Is a new, powerful supra-regional authority being created without public consultation?

Owl says: yes!

On 1 January 2018, a new “Joint Committee” will come into being.

It is charged with delivery of a “productivity strategy” for the whole Devon and Somerset area.

For its (sinister?) aims and objectives, see section 1.3 here:

Click to access 011117bpcabinethotsw%20jcarrangementsappendixc.pdf

Truly, we live in disturbing times as NONE of this has had ANY public consultation, yet, at EDDC, it will be decided on the nod at its Cabinet meeting on 1 November 2017:

Click to access 011117combinedcabinetagenda.pdf

Some really worrying points:

In Section 2.2 it says that the joint committee can at any time extend its powers as it sees fit.

Section 9.2 says a simple majority of votes will decide actions [the membership will be overwhelmingly Tory]

Section 12.0 Chief Executives and Monitoring Officers will be able to add items to the agenda.

NO DOCUMENT PUT FORWARD HAS ANY MENTION OF SCRUTINY OR TRANSPARENCY

The new “joint authority” authority consists of:

[MEMBERS]

Dartmoor National Park Authority
Devon County Council
East Devon District Council
Exeter City Council
Exmoor National Park Authority
Mendip District Council
Mid Devon District Council
North Devon Council
Plymouth City Council
Sedgemoor District Council
Somerset County Council
South Hams District Council
South Somerset Council
Torbay Council
Taunton Deane Borough Council
Teignbridge District Council
Torridge District Council
West Devon Borough Council
West Somerset Council

PLUS CO-OPTED NON-VOTING MEMBERS:

Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership
NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group
NHS South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group
NHS Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group

AND ANY OTHER CO-OPTED MEMBERS THAT THE JOINT COMMISSIONING GROUP DECIDES TO INVITE

Tory DCC Councillor and Cabinet member for adult social care and health services) attends commercial enterprise event

A company looking for new home care assistants (which Owl will not name) is pulling a publicity stunt to attract both new carers and new clients. DCC and other councils (and Archant Newspapers) are said to be giving their support to such initiatives, saying that:

“The vacancy rate is estimated at 6.9 per cent with some 9,000 adult social care vacancies across the region at any one time.

And across the South West an estimated 30,000 new care jobs will be needed by 2025. …”.

The care company has arranged a Q and A meeting with local health care big wigs – including an influential Tory DCC councillor – and is publicising it via a press release (no doubt related word for word by Archant) in local Archant newspapers (coincidentally Archant being a large provider of advertisements for such jobs).

What puzzles Owl is why the DCC Tory councillor is enthusiastic to be associated with such a commercial publicity stunt when local people find it almost impossible to get him and other Tory councillors to speak about social care anywhere else? Even in DCC meetings!

You know who we mean – Councillor Andrew Leadbetter (DCC), Cabinet member for adult social care and health services.

“[A local home care company] is asking people for their views on ageing, their perception of what care means and the questions that ‘up until now they’ve been reluctant to ask’.

The home care provider has launched its (details) campaign, with pop-up events around Exeter this month, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

On Wednesday, November 8, the top 10 questions will be put to an expert care panel, including:

Martyn Rogers (Age UK, Exeter),
Cllr Andrew Leadbetter (Devon County Council Cabinet member for adult social care and health services),
Dr Michael Dixon (GP, mid-Devon) and
William Flint [the care provider] …

… Devon County Council (DCC) and 15 other councils from across the region are also hoping to boost recruitment in the care sector with its Proud to Care campaign.”

http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/trio-of-campaigns-in-east-devon-will-kick-start-vital-conversations-about-care-1-5251282

The event is said to be on 8 November, but no venue is specified – you have to contact the home care company for more details.

Parish on our environment

I challenge anyone to take away one bit of useful information from this embarrassing exhibition of total pompous waffle!

Swire’s recent preoccupations: bolshie young people and Nay Pyi Taw

Recent questions and comments in Parliament
see: theyworkforyou.com

It seems that Swire still thinks politics is mired in the Russian revolution and that he is still at the Foreign Office.

Or, is he just toadying up to Boris in case Bojo becomes Leader and has promised great things to (only a select few of) those who might support him in this aim?

Bolshie young people not thinking the Tory way:

“A hundred years ago this month saw the start of the Russian revolution, which unleashed misery and purges against millions of Russian people. Although we are right to remind future generations and younger people about the evils of the past, for example through Holocaust Memorial Day, does my right hon. Friend agree that we owe it to the younger generation to educate them about the warped and failed Marxist-Leninist ideology that continues to unleash misery across the world? People should be very worried about that.”
[Boris Johnson replied in whole-hearted agreement]

Myanmar – Muslims in Burma

Hugo Swire: The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point about nationality, except that the British Government have shown to the Government in Nay Pyi Taw evidence kept in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referring to a Muslim population in that part of what is now Burma going back many hundreds of years.”

DCC has no evidence that new way of working – is working!

From the blog of Independent East Devon Alliance county councillor Martin Shaw (Seaton and Colyton) who fought valiantly with Independent DCC councillor Claire Wright to save our community hospital beds, which was defeated by Conservative block voting for the closures.

“There is new evidence that Brexit is adding to the NHS’s chronic staff shortage. Far fewer nurses and doctors from other EU countries are coming for jobs in the UK, while many of those already here are leaving – or plan to leave.

Locally, the RD&E is struggling to recruit care workers for the ‘new model of care’ to replace community beds. Council officers freely admit that Brexit is making Devon’s social care recruitment crisis worse, and at the County Council meeting on 5th October I asked for figures on the number of people from other EU countries in health, social care and education in the county. The answer was that the Council can’t produce them – in a follow-up question I asked the Cabinet to remedy that, and also to reassure EU citizens that they are valued here.

Many people voted for Brexit partly to help the NHS – but are now realising that it is doing the opposite. Of course the Leave campaign said that it wanted to allow professionals like nurses and doctors still to come to Britain – it was more the unskilled workers it wanted to stop (although where that would leave our farming and tourism industries is another problem). What this argument overlooked is that doctors and nurses who move here are not just making a decision about a job – they are looking at whether the country is open and welcoming. The message that Britain didn’t want foreigners went out loud and clear to the people we need to keep our NHS going, as well as everyone else.

Leave voters rightly hoped to see more money go to our underfunded NHS. However it is now universally recognised that the Leave campaign’s idea of saving ‘£350 million a week’ was utterly misleading. Much of the money never goes to the EU (because of the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher) and most of the rest comes back to support things like agriculture, scientific research and regional development in places like the South West – expenditure that the British government will need to replace. Recently it has become clear that the economy has fallen back since the referendum to the extent that the Government is already losing much more in tax revenues than it will eventually save by leaving the EU. So the NHS has no hope of gaining money from Brexit, and is hit on the staffing side too.”

New evidence that Brexit is harming NHS staffing – but Devon County Council has no figures for the local situation

Fake News: “I have the support of my Cabinet”

This phrase is fake news at any level – let’s take it at national and local level as an example

1. As with the national government where May chose her Cabinet, so does the Leader of EDDC. They choose people closest to them and the ones most inclined to do their bidding – it would be foolish to do anything else.

2. Cabinets are not chosen for quality – they are chosen for obedience. It’s no use May saying she tolerates Boris for not being a “yes man” as it is precisely that which has endangered her. A foolish “strategy” to follow if, like her or any other Leader, you want to cling to power. See Trump and Kim Jong-Un. You upset Trump, he fires you; you upset Kim … let’s not go there.

3. It pays to choose weak and feeble Cabinet members if you are their Leader. It strengthens your position. The downside is that you then have to forge VERY close relationships with your civil servants and officers as they are the route to getting your agenda fulfilled (or, in the case of the current government, a very close relationship with the DUP forged with a £1 billion bribe).

4. As soon as anyone hits a Cabinet, they get a vastly increased taste for power – it’s like a drug. They spend days and nights thinking about how THEY could make a better job of things. There is no such thing as loyalty to a Leader in a Cabinet.

So, when any leader says they have the full support of their cabinet – FAKE NEWS!

DCC Tories torpedo Devon NHS

“PRESS RELEASE
Yesterday the Conservative Party machine defeated my final attempt to get Devon County Council to take action over the closure of community hospitals beds. My motion, seconded by Claire Wright, asked the Health Scrutiny Committee to look again at the issues it failed to scrutinise properly in July, and asked the Council to write to the Secretary of State for Health to alert him to our concern about hospital beds. I highlighted widespread NHS concern that there will be too few beds if there is a flu epidemic this winter. My speech is available here and you can watch it and the debate in the webcast (beginning at 2.18).

The Tory response was an amendment, moved by the leader, John Hart, which took the guts out of the motion. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, it said that Health Scrutiny had ‘extensively considered the issues and concerns from members of the public, elected members and others, including medical professionals, all matters relating to the closure of some community hospital beds in Honiton, Okehampton, Seaton and Whipton.’

Instead of my proposal to write to the Secretary about the beds closures, the amendment proposed to write ‘seeking reassurance that appropriate funding is provided by government to deliver the necessary health and social care services in Devon’. Not a dicky bird to the minister about community hospital beds, the whole point of the debate.

In reply I told the Council (at 3.10) that if they passed this amendment, they would be ignoring East Devon opinion just like Kensington & Chelsea Council ignored the residents of Grenfell Tower; and the Conservative Group as a whole would have made itself responsible for the failure to properly scrutinise the hospital bed closures.

The result

Although they were not formally whipped, 40 Tories fell dutifully in line to support the amendment. There were 16 votes against (these were Liberal Democrat, Labour, Independent and Green members, together with only one Conservative, Ian Hall of Axminster).

Claire made a valiant attempt to put some guts back into the motion, with another amendment – but the Tory machine squashed that too.

Martin Shaw
Independent East Devon Alliance County Councillor for Seaton & Colyton

Don’t punish the bully, punish the victim, says Tory donors

This is extraordinary. In any other walk of life a bully would be punished and his or her victim given support. In this increasingly mad party, it is the other way round. In this case the bully is being joined by other bullies to force the victim out of a job.

And as for raising more money from “ordinary” voters – do people not realise that these donors are now desperately squirreling away their cash to cushion them against Brexit problems. With lots of it probably going to those tax havens they love so much.

As an employer – for that is what Tory donors are – these rich donors who are calling the tune – it should be ashamed of themselves. But alas, shame is something rich Tory donors have never and will never experience.

And every member of the Conservative Party shares in this – including our MPs Swire and Parish if they stay silent and join in bearing in mind Swire tweeted his support of bully-boy Johnson very recently, after his attack on May.

Tory party members – you are all complicit with the behaviour of these bullies. Pay your subs and be one of the rabble they will call up on their behalf – that’s your role. And take over paying for their share while they still pull your strings.

“Conservative donors have called for Theresa May to stand down because she is being “bullied” by colleagues including Boris Johnson.

Following an ill-fated conference speech and rumours of a backbench plot against the prime minister, two wealthy supporters said the party must act quickly and install another leader.

In a further development, the party is discussing plans to emulate Labour and widen its financial support away from large donations from a select group of wealthy donors to smaller donations from its ordinary members.

Charlie Mullins, the founder of London-based Pimlico Plumbers, said May must leave because she was being bullied and undermined by Johnson.

He said: “She has got to go for her own sake. It is getting embarrassing. If this was a boxing match, the fight would have been stopped. She has been put in a position where she is being bullied, she is being intimidated, they are making her life hell. These are Conservative people who are destroying this woman and it needs to stop.”

Mullins, who has donated £50,000 and spent £30,000 on a stall at this year’s conference, said the foreign secretary had been successfully undermining the prime minister.

“She is a broken woman. They are setting her up,” he said. “Boris is not a fool. He knows what he is doing. Boris is knocking her at every opportunity he gets because he wants to be prime minister. Boris has been a big part of destroying this woman. …

A second donor said May appeared to be too weak to fight the business community’s corner and should leave by Christmas if the party wants to retain financial support from entrepreneurs.

The businessman, who has given more than £300,000 in total, said: “[The party] is losing support in the City. People worry that the Tories are taking us over a Brexit cliff edge and May looks too weak to control her ministers.

“We need to act now. Whether she is replaced by an old guard member like Michael Fallon or new blood, I am not sure.”

The Conservatives have grown increasingly concerned about the party’s failing support from big donors in the business community.

While the Tories generated £1.5m in membership fees last year, Labour raised £14.4m, according to figures published in August by the Electoral Commission.

John Griffin, the founder of taxi firm Addison Lee who has given more than £4m to the Conservatives, told the Guardian that he has had preliminary talks with party officials about helping to widen financial support from a select few individuals to other less wealthy donors.

“I think the party has performed very poorly in that particular area, so I have a cunning plan and we will be having meetings about that this month. They have underperformed in the area of collecting money,” he said.

“We don’t really want donors to give large sums. We want lots of people to give smaller sums. That is the plan. The Labour party are making a better fist of it. We need to consider that and emulate them.”

Griffin declined to go into further details but said he raised the idea with May at a fundraising dinner at the Dorchester hotel in central London last month. “She supports the idea in principle,” he said.

Griffin, who gave £1m to the party before this year’s election, said he wantedMay to remain as prime minister and called for Johnson to be given a “smacked bum” for undermining her.

“Boris has been a naughty boy and needs a smacked bum. That’s where I stand. He is a nice bloke, but there is a time for everything and he needs a bit more dignity,” he said. “I have encouraged the prime minister to make sure that these people in the cabinet stand in line and she must exercise her power.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/05/conservative-donors-call-for-may-to-stand-down-over-bullying-by-johnson

Which came first: national Tory policy or East Devon Tory policy?

“Jacob Rees-Mogg has compared this year’s Conservative conference to a North Korea-style rally, saying the party will face a crisis unless members are given more stake.

Rees-Mogg said ordinary party members had no power to debate policy compared to when he first entered politics. He told a Policy Exchange fringe meeting:

It has now become like an American presidential convention where we just expect them to turn up and cheer the great and the good. It isn’t even American, it’s Kim Jong Un style. If it stays like that for long enough we’re going to be in real trouble.

Asked about whether the party needed to give more power to its members, Rees-Mogg said:

We treat them appallingly. We expect them to do all the work, deliver all the leaflets, go out in the rain and then the CPF [the members’ policy-making forum] sends in its reports and it gets ignored. We used to have system that took the policy ideas from our members seriously.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/oct/03/conservative-conference-2017-theresa-may-says-she-does-not-want-yes-men-in-her-cabinet

Conservative party severs links with all its university groups, tells you gsters to join with oldies

“The Conservatives are set to sever links with every Tory university group in the country in a bid to detoxify their brand.

A confidential internal Tory report seen by HuffPost UK calls for “risky student politics” to be moved completely out the party structures.

The recommendation comes after a series of embarrassing incidents involving student groups, including a member of the Cambridge University Conservative Association burning a £20 note in front of a homeless person and Tories at St Andrews setting fire to an effigy of Barack Obama.”…

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-university-conservative-young_uk_59d2968de4b0f96298893b80

EDDC’s strategy for dealing with budget deficit: bleed residents dry?

“There is a significant shortfall projected in 2020/21 (£1.412m) which is as a result of an assumed rebasing of business rate income thereby reducing our income by £1.2m. It is proposed in the Finance Plan that work is started now in bridging this gap and driving self- sufficiency of the Council. Members have indicated that the strategic theme within the Transformation Strategy “Maximise the value of our assets through commercial thinking with a focus on income generation, sustainability and developing local economies” is one they believe has significant potential. The Financial Plan considers how this might be progressed with the use of a Member Group (possibly the Budget Working Party) to consider business cases and suggests that a fund is created to unlock barriers to the Council progressing this aim. Detailed recommendations will be presented within the 2018/19 Budget approval process.”

Click to access 041017-cabinet-agenda-combined.pdf

page 60

Do not shut hospital beds – closures not evidence-based says influential King’s Fund – too late for East Devon

Independent DCC Councillor Claire Wright – RIGHT
Independent DCC East Devon Alliance Councillor Martin Shaw – RIGHT
All Independent Councillors at EDDC – RIGHT
All Tories at DCC – Wrong
All those Tories (DCC and EDDC) who voted to support Diviani and Randall-Johnson in closing community hospital beds – WRONG

ALL the time the Independents have called for REAL evidence about bed closures.
ALL the time DCC Tories have acceptec waffle and jargon and “death by Powerpoint” instead of REAL evidence
EDDC Tories sort-of got it right and then allowed their Leader to vote WRONG so they still got it WRONG!

Why on earth are people still voting for these useless excuses for Tory representative councillors!

Kill beds, no community alternative = kills US!

“NHS bosses have been urged to halt plans for more ward closures as experts warn that hospitals do not have enough beds to accommodate patients.

Britain has fewer hospital beds per person than almost any other rich country and numbers in the NHS have fallen to 142,000 from the 299,999 that were available 30 years ago, according to an analysis by the King’s Fund health think tank.

Thousands of further cuts are being planned as part of a strategy by Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, to improve out-of-hospital care and make £22 billion in efficiency savings.

The King’s Fund said that this plan was unrealistic at a time when wards are more than 95 per cent full, well above the 85 per cent level generally thought to be safe. Hospital bosses in London are hoping to cut hundreds of beds, but the King’s Fund estimates that the city will need 1,600 more by 2021 to keep up with population growth.

Helen McKenna, a senior policy adviser at the think tank, said: “There are opportunities to make better use of existing beds and initiatives to capitalise on these should continue, but with many hospitals already stretched to breaking point, reductions on the scale proposed in some areas are neither desirable not achievable.”

Chaand Nagpaul, head of the British Medical Association, said: “Serious questions need to be asked about whether these plans are realistic and evidence-based given it defies logic to cut bed numbers when we already don’t have enough.”

Mr Stevens said that he would only allow bed closures where NHS bosses could demonstrate local alternative treatments were being put in place first or where hospitals were remedying inefficiencies. The King’s Fund said that these tests lacked any real detail.

Saffron Cordery, of NHS Providers, said: “One of the key lessons from last winter was the importance of avoiding unsafe levels of bed occupancy.”

Mr Stevens agreed that hospitals would need to free more beds during the winter, promising an extra 3,700 would be opened for the busiest time of year as hospitals were told to prevent “bed-blocking” by elderly patients.”

Source: Times (pay wall)

EDDC Tory councillors voted against themselves to protect Leader

Sir

“A letter, copied below, from today’s Sidmouth Herald (22/09/17), explains:

The issue of no confidence in EDDC Leader Paul Diviani is nothing new, as the 4,000 people who took part in the SOS Mass March to Knowle, nearly 5 years ago, would agree. (Nov 3rd, 2012, photos archived on http://www.saveoursidmouth.com).

How is it, then, that the ‘Motion against East Devon District Council leader’ failed’ (Sidmouth Herald, 15/09/17)?

Paul Diviani had, according to a senior Conservative colleague, clearly broken trust with the District Council. At the County Health Scrutiny Committee, the EDDC Leader had failed to represent his own Council’s unanimous (i.e. cross-party) recommendation that hospital bedcuts should stop until an effective alternative had been shown to be in place. His contrary vote had influenced the outcome at the DCC, the only body capable of statutory action, thereby apparently betraying not just his own Council, but the people of East Devon that they represent. This left the Tory group of District Councillors “caught between a rock and a hard place”, as Cathy Gardner (EDDC Ward Member Sidmouth Town, East Devon Alliance) reminded them, at the Extra Ordinary Meeting at Knowle (13/09/17).

But all the Tory Councillors present (just one abstained), did an extraordinary thing. To the disbelief of the public crammed into the Council Chamber, they turned the debate away from their uncomfortable Leader’s conduct, and onto problems with the National Health Service. Then, in voting against the Motion of No Confidence in the Leader, they effectively blockvoted against their own unanimous recommendation regarding NHS problems and bedcuts, taken just a few weeks’ earlier. The sort of thing, and Leader, that brings a Council into disrepute?
Jacqueline Green
Sidmouth”

How ‘no confidence vote’ came to be rejected by Council let down by its Leader

Diviani: Confidence or protection of cronies?

NO, NO, NO – Diviani does NOT have the trust of the Council.

He has the PROTECTION of his Tory cronies.

“East Devon District Council’s Conservative Leader says that he still has the confidence and trust of the council after a failed vote of no confidence into his leadership – but the leader of the opposition says that he will now do all in his power to kick out all the Tories at the next election.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Ben Ingham, the leader of the East Devon Alliance, said that he would do everything in his power to ensure that he could field 59 candidates at the next district elections.

Cllr Ingham said: “The Tories on this council voted to protect the political career of Paul Diviani instead of looking after the people of East Devon.

“As a result, I will do all that I can in my power to in 20 months field 59 independent councillors at the East Devon District Council elections and this will give the people a chance to kick out the lot of them, and I challenge the people of East Devon to do that.

Cllr Diviani though said that the vote showed that he did have the trust of the council. …”

http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/east-devon-council-leader-says-478749

The Case of the Missing Councillors …

Last nights two energency meetings on no confidence in Diviani were as notable for missing councillors as for those who were there:

Closure of Honiton and Seaton hospital beds:

Councillor Mike Allen (Honiton – who wrote a letter critical of Diviani in local press that day)
Councillor Marcus Hartnell (Seaton, EDDC Cabinet member)

Fun Park closure:
Bill Nash
Philip Skinner (Exmouth Regeneration Panel)

Such a shame such important councillors couldn’t tell us what they thought about the decisions that affected their areas and how they would have voted – lol!

Though, of course, their voters can contact them for their views.

A response to Councillor Shaw’s response to Councillor Allen’s response to Diviani’s vote at DCC!

Comment post to Councillor Shaw’s post:

“If councillors like Mike Allen want to distance themselves from Paul Diviani and regain some respect from the electorate, the first step will be to vote against him at today’s council meeting.

Any councillor voting against the motion of no confidence, then they are aligning themselves with Diviani’s anti-democratic approach of ignoring the electorate, his own council, and other councils he was supposed to represent, and they are showing everyone that they are no better than he is.

And if Mike Allen was relying on Hugo Swi[r]ne and Neil Pari[s]ah to fix the NHS issues in East Devon he was backing the wrong horse.”

Independent councillor challenges Councillor Mike Allen’s letter on Tories and NHS

Independent East Devon Alliance councillor Martin Shaw (Seaton and Colyton) makes this observation on EDDC Tory councillor Mike Allen’s attempt to distance other EDDC and DCC councillors from Leader Diviani’s actions which led to the vote of no confidence meeting at EDDC tonight.

(Assemble Knowle 5.30 pm if you wish to make your presence felt for this meeting)

“It is not credible to say that Diviani acted alone – he may not have consulted other district councils, but remember that three of the East Devon Tories on Health Scrutiny (Randall Johnson and Richard Scott as well as Diviani) voted for ditching the hospital beds, with only Twiss against and Jeff Trail absent. Even at the time of the County Council elections in May, E Devon Conservatives advocated ‘bedless hospitals’, so Mike Allen’s story doesn’t add up. If they back Diviani tonight they will be consistent with their party’s betrayal of Honiton and Seaton.”

Letter referred to in post below and above:

Tory councillor puts many Tory cats in front of a single Tory Diviani pidgeon!

Tonight sees the vote of no confidence in EDDC Leader Paul Diviani, who, with his former EDDC pal and DCC Councillor Sarah Randall-Johnson, sabotaged a last-ditch attempt to keep beds at Honiton and Seaton hospitals open.

Now EDDC Tory Councillor Mike Allen has written an extraordinary letter in today’s Midweek Herald claiming Diviani acted alone at DCC and, in fact, all other Tory councillors at EDDC backed the action to try to keep the beds open.

We know Diviani acted alone when he voted at DCC, as he was supposed to consult all the other councils in this part of Devon (8 councils in all) about his vote, which he admitted he did not do (see post yesterday on his censure for this).

So, tonight he faces a vote of “no confidence”.

What will Tory councillors do?

Diviani allegedly refused to follow their unanimous instruction about how to vote at DCC. Which councillors will vote to keep him in his job and why?

Could it be like the national Tory situation – where Mrs May stays in power only because her party has no-one better to offer so her bodge-jobbing is the best bodge-jobbing they can muster?

Or will we someone emerge from the shadows to oust the Leader – and, if so, will it be an improvement?

We note that Councillor Twiss voted against the motion that Diviani voted for at DCC (though maybe because he valued his Honiton DCC seat more than the community beds). Is he waiting in the wings?

Tonight will tell.

TOMORROW 6 PM: “Motion of No Confidence in EDDC Leader, this Weds 13 Sept, 6pm at Knowle. Considerable public presence expected.”

With the BBC Spotlight report (03/09/17)* and considerable coverage in the local press, most East Devon constituents will be aware of the Extra Ordinary meeting this Wednesday 13th September, to consider a motion of no confidence in Paul Diviani for voting against referring hospital closures to the Secretary of State.

The meeting will take place in the Council Chamber, Knowle, starting at 6pm. Good attendance of the public is anticipated. The first agenda item is public speaking . Those wishing to speak should register on arrival, by completing the speaker request slip ( with topic, name and contact details) available on table just inside Council Chamber, and handing it in to the secretary.

For precise details of the motion, see

‘Motion of no confidence lodged against district council leader’, reports today’s Sidmouth Herald

‘Motion of no confidence lodged against district council leader’, reports today’s Sidmouth Herald
* The Spotlight report, by Hamish Marshall, has been captured on https://www.facebook.com/eastdevonalliance/”

https://saveoursidmouth.com/2017/09/11/motion-of-no-confidence-in-eddc-leader-this-weds-13-sept-6pm-at-knowle-considerable-public-presence-expected/