council Meeting (21 December, 6.30pm, Knowle) has the DMC report on its agenda. There are sure to be more, probing, questions to answer on this emerging relocation rejig.”
Relocation update: “We have been stymied twice”, officer reports to EDDC Cabinet
That’s the stark choice facing EDDC councillors tomorrow.
There is NO WAY out of the situation that, relocating to Honiton and Exmouth, will cost an enormous amount of money compared to refurbishing Knowle.
No matter how creative you get with the numbers and how much they are massaged – THAT is the reality.
This is a problem entirely of the majority party’s making:
It willfully neglected Knowle for at least a decade to justify its case for a move:
It deliberately withheld figures on running costs for Knowle to improve its case for a move;
It negligently refused to do a full structural survey on Exmouth Town Hall that massively understated the real cost of refurbishment;
It promised a ” cost neutral” move when that was patently impossible to achieve and where costs have spiralled out of control at dizzying speed;
It wants us to pay a 40 year loan for its new HQ that was never anticipated.
None of this would matter if EDDC was a rich council with vast reserves and a gigantic income.
It is not.
It is a council that is draining its reserves rapidly, selling off its assets at break-neck speed to fund day-to-day costs and whose income, thanks to government cuts, is precarious to say the least.
Yet, almost certainly it will close its eyes, hold its nose, cross its fingers and vote to continue down this path of profligate, ever-increasing expenditure because it is not big enough to admit it made a terrible mistake.
And who will suffer? Not the officers and councillors in their more-expensive-than-ivory tower.
We, the council tax payers, with a debt millstone round our necks for the next 40 years with our diminished or non-existent services.
Your call, councillors, your call.
In CIPFA’s annual CFO confidence survey, 86% of chiefs polled identified adult social care as one of the three service areas under most pressure. Virtually the same percentage also named children’s social care (85%) as under the same pressure, while housing was the third biggest area (named by 41%).
The figures are published as reports indicate the government is set to allow local authorities in England to raise more though the social care precept, which is currently set at 2%.
Sean Nolan, CIPFA’s director of local government, said adult and children’s social care services were still facing the greatest budgetary pressures despite the introduction of the precept for 2016-17.
Powers to set a higher social care precept might come as a welcome relief to many councils, but there is concern that the benefits of the precept fall inconsistently, he added.
“[The] areas least able to raise revenue through council tax are often the areas that have the highest levels of need, and vice versa,” he highlighted. “The sticking plaster of the precept is, in any case, probably too little and too late to stop a major crisis in social care services.”
The survey also found that council finance chiefs are significantly less confident in the ability of their council to keep delivering services in the next financial year in comparison to this year. Over one third (38%) are ‘less confident’ in their organisation’s ability to deliver services in 2017-18, compared to 15% for 2016-17.
Nolan said the evidence CIPFA is receiving indicates that the continuing rise in spending on social care is putting a squeeze on other services.
“Councils can’t defy gravity, keep taking so much money out of the system, and expect all their services to stand up,” he warned.
“CIPFA believes that the government must take a strategic and long-term approach to funding levels for health and social care together, rather than continuing to rely on short-term financial fixes.”
CIPFA sent questionnaires to 443 local authorities in England. This includes councils, police and fire authorities, transport authorities, waste authorities and national parks. Overall, 227 questionnaires were returned giving a survey response rate of 51.2%.
As a long-time campaigner against Hinkley C, Molly [Scott-Cato] has welcomed news that Greenpeace Energy, a green energy supplier in Germany, is taking renewed legal action through the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over subsidies for the new nuclear power station.
The new action follows a complaint by the supplier lodged with the General Court of the EU in Luxembourg last year against the EU Commission for approving billions of euros of State aid for the controversial nuclear project. The General Court dismissed this action so Greenpeace Energy has now lodged an appeal with the ECJ.
Molly has also made her own challenge. In March this year she wrote to the Commission asking it to investigate whether a proposed rescue plan for Hinkley C was in breach of European state aid rules. She said:
“Any efforts to try and block this economically illiterate and technically flawed project deserves support. The subsidies being offered to the Hinkley project will distort competition on the electricity market in Europe and have a chilling effect on investment in renewables.”
“Yet this is just the time when we need an innovative renewable energy revolution, not to resort to the failed technologies of the past. With the climate crisis wiping out a large chunk of the Great Barrier reef; unprecedented sea ice melt occurring this year, and the Paris Agreement committing nations to keep the rise in global temperature to less than 2 degrees, we need an emergency Plan B for energy. A plan based on a wide range of renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency and innovative smart grid and energy storage solutions.
“With strong political will – rather than the ideological opposition to renewables we have seen from the Conservatives – these are solutions that can be implemented in the speedy time frame required for tackling climate change and meeting our commitments under the Paris Agreement. Hinkley won’t deliver a single watt of electricity until at least 2025.
“If legal action is the only way to make our government and the Commission see sense on the disaster that is Hinkley, then we must support it. And it is no good the government trying to hide behind the veil of Brexit; as long as the UK is a member of the EU, it is bound by European law.”
The full extent of the crisis facing social care is revealed by an Observer investigation which demonstrates the government’s flagship policy to keep elderly people out of hospital is failing in most parts of the country.
The findings – amid claims from senior NHS figures that “we are going backwards in many places” – come as ministers face calls to provide an urgent injection of extra cash to local councils to avoid services buckling under increasing financial pressure.
The Tory chair of the Commons select committee on health, Sarah Wollaston, said ministers should act immediately to prevent more suffering for elderly people, their families and other patients.
She also demanded all-party talks on the future of the NHS and social care. “We are at a tipping point,” she said. “We are seeing indications of the great stresses in the system and these need addressing now.”
Underfunded and overstretched – the crisis in care for the elderly
The Observer’s investigation reveals that the landmark government scheme designed to relieve the strain on overcrowded hospitals – the Better Care Fund – is failing to deliver its aims of keeping older people healthy at home and so cutting “bedblocking”, despite £4bn a year being poured into it.
Theresa May and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, have repeatedly claimed that the fund, and a separate policy of allowing councils to raise more money for social care by increasing council tax, are jointly addressing the spiralling problems in social care.
Responses to freedom of information requests submitted to 151 local councils reveal that in England 58% of targets for improving care in people’s homes and local communities were missed.
In another blow to ministers, new figures from the King’s Fund think-tank show English councils will raise just a fraction of the sums required to plug gaps in their budgets by increasing council tax bills. …
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/10/tory-plans-making-social-care-worse
Click here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08401p5/sunday-politics-south-west-11122016
for more on the Bermuda … whoops … Golden Triangle LEP described by one MP as a “pig’s ear” … (with Sajid David denying saying something that it is shown he said)
Angela Peddar of the [Lack of] Success Regime saying that it has no plans to cut anything … and then talks about cutting services …
Bringing back fox-hunting (so important in this crisis-ridden world …
and more promises on rail lines and avoiding flooding.
Best get a stiff drink first … it isn’t pretty.
25 March 2015 extraordinary Meeting regarding Relocation:
‘Councillor Moulding emphasised the cost savings that would be achieved and highlighted key figures:
• The Knowle Site offer price agreed is £7-8m • Exmouth Town Hall modernisation will cost in the region of £1m • New Offices at Honiton will cost in the region of £7m • The Council will secure relocation in total for under £10m’
So it’s a £669,000 increase, not £408,000.
A 69% increase in costs in less than two years, without a brick being laid!
£1.6 million (minimum) overspend on Queen’s Drive, Exmouth
£400,000 (minimum) underestimate on Exmouth Town Hall refurbishment
£300,000 (minimum) not collected in Section 106 payments
£2 million … and still a quarter of the financial year to go.
Hello, KPMG, hello …..
This report asks members to approve the refurbishment of Exmouth Town Hall before Gateway 7 is reached in relation to planning permission on the Knowle site. The request is for a budget of £1.669m, this is an increase of £0.408m for this part of the project but overall net costs are expected to still be within the overall relocation budget.
It is a members’ decision whether to decide to proceed and approve the expenditure of £1.669m on Exmouth Town Hall refurbishment for the operational reasons outlined in this report. This decision needs to be under the clear understanding of the financial risk involved; a worst case position of no capital receipt from the Knowle to offset capital costs and no certainty of the associated savings obtained from operating from a new building in Honiton.
The borrowing impact on the Council should no receipt be forthcoming at all would be a £1.669m loan requiring an annual payment of £69,000 over 40 years to fully cover off both the loan sum and interest.
Mitigation against this financial risk is that the Knowle site has been allocated in the Local Plan for housing thereby giving some certainty of a capital receipt, if not now but in the future. Refusal of planning permission for the Pegasus Life proposal will add delay to the project but the Knowle retains a continued Local Plan allocation and capital value as a brownfield site for residential development. On this basis a more reasonable assumption at this point would be the requirement of short-term financing until a receipt is forthcoming. On that basis assuming a 3 year period of short-term financing this would incur an annual cost of £18,000 a year being interest only, if alternatively internal funds were used this would result in a loss of interest equating to £14,000 a year. …
AND THESE ARE COSTS EDDC DID NOT FACTOR IN TO EXMOUTH REFURBISHMENT COSTS:
… The previous figure was an estimated cost without full survey and confirmed contractor figures. The refined cost reflects the detailed building investigations, requirements of the planning authority and the actual price negotiated with the contractor.
The Town Hall is an old building combining different extensions over time. Costing the works on an existing building is less predictable than new build.
Expectations that some existing services could be retained have not been met and detailed surveys and investigations of the building have shown it to be in need of full services replacement alongside repair, redecoration and structural improvements.
Key additional cost elements are:
o Full rewiring
o Replacement of central heating and boiler system.
o Improved hot water provision
o Additional kitchen facilities on first floor
o Provision of mechanical ventilation
o Improvement of natural ventilation,
o Removal of asbestos and dealing with lead paint.
o Improved security provision.
o Better access within the building.
o Improved signage
o ETH will be refurbished to a high standard. It will be decorated and equipped in the same way as the new HQ. The reception areas in particular will have a similar look and range of facilities for our customers.
And when, if you were to be in North Devon, after projected cuts, you might already have taken 1-3 hours to get to your nearest hospital:
“More than one in 10 patients in England face long delays for a hospital bed after emergency admission.
BBC analysis of NHS figures showed nearly 475,000 patients waited for more than four hours for a bed on a ward in 2015-16 – almost a five-fold increase since 2010-11. Hospitals reported using side rooms and corridors to cope with the growing number of “trolley waits”.
NHS bosses acknowledged problems, blaming “growing demand” on the system.
But doctors said hospitals were now dangerously overcrowded, with three quarters of hospitals reporting bed shortages as winter hits.
Bed occupancy is not meant to exceed 85% – to give staff time to clean beds, keep infections low and ensure patients who need beds can be found them quickly. But 130 out of 179 hospital trusts are reporting rates exceeding this for general hospital beds. Hospital managers said the problem was causing “deeply worrying” delays for these patients.
They are people who have already faced a wait to be seen in A&E but whose condition is deemed to be so serious they need to be admitted on to a ward.
About one in five people who come to A&E fall into this category and it includes the frail elderly and patients with chest pains, breathing problems and fractures.
The BBC analysed official NHS England figures and found 473,453 patients waited more than four hours for a bed between October 2015 and September 2016 – 11% of the 4.2 million patients admitted in total during the period. More than 1,400 of them faced delays of more than 12 hours.
It compares with 97,559 “trolley waits” in 2010-11 – although NHS England pointed out a small fraction of the rise could be attributed to a change in the way the waits were measured in December 2015. Directly comparable figures are not available for other parts of the UK, although data suggests there is an increasing strain on beds.
While the delays are known as “trolley waits” not all patients find themselves on one. Hospitals use all sorts of areas, including side rooms, seats in the A&E department and spare cubicles depending on what is available.
Rupert Nathan, 55, was rushed to hospital in an ambulance when he started suffering chest pains at home in June. He had previously had two angioplasties – one in 2000 and one in 2001 – because of angina and feared he was having a heart attack.
He was taken by ambulance to Barnet Hospital in north London and was given blood tests and an electrocardiogram. At that point, staff decided to admit him for further tests. But he spent more than five hours waiting for a bed.
“I was left in a waiting area with my girlfriend. I was in pain and really concerned. There was little contact with staff and it was after midnight when I was finally found a bed.”
He asked for morphine and was told he would undergo scans in the morning. But when morning came, he was in a much better state and was discharged.
“I was told the delays were because it was very busy. I could see that, but it’s still not acceptable.” Mr Nathan has made a complaint about his care. The hospital said it was looking into the case.
‘Too few beds’
Siva Anandaciva, of NHS Providers which represents hospitals, said: “These figures are deeply worrying. We are heading into winter in a more fragile state than I have seen in the past 10 years or so.
“Even the historically top-performing trusts are being challenged, which shows that this is an issue affecting all parts of health.
“No-one wants to see people waiting in corridors, side rooms and emergency bays when they should be admitted to a hospital bed. These patients are still under the care of doctors and nurses of course, but it is not ideal for them and we know overcrowding leads to worse outcomes.”
Dr Chris Moulton, of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, echoed the concerns.
“Patients who are delayed like this are still being monitored by staff. But we know that the overcrowding we are seeing is dangerous. It leads to worse outcomes for patients – higher infection rates, patients ending up on the wrong wards and generally a negative experience.”
Dr Moulton believes there are too few beds. There are just over 100,000 general beds in England – a fall of 40,000 in the past 20 years. “We simply don’t have enough. If you compare us to other European countries we are really short and the demands being placed on the health service means we are now struggling to cope,” he added.
A spokesman for NHS England said “growing demand” was putting pressure on the system – the number of emergency admissions having risen by more than 500,000 in five years to 4.2 million.
But he added it was “a tribute to front-line staff” that the NHS was able to handle so many patients.
“THE public has shown clear support for merging Dorset’s nine main councils into two, local authority bosses have claimed.
They revealed the results of a consultation which showed majority support for turning Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch into one authority, with another to cover the rest of the county.
The consultation saw 4,258 questionnaires returned out of the 20,000 sent to selected Dorset households. Another 12,542 were filled out online or in person by people responding to the call for views.”
Thursday 8th December 2016, 2.15 pm, County Hall
Discussion and vote on whether to halt the “Sustainability and Transformation ” process in order to investigate fair funding for the Devon rural area.
Email your DCC councillors with your views:
http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?bcr=1
and remind them to attend and to vote in favour of motions to suspend the process.
Agenda here:
http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=132&MId=195
The live webcast of the meeting will be here:
http://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/244711
Recall that, when last discussed at the DCC Health Scrutiny Committee, a similar motion proposed by independent councillor Claire Wright was defeated with DCC Councillor and EDDC Leader Paul Diviani voting AGAINST her motion.
Seaton
Friday 16 December 2016
Town Hall, 09.30 – 11.30
Sidmouth
Friday 16 December 2016
Kennaway House, 14.30 – 16.30
Exmouth
Monday 19 December 2016
All Saints Church Hall, 09.30 – 11.30
Woodbury
Wednesday 21 December 2016,
Village Hall, 09.30 – 11.30
Budleigh Salterton
Wednesday 21 December 2016
Public Hall, 13.30 – 15.30
Honiton
Thursday 22 December
The Beehive, 14.00 – 16.00
Axminster
Friday 23 December 2016
Guildhall, 13.30 – 15.30
A press release of 30 November press claims this regeneration of the old Cottage Hospital, and one time specialist stroke unit, is aimed at providing a population of 50,000 with:
“Bringing health, social care and well-being services together, as they will be at the Budleigh Hub, is a vision of the future and what can be achieved through partnership and focusing on the needs of the local community.
It will be a centre for a wide range of services in one place and it will provide a range of social and clinical services with the focus on prevention, rehabilitation and wellbeing.
Services will include NHS outpatient clinics, day centre, gym, café alongside health and wellbeing services such as diabetes and weight management support, dementia support, exercise classes, carers support, family groups, arts and craft and music. …”
Owl thinks that how you view this might depend on whether you interpret the provision of “spinning and other classes” alongside “jigsaws, knitting and crafts” as meaning something to do with spinning yarn, spinning words or exercise bicycles.
Whichever is correct it doesn’t seem directed at relieving the acute problem of bed blocking.
East Devon Alliance:
Spotted in the crowd (not an exhaustive list as crowd too large): East Devon Alliance councillors Marianne Rixon and Cathy Gardner (also on Spotlight and Radio Devon), Sidmouth campaigners Di Fuller and Robert Crick along with town councillor Martin Shaw of Seaton and Independent Councillor Roger Giles of Ottery St Mary.
Many people attended from Exeter, Okehampton and North Devon.
No East Devon Tory Councillors or MPs sighted at all. Nor Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw.
East Devon Watch 