East Devon District Councillors we have not seen or heard of in public for MONTHS and sometimes YEARS are popping up all over the place.
Is something happening? District Elections in May? Haven’t they left it just a bit too late to get our votes? Independents working for us and no party whipping is the alternative? Bring it on!
Up to 40% of jobs in Devon and Cornwall earn less than the living wage making it the low pay capital of the UK, according to worrying new figures out today.
We wonder how many of the jobs which might be generated at a Knowle Retirement complex would be minimum-wage, low/zero hours – at least 40% one suspects. Rather different to the kind of more highly paid jobs currently on offer there.
Anyone else noticing that recent “10 best …” or “20 best …” things such as hotels, beaches, restaurants etc which appear in newspapers or on sites such as Tripadvisor often now include Cornwall (sometimes several times) but rarely Devon and even much more rarely East Devon?
Could it have something to do with the fact that Devon’s tourism budget is £45,000 per year and Cornwall’s is £300,000 per year (and Yorkshire’ £3,000,000 per year)?
Travel journalists are lured to tourist attractions, etc by positive publicity and free trips and which lead to word-of-mouth recommendations.
Alas, not in Devon and certainly not East Devon.
But, fear not, just before the district council elections our Tourism Champion is scheduled to speak at a meeting! No, we will not tell you who our so far silent Tourism Champion is – if you ars in the tourism trade in East Devon and don’t know who it is, you should be asking yourself why and also why that person has the designation.
And what a difference just a little of the minimum £750,000 spent on relocation (since we must include the cost of Information Commissioner v EDDC in Exeter Magistrates Court has cost so far as we know) could have made to our ranking in the tourism world.
See also:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2015/01/13/tourism-on-the-cheap-in-devon/
This is what it says in the Mid devon Local Plan consultation document:
” Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessments, Reports and Availability” –
” Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) – Anticipated to be published by the end of February 2015″
Presumably based on the same consultants’ reports that EDDC says must be kept secret because of “political sensitivity”.
So, it’s politically sensitive in East Devon and not politically sensitive in Mid Devon.
What a difference a few miles makes.
Highlights from Agenda papers:
Key decisions were felt, despite the legislation permitting Cabinet to take the decision, to be better placed at full Council for final decision to allow full debate on the topic before the final decision was made.
Many comments were made about the changes to council structure following the LGA 2000 and felt that these changes had been to the detriment of the council.
Overview and Scrutiny functions
Many members felt that the overview function of the council was not as strong as under the previous committee setup, when there were separate committees for each function.
Many views were expressed on the need for the next elected council to operate a separate overview committee to work on formulating policy, perhaps encompassing another element – planning policy. A clear focus on overview would also permit the council to put more effort into forward planning, and to give officers a clear steer of the work required of them.
Separating the planning applications from planning policy was another common theme, with a view that the two elements should be separated out to be covered by two committees. The practicalities of a new overview committee covering such a wide area of work (in also covering planning policy) would need careful consideration and officer resource before implementing.
There was general agreement that planning applications were dealt with well and could continue to be so under the structure of a separate committee to that of planning policy.
Scrutiny could still maintain the ability to review decisions before taken, in order to prevent poor decisions being made, and was preferable over a call-in option.
Amendments to Task and Finish Forums
Recommendations were made to Overview and Scrutiny on 22 January on amendments to where the scope is agreed for a TaFF, and the number of councillors who should be on a TaFF.
Discussion reached an agreement on “normally seven” for the number on a Forum, with key aspects being to secure councillors with appropriate skills and/or enthusiasm for the task.
Agreeing a drafted scope at committee level was also felt helpful in order to set the task clear parameters for immediate start by the Forum, as well as help achieve a greater ownership by the committee on what they wanted the Forum to achieve.
Other issues
“To note” recommendations were not appreciated by members and took up valuable meeting time. Reports for information could be circulated separately. Efforts were made at draft agenda stage to seek clear recommendations; and members were reminded that a recommendation was just that – they had the option to change the wording based on the consensus reached. An alternative suggestion was “for the committee to debate and comment on”.
Possible recommendations from this meeting:
Glossary of terms to be adopted for use as part of the member development programme.
Clear distinction of decision powers between Portfolio Holders/Cabinet and the full Councilcommunicated to councillors, including through the member development programme.
Debate amending the constitution to permit the following:
o ReplacetheOverviewandScrutinyCommitteewithtwoseparatecommitteesofasmaller membership, overall involving more councillors
o SplitthecurrentresponsibilitiesoftheDevelopmentManagementCommittee,amendingto retain (as Development Control ) determination of planning applications, remain at 16 councillors, and retain a Planning Inspections Committee; the remaining responsibilities of developing planning policy to be undertaken either as a dedicated Development Policy Committee OR taken into the responsibilities of the Overview Committee.
The separate Overview committee to be chaired by a member of the majority party, with an invitation to the opposition to nominate the chairman of the Scrutiny committee. The Leader retains the right to fill the role of Scrutiny Chairman from the majority party if no suitable nomination is
made. The Housing Review Board to remain as chaired by a member of the majority party.
Scoping for Task and Finish Forums be undertaken by the committee prior to the start of the Forum;
A Task and Finish Forum to normally consist of seven councillors
Strategic Management Team work to change the culture of “to note” recommendations and
encourage officers to make clear what decision is being recommended. Still to debate:
Frequency of meetings for new committee structure suggested. Currently OS meets 10 times a year; DMC 13 times a year
Chairman’s casting vote
Chairman of Development Management Committee voting rights when = ward member of application
Noting member absence when vote taken
Electronic voting
Quorum arrangements
Planning delegation scheme – raising awareness
Click to access 260215-os-agenda-combined-public-version.pdf
“Concern among council bosses over whether local authorities will be able to deliver their legal duties has rocketed in the last year, an exclusive survey published today has found.
Amid warnings that the current local government finance system is ‘bust’, more than half of council chief executives, finance bosses and leaders said there was a danger that financial constraints could put their authority in a position where it did not have enough funding to fulfil its statutory duties.”
http://www.themj.co.uk/EXCLUSIVE-Fiscal-fears-rocket/199710
Charlie Hopkins, a local planning and environmental consultant,
http://www.charliehopkins.co.uk/
who represented Feniton at their super-inquiry and a founder member of the
Environmental Law Foundation:
(motto: Everyone has a Right to Participate in Decisions About their Environment: We Help the Voices of Ordinary People to be Heard and Respected),
has sent the following letter to East Devon District Council which is refusing to release the consultants’ reports on the number of houses required for the Local Plan because they may be “politically sensitive” during the run up to local elections. This, of course, delays the Local Plan by several more months and does not allow the information into the public domain.
As we have covered before, there is a period before elections when local authorities go into what is called purdah. There is an explanation of this HERE. The legislation says:
“During the period between the notice of an election and the election itself, local authorities should not publish any publicity on controversial issues or report views or proposals in such a way that identifies them with any individual members or groups of members. Publicity relating to individuals involved directly in the election should not be published by local authorities during this period unless expressly authorised by or under statute. It is permissible for local authorities to publish factual information which identifies the names, wards and parties of candidates at elections.35. In general, local authorities should not issue any publicity which seeks to influence voters. However this general principle is subject to any statutory provision which authorises expenditure being incurred on the publication of material designed to influence the public as to whether to support or oppose a question put at a referendum. It is acceptable to publish material relating to the subject matter of a referendum, for example to correct any factual inaccuracies which have appeared in publicity produced by third parties, so long as this is even-handed and objective and does not support or oppose any of the options which are the subject of the vote.”
So, basically, EDDC Tories are saying that their reports would identify with individual members or groups of members. This is crazy: they are independent reports commissioned by East Devon District Council, not by individual members or groups of members. The bills for the two reports will be paid by East Devon District Council NOT East Devon and Honiton and Tiverton Conservative Associations.
The reports are factual information only and, if it were seeking to influence voters, would be a serious impugning of the consultants’ reports and the reputation of the consultants themselves.
Here is the letter from Mr Hopkins:
The announcement of further delays to the Local Plan by EDDC’s leader, Paul Diviani, is quite incredible. We are told to believe that these delays are “inevitable”, because were the public to have sight of a housing needs report before the elections in May the process “could be seen” as being politically motivated.
Could be seen by whom Mr Diviani?
The report itself certainly won’t be seen by anyone except those select few in EDDC, who then take it upon themselves to decide what the public should know and what they shouldn’t. When EDDC presented the new Local Plan at the public inquiry a year ago, last February, they considered that it was in a form acceptable to the Inspector, who made it clear from Day 1 that it was anything but. A clearer case of incompetence would be hard to imagine. We were then assured that revised housing figures could be produced within a matter of weeks. A year later, still we wait, now to be told, with much hand wringing, that we must wait even longer because of the remote possibility that some unspecified, unidentified persons may see the process as “politically motivated”.
The only reason for withholding the housing needs report is that it is likely that housing needs will be shown to be higher than the figures presented by EDDC a year ago. The consequence of this is that villages and communities in East Devon will be allocated higher housing figures than previously. This is highly unlikely to go down to well with the vast majority of communities in East Devon, some of which have already seen proposals by developers to hugely increase housing on greenfield sites (think of Feniton, Gittisham, and more recently Clyst St Mary).
If there is political motivation behind delaying the release of these reports that can only come from the Tory majority on EDDC.
Finally, who benefits from this further delay?
An unholy trinity of landowners and developers, who stand to profit massively in the interim period before a new Local Plan is in place, and last, but not least, their chums on EDDC.
Charlie Hopkins
See today’s post on http://www.saveoursidmouth.com
And interesting to see a prospective Conservative Candidate for Exeter City Council (and former Exeter City Centre Manager) lash the Labour majority with these words:
“As a direct result of investing those millions of pounds in the swimming pool we are going to have to make further cuts in other services.
“It’s completely wrong. It’s the wrong moment to do it and I think when people realise this is being funded from the public purse and we’re all going to have to pay more as a result and have less services available to us, it’s something they will be really angry about.”
So far only EDDC Conservative Peter Halse has had the courage to tell his colleagues what he thinks about THEIR vanity project:
How come our draft Local Plan has been held up because supposedly we had to wait for consultants’ reports on housing needs in Exeter, Teignbridge, Mid-Devon and Dartmoor National Park before deciding our own and yet Mid- Devon is putting its new draft Local Plan out to public consultation this month?
Has Mid-Devon ignored the consultants’ reports or has it already used the numbers in it to inform their draft MUCH earlier than ours and seemingly with no worries about it being “politically sensitive” or “secret” before district elections?
And how come theirs is covering them until 2033 and ours is only until 2026?
“Think tanks” highly influence government policies and many are politically- funded by influential donors. The UK scores particularly badly.
Click to access Transparify+2015+Think+Tanks+-+Report.pdf
In East Devon the Leader’s “think tanks” are secret and produce no minutes, agendas or notes.
Story here – you have until 20 February:
Would that be ALL councillors or just some councillors?
Subject brought up today on this local blog:
Is this another reason that EDDC would have egg on its face if it published the two consultants reports on housing?
On the website of one of the consultation companies is this:
“22/01/2015
The 2012-based Household Projection Model for Local Authorities in England, from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), is due for release in February 2015.
These household projections are based on the 2012-based sub-national population projections (SNPP) for Local Authorities from ONS.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) states that these official household projections should provide the starting-point for the assessment of future housing needs.
http://www.edgeanalytics.co.uk/article/2012_based_DCLG_Household_Projection_Model/
So, already their reports are out of date and would probably not be accepted by the Inspector for this reason!
Had EDDC knuckled down in March last year and got these reports ready by, say, September 2014, our Local Plan could now be in place!
We know what the Leader of East Devon District Council gives as his “reason”
We are very much aware of the need to finalise our Local Plan, but at the same time we have to take the reports with proposed changes to the Plan to our members for consideration and consultation. We had envisaged that the earliest we would have been able to take the reports to our members would be March or early April 2015. The process of consultation would then take around six-weeks.
“However, because of the forthcoming local and national elections this would not appear to be a viable route to follow, as there is concern that the process could be seen as politically motivated, which would overshadow the soundness of the plan.
“While mindful of the need to progress quickly, the significance to the process of members consideration and consultation should not be overlooked, and consequently it is unlikely that we will take the report to our members until shortly after the May election.”
but let us look at this forensically.
The Planning Inspector, when he looked at the Draft Local Plan, threw it out. A main reason was that the number of houses to be built had no evidence to support the figure. What slight evidence given was very old, based on out of date information and therefore not to be trusted. He basically told EDDC to go back to the drawing board and give him hard evidence for his figures.
Under the National Planning Policy Framework, EDDC had a “duty to co-operate” with adjoining local authorities in case those authorities had housing needs that could not be met within their areas and must therefore be shared. For reasons never explained, although this meant in practice liaising with Exeter City Council and West Dorset, EDDC took the decision (where? when?) to extend the area to include Teignbridge, Mid Devon and Dartmoor National Park. This meant that consultants had more information to gather and more situations to take into account. It should be noted that the “duty to co-operate” is NOT a duty to agree – only to be seen to be consulting with neighbouring authorities on their needs.
So, two sets of consultants were employed. Edge Analytics were employed to look at the link between housing and employment, Ash Futures Limited were employed to look at future job growth levels in East Devon only. It appears now that both companies have produced their reports.
Usually, when consultants have produced reports, they are circulated to councillors who then have the opportunity to comment on them. Unfortunately, in East Devon, this has often been misinterpreted as an opportunity to rewrite them almost in their entirety. When EDDC doesn’t like numbers, it likes to have them changed, rather than accepting that they might be right! Take the employment land figures that were produced by two consultants for the Draft Local Plan. EDDC (or rather the East Devon Business Forum under its Chairman, disgraced ex-councillor Graham Brown) decided the figure was too low, gave their own much higher figure and this was the one which EDDC chose to go with.
Now, here we are with two reports and the Leader has decided that their contents are too politically sensitive for the public (and councillors not in the “need to know” group?) to have sight of.
As we noted earlier, there are only two possible explanations:
1. The number of houses is below that which EDDC put in its Draft Local Plan. In this case, EDDC has egg on its face. Not only does it have egg on its face, all the current developments rushed through because we have no Local Plan would be surplus to requirements.
2. The number of houses is higher than that which EDDC put in its Draft Local Plan, either because:
(a) they just got the number wrong or
and this is more likely
(b) now that they are having to take the housing needs of not only Exeter and West Dorset into account but also Teignbridge, Mid Devon and Dartmoor National Park, EDDC will have to commit itself to taking overload from all these areas into its own area (for example, by making Cranbrook even larger than planned).
Thanks to the correspondent who sent in two related pieces of news: firstly, that South Somerset’s Local Plan has just been declared sound: and secondly, that the Conservative parliamentary candidate has adopted a stance that would get him elected here!
‘SOMERSET: District reaches ‘major milestone’ in Local Plan process
BUT CONSERVATIVE PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE QUESTIONS WHETHER HIGH HOUSING FIGURES ARE NEEDED
SOUTH Somerset District Council’s Local Plan, which will act as a guideline for development up until 2028, has been deemed “sound” by a government inspector, subject to a series of modifications.
The council’s received the inspector David Hogger’s report on the Local Plan (2006-2028) on January 8th, marking a “significant point” in the process of formally adopting the plan.
The necessary modifications listed in the report are the same as those consulted upon by the council in March and November 2014, and the document can be read in full online at http://bit.ly/17GNjCz
The report ratifies the council’s objectives to deliver 15,950 homes and 11,250 jobs by 2028, and confirms the council’s ambition for how towns, villages and rural areas will grow and change. It also endorses the policies against which the council will judge planning applications for homes, businesses, community facilities and infrastructure provision across the district.
The next step is for the council to make the proposed changes and present the final Local Plan to a meeting of full council on March 5th. Councillors will be asked to approve and adopt the plan and allow the policies to come into full effect.
Councillor Tim Carroll, deputy leader and portfolio holder for Finance and Spatial Planning, whose responsibilities include the Local Plan, emphasised the importance of the conclusions in the Inspector’s Report.
He commented: “This is a major milestone for the council. The overall conclusion of the inspector is that the SSDC Local Plan and the 12 modifications that were incorporated during the process are sound and therefore the plan itself is capable of adoption without any further change.
“It has been a lengthy process and I would pay tribute to everyone’s hard work over the last few years. We have reacted positively to the inspector’s requests to make changes and it is pleasing that these have now been confirmed. These changes have been fully debated and subject to extensive consultation.
“The plan focuses on bringing much needed homes and jobs to the district in the right number and place and having the formal sign-off by the Inspector puts the council in a stronger position to make better decisions about the future of South Somerset and to resist inappropriate or speculative applications. We will now move quickly to formally adopt the plan and that date has now been set for March 5th for a meeting of all councillors”.
Despite the inspector finding the Local Plan “sound”, Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Yeovil constituency, Marcus Fysh, has questioned the process the council has followed over the past eight years to reach this point.
He said he has “mixed feelings” about the report, as many good things are at risk from the bad, and claimed the proposed housing figure was too high, which he fears will “do a huge disservice to our district”.
‘Not as simple as it seems’
Mr Fysh commented: “It’s now about eight years and over £2.8million of public money which have been spent by South Somerset District Council attempting to make and adopt a Local Plan, a document with power in law to direct how much housing should be built and where it will go in our area.
“Having found the initial plan submitted in 2013 unsound, the planning inspector sent to our area by the Planning Inspectorate to assess the proposals has now issued his decision on a plan revised and resubmitted by South Somerset District Council last year.
“In that decision he has found the amended plan sound, although the decision has some peculiar reasoning and assertions that suggest he may not have properly applied his mind, which may tempt opponents of the plan to challenge it, and it is not as simple a matter as it seems.
“A lot appears to have been left to the concept of ‘early review’, in which the housing figures will be looked at bi-annually.
“And that gets to the nub of the problem with this plan and the process the council has followed to get to this stage: sadly, it may not be the last we hear about controversial planning decisions in our area.
“It is true that an adopted plan should give certainty to residents and developers alike, and on the face of it we should welcome that the inspector has not sent the district council right back to the drawing board.
“But the housing figure is a key problem. The council has been obsessed with keeping the overall housing requirement high, despite good evidence that it is too high, to the extent that many aspects of the plan have changed over the years, but the one thing that strangely has not, has been the 15,950 house building figure they have ‘aspired’ to over 20 years. Some say it is because they get extra revenue as a ‘New Homes Bonus’, which allows them to avoid cutting their spending cloth to suit in other areas (this amounted to £3million last year).
“Somehow they seem to have persuaded the inspector, against the evidence and legal precedent, to keep this number, which I fear will do a huge disservice to our district in the medium term.
“The problem is that the housing figure means that over 1,000 new houses per annum will need to be built in the district in each of the next five years if the district is not to be adjudged at planning appeals as not having met its target. Were the target not met, in planning law the Local Plan would be regarded as not up to date and would not apply at appeal hearings, therefore it would be ‘open season’ for developers again.
“There is only one year in the last 20 in which more than 1,000 houses were built, when the district grabbed money on offer from Gordon Brown and fast tracked developments with a mixed record at at Wyndham Park and Wincanton. The rest of the time the district has built around 500 houses per year, which gives an idea just how far short we could fall behind.
“So, it is with mixed feelings that I look at the inspector’s report. A lot of the good things in the plan are sadly at risk from the bad things. I am not against all development, but it has to be in the right place and have the right infrastructure and facilities.
“In Chard, for example, we want to get the regeneration scheme in place and not overload the roads through the town, and the plan looks to do that, but this will not apply if the district’s housing target is missed.
“In Ilminster we want development to complement the existing town, not turn the town into an over-built dormitory. Over-development is a risk if the housing target is missed, a recipe for even more unhappiness on all sides of the town’s development issues.
“Crewkerne and Wincanton have been told they may get more housing, depending on early review by the council, and would lose control if the housing target is missed.
“And Yeovil, which needs to get more people living downtown to regenerate and support its businesses, shops and restaurants, but doesn’t on the real numbers require yet more big urban extensions, faces yet more bolt-on green field developments that do little to upgrade the town’s infrastructure. That process would just accelerate and be even less controlled if the house build target is not met, with consequent problems for school places, traffic and health care availability.
“South Petherton faces similar pressures that could get even worse.
“One thing is clear to me; the old thinking about development in our area is stale. A huge opportunity has been missed locally to plan for development in many areas that will solve problems rather than create them.
“I do hope later this year local Conservative councillors may be in a position to review these matters and put proper solutions in place, in control of the district council. To do that we need to vote for them though. I will certainly give them my full support.” ‘
“Working in the dark” she calls it. Absolutely spot on.
https://susiebond.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/working-in-the-dark-the-shma-report-is-out/
Two possible reasons for the secrecy:
1. The number suggested is low and would put a complete stop to current inappropriate development.
2. The number suggested is high and would lose the Tories thousands of votes at the forthcoming district council elections in May 2015.
Take your choice.
“Great Britain is shirking its historic duty to speak up for the freedom of Hong Kong. Foreign Office chief Hugo Swire claimed last week that the former colony is “on a journey to greater democracy and accountability.” It would be interesting to know exactly how Mr. Swire defines his terms.
In testimony to Parliament, Mr. Swire explained that while the rigged electoral system imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong “may not be perfect,” it nonetheless is “better than nothing.” His Foreign Office colleague Stephen Lillie said Beijing’s system could offer “genuine choice.” More honest diplomats would call the system, which allows Hong Kongers to vote only for candidates nominated by a committee stacked with Beijing loyalists, an Iran-style sham.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/london-kowtow-on-hong-kong-1421706765
Sounds rather like having an Executive Board appointed by the Leader at EDDC!
East Devon Watch 