According to the front page of today’s Midweek Herald:
Although Honiton Chamber of Commerce is ecstatic, the missed opportunity to have a Waitrose must get up some people’s noses.
Not to mention that even the lowest bid would probably have been enough (when one includes the £750,000 plus already spent on pre-location costs) to refurbish the current HQ at true zero cost.
Surely our Honiton- centric Cabinet didn’t let the Chamber of Commerce sway their decision?
“Councillors from across Devon and Somerset have agreed on a joint devolution bid to secure greater control over skills, growth and employment in the region.
The decision follows a summit of county, unitary and district council chiefs in Exeter today, which brought local authorities one step closer to a devolution deal for the region.
Current plans propose an organisation based on the boundaries of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), with a focus on economic development and job creation.
Commenting on the progress, Devon County Council leader John Hart said the level of agreement had been “very encouraging”.
“It’s important that we present a united front to the Government,” he said.
“I have always said that we can do things more effectively and more efficiently locally than being told what to do by London.
“The big themes we hope to focus on are on skills, economic growth and improving productivity, as well as infrastructure so we can ensure our road and rail network is more resilient than it has been in the past.
“Doing the very best for our older residents by coordinating health and social care and affordable homes for our young people are also key themes.”
The announcement follows the confirmation of a devolution offer for Cornwall last month – the first non-urban deal of its kind.
LEP chief executive Chris Garcia was at the meeting, along with leaders from Devon’s eight district councils and Torbay mayor Gordon Oliver.
Councillors have previously indicated a bid could involve a “double devolution” model, under which the counties and unitary authorities would receive powers from central government and pass them down – where appropriate – to districts.
There has also been discussion of “soft” boundaries which would enable different parts of the region to reach individual devolution deals while still collaborating with neighbouring authorities.
The next round of devolution applications are due for submission in September.”
New York today, East Devon tomorrow?
Londoners have already been given permission to build extra storeys on their homes.
And here’s a suggestion: build affordable housing on top of EDDC’s new Honiton HQ! Money where mouths are or mouths where money is!
Just to throw you off the scent, there is a “controversial” story on the front page but thereafter we continue to luve in Utopian East Devon!
A mildly critical story about EDDC ignoring the protected species of bat in their relocation plans is relegated to a small article on page 15 which gives more prominence to EDDC’s views than anyone else’s.
And Neil Parish is lauded for his efforts to publicise heart disease but NOTHING about him saying that the public (ie us) should be encouraged to “get behind” fracking.
We do at least still have the “View from” titles to give us a more balanced set of new stories each week.
Oh, and a quickie mentioned by someone from Sidmouth last week: why does the Sidmouth Herald carry a Beer news page when the Midweek Herald doesn’t? Beer is about 10 miles from Sidmouth and about 2 miles from Seaton. It couldn’t be snobbery, surely!
Wednesday 3rd June
The motion to delay the Knowle Sale by 6 months was placed before Full Council by Cllr Cathy Gardner and Cllr Matt Booth. They both presented very reasoned cases for the delay and were conciliatory in their approach. They stressed Transparency to the residents of East Devon and in particular Sidmouth. They did not oppose the move merely asked for more time to allow greater consultation to ensure that the Council made the right decision.
The reaction was set by Cllr Williamson who insisted that as the decision had already been validated by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (with a set of “independent” auditors) there was no need to delay – in fact he maintained that there was a need for greater speed. Other speakers opposing the motion spoke of the need to move and how inappropriate the current building was.
Tories – you just don’t get it! It is recognised that the current buildings are not fit for purpose AND SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE – but what that is and how due process is applied is the central issue in this motion.
Previous Committees and Councils sanctioned a move to Sky Park – not a mention of that! Then a sudden concept of two premises – why the change?
The appeal to the Freedom of Information request was scathing of the Council – no acceptance of that or any explanation of what was so important within the papers that they could not be released – I doubt most Tory members had even read (or been able to read) them.
Reference to election results and other “facts” but no concept of the Perception of the public – they rightly feel marginalised.
Tories – you seem to have forgotten that you serve your community – these assets are not yours – they are not even EDDC’s – they are owned by the Council Tax Payers of East Devon – you merely act as temporary custodians in the passage of time. You MUST consult with your Community – you have failed to do this as on other occasions. You were given the opportunity last night to make a fresh start with Openness and Transparency – you rejected that offer with your customary arrogance.
The motion was defeated by a recorded vote – this may come back to bite you!
Owl
An interview with Jeremy Woodward ,whose Freedom of Information (FOI) request set in motion a chain of events which has led to the Tribunal’s decision yesterday against EDDC, can be heard here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02q2k4d#auto at 3mins 30secs. It was broadcast again an hour later, at about 1hour 3mins.
Immediately following the Tribunal’s report, another FOI request on the subject of EDDC’s office relocation was sent,this time by Chair of Save Our Sidmouth, Richard Thurlow. Details at this link: http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/knowle-relocation-project-progress.html
SOS may not be alone in thinking so. This press release has just been issued: http://saveoursidmouth.com/2015/05/05/sos-press-release-on-tribunal-decision/
“Red telephone boxes, sunlit Beefeater parades, smiling royals: London’s postcards can be misleading. South London artist Gram Hilleard has created a series of postcards showing the city as he sees it: grey skies, soulless skyscrapers and boarded-up shops. The series, entitled Developers Up Yours, attacks the capital’s rapid gentrification. “My family’s been in this area of London for the last 200 years,” says Hilleard, “but now the indigenous Londoners have been moved out. The city is so overwhelmed by money that Londoners themselves don’t count any more.” The postcards are at the Offsite gallery, London WC1, until 31 May.”
Here’s a taster:
Richard Thurlow’s speech, at the Extra Ordinary Meeting of Full Council last week, explains : https://saveoursidmouth.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/a-huge-number-of-uncertainties-and-unresolved-problems-being-glossed-over-yet-council-has-approved-eddc-office-relocation/
More to follow when we have details.
..and the money rolls out, thanks to a District Council which (as Seaton Cllr Peter Burrows put it) “may not be in existence when the loan expires.”
Yet no-one knows whether Pegasus Life Ltd will offer EDDC for the Knowle a figure nearer £7million or nearer £8million (the rough price-range agreed). But with no Heads of Terms yet fixed, councillors’ vote tonight to go ahead with relocation nonetheless, puts the ball firmly in Pegasus Life’s court.
As usual, questions from the public went unanswered.
Extracts from the meeting will be available on YouTube soon. The link, and more on tonight’s Extra Ordinary meeting, will be posted on EDWatch in due course.
Rush, rush, rush! Councillors will have barely had time to read through and fully digest the minutes of the Special Development Management Committee meeting (on Monday 23 March), which have just been sent to them, before they are required to make a ‘final decision’ on relocation at this evening’s 6.30pm meeting.
Will all have opened their e-mails straightaway? And how many will have been able to collect well in time, the paper copy of the minutes available from their pigeon holes from 4pm today?
In a whirlwind week of Extra Ordinary meetings, some Councillors might be hardpressed to sufficiently absorb the latest information on a whole raft of extremely important decisions with long-term consequences. They are being inexplicably and unreasonably squeezed into a decision on the sale of Knowle, AND proposed changes to the revised Local Plan, in the same short period of time.
The links received (hopefully) by Councillors are:
http://eastdevon.gov.uk/media/1002849/260315-extra-ordinary-council-ag
> enda-local-plan.pdf
The previously circulated Special Development Management Committee
> agenda papers:
> Agenda –
> http://eastdevon.gov.uk/media/990985/230315-special-combined-dmc-agend
> a.pdf
> Draft schedule of proposed changes –
> http://eastdevon.gov.uk/media/990982/230315-sp-dmc-table-of-changes-to
> -local-plan-v3-march-15.pdf
Addendum report with proposed changes –
> http://eastdevon.gov.uk/media/1018372/230315-sp-dmc-addendum-report-it
> em-5.pdf
Revised Draft New East Devon Local Plan with tracked changes:
> http://eastdevon.gov.uk/media/990979/230315-sp-dmc-local-plan-with-cha
> nges-for-post-hearing-consultation-ver-04-march-2015.pdf
Councillors have a lot on their shoulders. The public speaking this evening would clearly like to share the load.
What’s at stake tonight’s Extra Ordinary Council meeting? No less than our big money (a 20 year Council debt is proposed), and the re-shaping of one of East Devon’s loveliest towns.
So,once again, the public gallery will be full. Once again, Councillors may be seen to be pulled by the nose into making a huge decision, with possibly incomplete information at their disposal. EDDC may be obliged to release further ‘sensitive’ documents in just a few days’ time.
The meeting starts at 6.30pm this evening, at Knowle Council Chamber. Agenda on EDDC website, under ‘ Councillors and Democracy’.
Come early to get a seat..and enjoy a stroll in the whole park, while you still can!
Local literary links have inspired this poem, sent in by a correspondent:
A Vision
(with apologies to Coleridge)
In Honiton E.D.D.C.
Says its new offices shall be –
Far from the town where, as we know,
The office workers like to go.
No longer all Knowle’s greenery
But superstore and factory.
An Exmouth office, too, a place
Where few will find a parking space –
The building looks like an old barn,
Not like the “dome” in “Kubla Khan”.
But, Oh, the waste of public money –
The ratepayers don’t think it funny:
To build a glass and concrete shed
And trash the park and Knowle instead,
For “Our Great Leader” and his crew
Have no care for the public’s view;
Nor badger-setts, nor many a tree;
Nor office blocks, built ’83;
Nor Chambers, used by you and me;
Nor weekend tourist-parking, free;
Nor jobs and trade Sidmouth will lose;
Nor all the lovely parkland views –
All sold to builders for a fee –
And all for what? For vanity?
This Council, with no Local Plan,
Lets builders build where’er they can.
Yet in my crystal ball I see
A new look for E.D.D.C.:
Independents there will be
As councillors for you and me,
Come from every town and shire
With the Wright One to remove Swire,
Who all will cry: Please be aware:
We will not relocate somewhere
Based on false claims that there will be
“Big”(?) savings made in energy.
We come to bring Democracy,
And Probity, Transparency.
You all know there’s a better way –
It’s signposted by E.D.A.* ,
So, all you readers, lend a hand
And save our green and pleasant land.
(*EDA is East Devon Alliance)
Mike Temple’s letter in today’s Sidmouth Herald blasts the “cracking good deal” myth put about by Honiton Cllr and Tory Whip,Phil Twiss.
Here’s the letter:
‘Popping up like puppets on cue, Cllr Diviani’s obedient cabinet, aided and abetted by Sidmouth’s own Tory District councillors, nodded through the sale of Knowle last night (March 11) in the latest stage of the long-running farce that is the office-relocation.
According to the puppets, Sidmouth will never have had it so good. It’s getting “a cracking good deal,” piped Cllr Twiss (he who’d rather stick “hot pins in his eyes” than engage in a public debate with an Independent candidate – a serious case of “frit” perhaps). After all, Sidmouth is gaining a retirement community and we all know we need more of them, especially the expensive second-homes we so desperately lack.
No matter about the loss of community assets like the fine chambers used for concerts, religious services, talks and wedding receptions. No matter about the loss of 150 parking places for weekend visitors to a tourist town. No matter about the loss of the best of its unique woodland park, namely its magnificent prospect, the loss of which will trash the rest of the gardens – which no doubt can be built on later.
What’s more, it was all the fault of a vocal Sidmouth minority (like the 4,000 on the march) who , according to Cllr Diviani, prevented the Council from getting £10 million for the Knowle when its own plan to build all over the park was refused.
Yes, it’s all Sidmouth’s fault and all Sidmouth’s “gain”. And what goodies are we next promised? Well, look forward to Sidford Business and Industrial Park and then a superstore at the Alexandria Road estate and even more empty shops in town to let…’
Incursion into Knowle’s Public Open Space “has never been debated by councillors”
and from more than one senior Honiton Councillor, at various stages of EDDC’s ill-starred (jinxed?) ‘road to relocation’ project. Remember this SIN post, anyone? https://sidmouthindependentnews.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/watchdog-kennelled/
An early example of EDDC’s valiant effort to engage the public was flagged up on the SIN blog https://sidmouthindependentnews.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/spot-the-knowle-consultation/
Click here for news of the most recent one : http://saveoursidmouth.com/2015/03/13/public-consultation-was-limited-to-two-ads-in-the-sidmouth-herald-admits-eddc-legal-officer/
..was asked tonight by Sidmouth Cllr Graham Troman. Speaking at the special combined meeting two Committees ( Overview & Scrutiny, and Audit & Governance), he was bold enough to put the essential question “Could the contract (for sale of the Knowle) be signed before the election?” . “Yes”, said Chair-for-the-occasion, Cllr Tim Wood.
Later in the meeting, it was also confirmed that the sale contract could be signed within the so-called ‘purdah’ pre-election period.
Further report on tonight’s session, which became rather heated at times, to follow soon.
East Devon Watch 