because if it isn’t this sort of thing that can happen:
Category Archives: DCC
This week’s “View from “…editorial in full
Does politics work for locals?
IN all the years I have been doing this job (too many according to my critics out there), I can’t remember a time when there was so much dissatisfaction with local government. Why is this?
You won’t be surprised, but I have a theory.
When I first started covering rural and borough councils in East Devon and occasionally Devon County Council, 50 years ago, politics had very little to do with it. We were all aware that East Devon was predominantly blue but the focus was very much on serving the electorate.
Councillors got little or no expenses and the officers were not paid such exorbitant salaries. Debates were not dominated by groups of politically affiliated councillors, with members of other political shades marginalised, and there were no grand titles such as “portfolio holders”. Matters were dealt with by committees where all councillors had an influence.
With the exception of town councils, being an elected representative today is as much a career as it is a service for many. I am not denying the amount of hours our councillors at district and county level put in, or questioning their commitment to their communities, but generally they are compensated for their efforts, especially the more capable and ambitious members who climb the political ladder. Some of them receive far in excess of the average weekly wage in this area.
I’m not talking about every councillor. I noticed when Googling councillors expenses, when I started thinking about a theme for t his week’s column, that one long serving councillor claimed only £12.50 last year.
Times change and the reorganisation to create the current three-tier system (county, district and parish/town) back in 1974 was deemed necessary. Like it or not, local government is in the politics game and it will always be that way.
This became clear to me last week after I compared the different interpretation being put on the summoning of EDDC chief executive Mark Williams to a Commons Select Committee to answer question on electoral procedures. Having read the Hansard transcript of proceedings, it didn’t seem to me that it was a wholly enjoyable experience for Mr Williams.
One district councillor emailed me to say he was “mildly disappointed” with the view I had taken but then, incredulously, went on to criticise the “tame” spin put out by his own council’s communications team. His words, not mine.
Talk to most people and they have no real interest in local government (it was ever thus) but those who have are pretty disillusioned. Controversy rages in most of the towns in Pulman’s Country at the moment but there is little faith in the ability of our elected representatives to find solutions.
I think there is also a degree of frustration among a number of long serving councillors, with some of them having already decided not to seek re-election when we go to the polls next May. The big question is: will their replacements do any better?
And in other news …
Whilst we await our Chief Executive’s appearance at tonight’s council meeting, here is some other news that has been happening over the last few days:
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Supermarkets – the new charity shops?
EDDC’s flagship regeneration policy of putting a supermarket in all seaside towns as close to the seaside as possible already looks to be a busted flush.
Tesco has just announced it will abandon its plan to build a superstore on the seafront in Margate to which Pickles had given a green light!
In an article in the business section of the Guardian we read:
“Pickles was criticised for backing the Tesco Margate scheme by the self-styled Queen of Shops Mary Portas, who said it showed the government was only paying “lip service” to the idea of reviving Britain’s high streets as the store would have a “catastrophic” impact on the town.
Margate was among the “Portas Pilot” towns which won £100,000 in funding to back new ideas to boost trade and refill empty shops on some of the UK’s most battered high streets.
Louise Oldfield, a local hotel owner who pushed for the judicial review, said she was shocked that Tesco had pulled out but it was good news for Margate. “We hope we can now move forward towards a more sustainable proposal for Margate. This proposal would have had a massive impact on the seafront,” she said.”
But what irrevocable damage has now been done to our seaside towns in East Devon? Certainly too late for Seaton.
Cranbrook to double in size
In addition to the 6,000 homes already planned, developers are to submit plans for a further 1,500 homes. They also say they will build infrastructure but with still no Community Infrastructure Levy in place there is almost nothing in place to ensure that it happens.
DIY repairs to Devon roads
Brush up those tarmacking skills – you are going to need them. Can’t wait to see DCC Councillor for Highways, Stuart Hughes, in a blue boiler suit:
At a time when the news tells us that Devon has some of the most dangerous country roads which have ten times more fatalities than motorways comes a call for local people to voluntarily maintain their own bits of road and fill in their own potholes.
Feniton developers issued with breach of conditions notice by EDDC
Finally developers Wain Homes are put under pressure to do what they were supposed to do: build attenuation tanks for surface water run off which should have been done BEFORE homes were occupied. At least six are now in occupation with no sign of the tanks
Today Manchester, tomorrow “Greater Exeter” or “Devon wide”? Maybe Councillor Potter is right and there will be no district councils soon
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority – made up of a consortium of 10 local authorities is going back to the drawing board and attempting to draw up a Regional Spatial Strategy – i.e. a Mega-Local-Plan. Those long in the tooth (i.e. who remember local government more than 4 years ago) will recall that this used to be the way things were done for infrastructure and investment wit the (not-much-missed-because-it-wasn’t-very-good) South West Regional Development Agency SWRDA with their Spatial Strategy for the whole of Devon. They were replaced by Local Enterprise Partnership – but they, too, seem to be fading away gradually as we hear less of them and their funding.
http://www.agma.gov.uk/what_we_do/manchester-family-centre-of-excellence/index.html
(what an odd URL!)
So, maybe this is the way things are going – fewer and fewer small authorities and more and more amalgamation as Councillor Potter predicted at Newton Poppleford earlier this week.
But where does that leave EDDC? They fought Devon-wide unitisation so, so hard a few years ago – spending at least a quarter of a million pounds of our council tax on persuading us not to go down that route and saying how bad it was for us. Then, as soon as the new government came in, they cancelled unitisation saying it was not a good idea. Now amalgamation seems to be the new theory and it’s all ok now.
There must be some really hard head-scratching going on at present at EDDC as they see the possibiity of losing control! Though there are many who think they lost control some time ago ….
… and wouldn’t the Skypark HQ make a lovely Devon HQ so that Exeter and DCC could sell off their current offices for housing ….. unless it goes to Plymouth, of course! Why not: it’s on the far edge of the area and only as far (relatively speaking) from Exeter in Devon-wide terms as Axminster is from Skypark in EDDC terms!
Now Devon and Cornwall people call for devolution
The Scottish referendum and Skypark: what links them?
The Scottish vote on Thursday has significant implications for the proposed move of EDDC to Skypark.
This follows the recent strong performance of the ‘Yes’ campaign, who may well win, but have in any event secured huge concessions from the Westminster establishment. The choice is now between full independence and ‘devo max’, a further massive transfer of powers to the Scottish Assembly.
All parties are now agreed that the existing constitutional arrangements are dead in the water, and that widespread reform is inevitable with a transfer of powers away from Westminster. In a sense, a logical extension of the popular policy of ‘localism’.
Regardless of Thursday’s vote, Wales and Northern Ireland will be given more powers, and there is likely to be an English Parliament. This may be located away from London, in Birmingham or the North, but is more likely to be housed at Westminster, with only English MPs sitting to determine English issues.
The English regions will be included in this anti-centrist, anti-Westminster process, but a repeat of the maligned and unsuccessful regional assemblies of the last Labour government is highly unlikely. Power is going to be devolved to lower tiers of government, and in our neck of the woods that means Devon County Council.
As part of this transfer of power and general constitutional and administrative upheaval, the number of tiers of government will be closely examined. The continuation of District Councils is highly questionable. Whilst County Councils will have the viability to administer more powers, there will be huge demands to counter their power with a transfer of local decision-making to Parish level. In particular, planning. This is the essence of localism, and government generally is well aware of the popular demand for people to have a greater say over what happens in their neighbourhood.
And of course, having three tiers of local government is widely seen as overly complicated and expensive. Hence the decision to make Cornwall a unitary authority. So District Councils are looking like they are heading for the chop.
Scottish voters have been promised constitutional reform in a great hurry, with legislation scheduled for just after the May 2015 elections. Reform to the English system will either be at the same time or very soon afterwards.
At the very moment when District Councils are likely to cease to exist, here in EDDC we will be committing to a £20 million new HQ. The ultimate white elephant.
And what will be the value of the new building, when it has to be sold? Surely no more than £2-3 million. We already know that there is no demand for offices at Skypark, or anywhere else in East Devon for that matter. And especially for a new building purpose designed to house our District Council.
In these circumstances will the residents elsewhere in Devon be prepared to stomach the losses incurred by East Devon politicians. Or will the £17 million loss be transferred to East Devon’s parish councils, saddling them with debt for a generation?
Devon should have one elected mayor says Nick Clegg
Cornwall Council tries to devolve services (but not cash) to town and parish councils
It isn’t a “saving” when Cornwall Council doesn’t pay, leaving the parishes to do it. Towns and parishes don’t have some of the necessary backup (admin services, health and safety officers, machinery for cutting verges,etc) so it might actually lead to increases in parish precepts which will be added to council taxes anyway.
But, the County Council will be able to claim ITS savings so that’s ok isn’t it:
Spending on SW roads woeful compared to other regions
“Right to Contest” use of Government property
It’s a bit odd, but below is a toolkit which lists various types of public property where, if you think that is is redundant or could be put to better use and the government agrees, it will go up for sale.
The scale and type of property in our area is astonishing from, for example, a single-office room in Honiton to its (redundant surely) Magistrates Court, to a house in Exmouth and everything inbetween!
https://www.gov.uk/find-government-property
“The ‘Right to Contest’ guidance says that anyone – including businesses, local authorities or members of the public – can issue a challenge.
This is as long as they believe that all the following apply:
Where the land is owned by a central government department or one of their arms’ length bodies, the site: is potentially surplus or redundant; could be put to better economic use, “eg for housing or to help businesses develop or expand”.
The right can be used to challenge central government sites which are in use, as long as the challenger thinks that operations could be moved to a different location.
Where land is owned by a local authority or certain other public bodies: the site is empty or under-used; there are no plans to bring it back into use.”
Hmmmm …..!
Miscellany
From a correspondent:
Two other costs of relocation: the officer time expended on the move is not being costed – £2 million? Richard Cohen doesn’t come cheap. And more importantly, the location of Skypark will mean that the make-up of the workforce will chance dramatically, and is likely in the future to be drawn from outside the District. Exeter mainly, but also Taunton and Newton Abbot/Torbay. This will mean that between £5 and £7 million per annum in wages will be sent outside the District.
Re the Bucks proposition (see post below) and DCC’s proposal 4 (?) years ago. The big problem with the DCC proposal was that they wanted parish councils to be only part elected, with several members being appointed. This would mean the local police officer, nurse and fire officer, unelected, determining planning applications in your street. No thanks. This was a big flaw and lost the confidence of a lot of people. A genuine fresh attempt by DCC and passing power down to local Parish councils in the spirit of localism would be very popular right now. If the Parish councils had power people would stand for them.
And finally, this quote from the blog of Councillor Susie Bond on this afternoon’s DMC meeting we can’t wait for the audio tape of this precis:
“Chair, Cllr Helen Parr, pointed out that the Local Plan was ready as far as EDDC was concerned at the Examination in Public earlier this year, but that it was the Planning Inspector who had asked for more evidence on housing numbers.”
Work that one out!
The delayed Local Plan – the missing document tracked down and a commentary on it (“What the Dickins”)
An EDA correspondent has tracked down the elusive “attachment” to the agenda of the Development Management Committee regarding the delay to the Local Plan (see post below)
DM260814-Emerging Housing Numbers
and a critique of this document is given below by the same correspondent:
What the Dickins?
A paper by Matt Dickins, EDDC’s Planning Policy Manager, to be presented to Development Mgmt Committee on 26 August (see link above) makes for depressing reading. Residents of East Devon hoping that EDDC will finally be getting its act together on housing land provision will be deeply disappointed.
As many will know, EDDC is obliged to prove that it has an objective evaluation of housing land provision. The absence of such an evaluation, and EDDC’s failure to prove both a five-year land supply and have a Local Plan in place, means that it remains open season for developers. An objective evaluation of housing land need is achieved through the production of a Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA). In his scathing review of EDDC’s draft Local Plan earlier this year Planning Inspector Anthony Thickett called the absence of an up to date SHMA a “serious failing” on the part of the Council. (He also found that EDDC’s argument for 4,000 ‘overspill’ migration numbers, mostly from Exeter, had “no empirical basis”.)
Does Mr Dickins come bearing good news for EDDC and the people of East Devon that the day of the SHMA is at hand? Not at all. His paper comprises six pages of complacent waffle. Notwithstanding that some research should have already been done, “unfortunately there have been delays”. There may need to be discussions with adjacent authorities. (We know that, Mr Dickins. Exeter CC is looking to appropriate East Devon countryside.) While Mr Dickins’ paper points out that demographically East Devon is likely to see a major increase in population from the over 65s – surely implying a need for more sheltered accommodation in towns with services than new build on greenfield sites – his paper concludes lamely that “at this stage it is not possible to provide a timetable for completion of the full SHMA work”! The consequence? “We can only conclude that we do not have a 5 year housing land supply and continue to consider application [sic] accordingly”.
To translate: EDDC has no idea when the SHMA will be finished, it won’t even venture a guess, and in the meantime the lack of a five-year housing land supply [and Local Plan] means that developers will consider to maintain the upper hand in a district where two-thirds of the land is AONB. This is a woeful paper: DMC should send Mr Dickins to the Naughty Step and require him to try again. Time someone got a grip while there is any countryside left in East Devon.
Local Plan delayed again – unlikely to be approved for many months
Recap: our draft Local Plan was thrown out by the Planning Inspector, Mr Thickett, because – oh, so many reasons – mainly because pretty much all of the figures in it were either too old or too unreliable. We were told to go back to the drawing board.
A crucial aspect of a local plan is that there must be a “5 year land supply” – i.e. enough available land to meet the district’s agreed needs for the next 5 years to enable building to start quickly and to keep up with demand. Those local authorities which had persistently underperformed in this area over the previous period were told that they would have to have a 6 year land supply – EDDC was one of those authorities.
Whichever way EDDC seemed to cut it, we never reached that magic 5 or 6 year level. As a result, developers are pretty much given free rein to build anywhere in East Devon unless EDDC can provide very strong reasons that they cannot – this as a result of the Coalition government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which ripped up all previous rules and gave the green light to building just about anywhere.
EDDC thereafter took this to heart and passed pretty much anything and everything that came its way (and is still coming its way) from developers. It was left to local communities (Feniton, Seaton, Newton Poppleford) to argue their own corners and find their own money to fight developers. In Feniton and Seaton the communities rallied and defeated them (only to find that, in both places, it seems the developers are coming back to fight again). In Newton Poppleford there was a perverse decision from the DMC – yes to a Clinton Devon Estates development but no to another developer at Badger Close using the same reasoning, but turned on its head for the latter.
EDDC promised the Planning Inspector that there would be a fast review (which had to include dealing with other local authorities in the area where they said that they had run out of space for their developments and needed us to build to take up their shortfall). The Inspector told EDDC that he would be ready to re-examine the draft local plan in October or November 2014.
Bear in mind that the new draft local plan once again had to go out for public consultation – a project that lasts at least 6 weeks and then demands officer time to collate the results. It became pretty obvious that EDDC was not going to meet this target.
Now we have confirmation that this is the case. At the next
Development Management Committee on Tuesday 26 August 2014 at 2 pm
a report is tabled on the agenda entitled “Objectively Assessed Housing Numbers for East Devon – Emerging Work.
On that agenda, currently (21/8/2014 10.40 am) there is supposed to be a link to that report but the link is missing so anyone attempting to read the report will not be able to find it. However, an eagle-eyed correspondent on Councillor Claire Wright’s blog has traced it (unfortunately the link given does not work) and no amount of searching on the EDDC website brings it up. However, this is what the document says:
“At this stage it is not possible to provide a timetable for completion of the full SHMA (strategic housing market assessment) work. There are complexities to the task that will need working through. However, officers of all the authorities involved in the commission are working together to come to a final set of recommendations on the objectively assessed housing numbers for the SHMA as a whole and for the individual authorities”.
It adds “In the meantime based on the available information we can only conclude that we do not have a 5 year housing land supply and continue to consider applications accordingly”.
It then suggests that the growth point area near Skypark will cause many businesses to set up and as a result housing should be factored in to address the extra jobs (see below for a post on those extra jobs which are mostly self-employment and particularly self-employment in the construction industry – ephemeral jobs).
So, the status quo continues. No land supply, happy developers, very, very unhappy residents.
24,000 homes in Devon and Cornwall empty for more than 6 months
South-west starved of transport infrastructure investment
Cornwall Council outsources legal services and makes them available to other public bodies in south west
The contract will be let in six lots: property, planning and highways; commercial (excluding PFI); criminal and civil litigation; social welfare; employment, equalities and pensions; governance, parliamentary agency and electoral law.
Does this include tracing 6,000 missing voters under “Parliamentary Agency and Electoral Law” – and “criminal litigation” is interesting!
Devon ans Somerset fail to apply for £3 m broadband funding
Empty Devon County Council buildings cost thousands to maintain – some empty for 13 years
The redoubtable councillor Eileen Wragg – in so much trouble at EDDC because she has the courage of her convictions – has spoken about yet another example of waste in local government:
EDDC’s Asset Management Group meets in secret (of course) – wonder how many buildings EDDC has sitting empty or not being used appropriately? We may never know.
County council loses library cut case
This could affect many councils all over the country including Devon:
More problems with counting – this time DCC and libraries – Axminster particularly
As we have already reported earlier there are problems with the DCC analyses that are being used to inform decisions on Library cuts.
The main problem with these data is double counting – for example the population of Colyton is included in the population figure for Seaton, even though Colyton has its own library. Similarly Exmouth includes Budleigh Salterton; Cullompton includes Uffculme etc. This makes a nonsense on any rankings based on loans per head of Library “catchment” areas, or population without adjustment. There are also other problems in the way in which these data are then analysed to produce rankings.
DCC proposes to divide Devon libraries into two groups: Devon Centres, whose costs will be cut by 10 – 25 per cent, and community-run libraries, whose costs will be cut by 50 per cent. So here is an interesting alternative analysis to that conducted by DCC.
The proposed community-run libraries have such small costs that the only saving will be staff costs and so those libraries will have to be run by volunteers – or be closed.
The Axminster analysis of data indicates that, instead of super libraries, DCC should be looking to save money through efficiency. A comprehensive and more equitable spread of funding would also create a library service more appropriate for the rural communities of Devon.
Under the Public Libraries and Museums Act of 1964, the council has a legal obligation to provide an efficient library service. If the consultation was really about saving money then DCC should be looking at which libraries are the most cost efficient. Efficiency can be measured by the net cost per issue. On this measure small libraries are amongst the most cost effective in terms of net cost per book issued (direct costs minus revenues).
Axminster at £0.75 per issue tops the list. Other particularly cost effective libraries include Bovey Tracey, Ottery St Mary, Braunton and Budleigh Salterton and all are on the list to be community-run. Four proposed Devon Centre, super libraries, are amongst the least ten cost efficient libraries with cost per book issued at £2.13 for Exeter. It is clear that the consultation has not yet looked at which libraries are performing well and efficiently.
If the policy was really about saving money in Devon Library Services, massive savings could be made by getting inefficient libraries to perform at the same level of efficiency as those at the top such as Axminster.
From the data provided by DCC in the consultation documents, together with Freedom of Information data on Exeter, it is known that net direct costs per year are £4.3 million and that issues are 2.8 million and that at Axminster it costs 75p per issue.
If all issues cost the same as Axminster’s 75p, then issues would be £2.1 million. That would save £2.2 million. If the rest of Devon was as efficient as Axminster, DCC would save £2.2 million.
County Councillor Andrew Moulding will be putting Axminster’s figures to DCC, see:
http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/new_figures_boost_fight_to_save_axminster_library_1_3610759
The figures behind the Axminster analysis can be found on a spread sheet on the “Support for Axminster Library” Facebook page and is intended as a public resource.
The spread sheet attempts to remove bias using data from DCC “Tough Choices” https://new.devon.gov.uk/libraryreview/ website for the libraries in Devon on town profiles, opening hours and how these have changed over the past three years, costs, and put them on an equal footing using DCC estimates of town and ward populations.
DCC consultation continues until July 17.
East Devon Watch 