Not for some time….see the paragraph copied below from http://susiebond.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back/:
‘Following my email to the Planning Policy Manager on the likely date for the adoption of the Local Plan, he responded “At this stage I would not be able to give an adoption date but if things do go along at a decent pace, as I trust they will now do, I would still consider that Summer 2015 could be a reasonable adoption date.”’
Category Archives: EDDC
Southwest sees largest growth in foregn tourists – well ahead of London
Foreign tourism up 49% in the southwest compared to 29% in London. Our biggest industry. EDDC tourism initiatives – nil. Unless you count the majority party refusing to consider supporting a decrease in VAT to stimulate it even more, even though many MPs from all parties support the move.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28886583
European VAT rates:
Openness, transparency, conflicts of interest, poor minutes, inadequate scrutiny …
“The values of any well governed Council include openness and transparency, honesty and integrity, tolerance and respect, and equality and fairness. “In recent years these values have evidently not been applied or followed”.
Sir David believes that this is not the fault of the general body of councillors but that responsibility lies in the hands of the Executive Board and the Chief Executive. “There needs to be a change in culture”.
It is not that the rules are procedures are not adequate, more a case that they are not applied in practice because of “the internal culture in County Hall”.
Basic rules and values concerning conflicts of interest which should be obvious to all have not been applied by some members of the Executive Board and senior management. “They are not mere technicalities as some have suggested”
As for ‘recent events’, he says they “will not happen if there is a proper professional relationship between the Chief Executive, the Executive Board and the Council generally and if the Scrutiny Committees are given the full facts.”
As for the notoriously brief Minutes of meetings, he states that “there is a culture of hiding difficult or troublesome items” and goes on to say, “It is unclear to me whether or not the committee clerks are instructed to adopt this unhelpful approach and if so by whom.”
Relax, councillors this is a comment on the situation at a council in Wales – but today Wales, tomorrow …..
Local Plan: do your research, agree the numbers – and then let developers change them!
From EDDC’s latest press release on the very, very delayed Local Plan:
The report to DMC explains that once consultants have provided a full SHMA report that addresses all the issues,
“an industry workshop should be held to consult with housebuilders before a final report can be produced and agreed with all of the commissioning authorities.”
i.e. AFTER the numbers have been decided (presumably taking necessary growth into account) developers will be allowed to change them! Can you honestly see any developer saying “Yeah, that looks about right” or “Oh, no, that’s far too much”!
It’s like a Bank Manager giving a burglar the keys to the vault and asking him to count the money!
A correspondent points out this is a central government initiative not a local one – which doesn’t improve matters one bit!
Source:
http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/communications_and_consultation.htm?newsid=1174
Budleigh Salterton Car Park – questions needing answers
This comment was recieved to the last entry about the car park at Budleigh Salterton. Recall that EDDC has told the town council that they should either pay massively more rent for this asset or it EDDC will take it back under its control. The car park originally belonged to the earlier urban district council and Budleigh Salterton Town Council has maintained it so that parking in it can be without charge to motorists parking there:
The comment is from Angela Yarwood, a local resident and businesswoman:
“As far as we are aware, the points in the attached excerpt (and others in the deed) from title no DN349560 pertaining to the land including the Station Road ‘FREE’ carpark are as follows. This doesn’t appear to bear any resemblance to that sited from EDDC in response to the FOI request from Mr Freeman regarding the same…(section (c) below)
Could we hope that somebody informed, unbiased and in authority from EDDC would explain here to the posts above, rather than us having to pick up pieces from the press, blogs, uninformed councillors, rumour etc..
…and bear in mind that although ‘owned’ by EDDC, the vast majority of the upkeep of the Station Road carpark has been paid for by the Town, and not from EDDC funds.
Schedule of restrictive covenants
1 The following are details of the covenants contained in the Conveyance dated 22 April 1947 referred to in the Charges Register:-
“The Council on behalf of itself and its successors in title owner or owners for the time being of the land hereby conveyed hereby covenants with the Grantor his successors in title owner or owners for the time being of the adjoining lands of the Grantor and as a separate covenant with the Grantor henceforth to observe and perform the covenants and conditions particulars whereof are set forth in the Second and Third Schedules hereto respectively.
THE SECOND SCHEDULE
COVENANTS AND CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE LAND FIRSTLY DESCRIBED IN THE FIRST SCHEDULE
(a) The Council shall keep the hereditaments hereby in the First part of the First Schedule hereto described save such part thereof as shall be laid out and kept for the playing of bowls tennis croquet putting or any other game for which space shall be provided by the Council requiring the provision of a special court lawn or green in good order as public playing fields or open space park and pleasure ground for the free use and enjoyment of the public and to keep in good repair and condition all fences stiles and gates upon or about the land and to keep all such courts lawns or greens as aforesaid in good order and to permit members of the public to have access thereto for the purpose of playing games upon payment of a reasonable charge to be fixed from time to time by the Council.
(b) The Council shall keep the grass land and the paths in good order and condition and shall keep all trees now or hereafter grown upon any part of the land affected hereby protected against injury.
(c) The said land or any part thereof shall not at any time be used for any trade or business whatsoever or otherwise than as a properly ordered Public Recreation Ground for the use of inhabitants of and visitors to Budleigh Salterton only without the consent in writing of the Company first obtained and that the said land shall be daily open to the public on such conditions and subject to such Byelaws and Regulations as shall from time to time be laid down by the Council but this clause shall not preclude the Council from charging a fee for the playing of games as in Condition (a) hereof.
(d) School children shall not be permitted to resort to the land in such numbers as to be or become a nuisance or annoyance to the General Public and the Council shall if necessary and practicable make byelaws to prevent such occurence but this condition shall not render it incumbent on the Council to provide a full time attendant to exclude children should other means prove ineffective to this end.
(e) The Council will not do or permit to be done anything upon the land which may be a nuisance or annoyance to the Grantor or the Company or any of his or its lessees or tenant.
The current situation with the Local Plan: worse than omnishambles
Below is a comment, left on a previous post, which is repeated here as it contains much useful information:
‘I have now had time to fully digest the report and do some further research and it looks like the LP resubmission is extremely unlikely to be this year, and possibly (if not probably) after the elections in May 2015.
A good starting point for documentation about the activities relating to fixing the Local Plan can be found at http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/lpsubmission which has a chronology and links to all the major documents.
My analysis of the situation is as follows:
1. The SHMA consultancy contract seems to me to be in a shambles.
However, Section 3 of this recent report gives the breakdown of this Best Practice into 6 stages, and paragraph 3.2 states that the work on the SHMA has only reached the first of the 6 stages in the PAS guidance.
Moreover, in a both letter to the Planning Inspector in mid-April 2014 http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/lettersinspector12.pdf and the draft action plan of 8 May http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/actionplan02.pdf attached to a letter to the Planning Inspector on 22 May 2014 http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/lettertomrthickett220514.pdf Mr Dickens was saying that the SHMA would be available in June 2014.
I have no reason to doubt that Mr Dickens was reporting these dates because that was what he was being told by DCA, but I cannot see how DCA could be reporting in May 2014 that they would finish in June 2014, and yet in August 2014 we have only completed the first of 6 stages to complete the SHMA.
The current report says NOTHING about the state of the SHMA contract with DCA. My experience in public sector outsourcing (having worked on both sides of the fence – though admittedly in IT rather than Planning Policy), this is likely now to be a major issue. DCA is certainly running late (and in consultancy, time is literally money) and so very likely to be running over budget and likely to make a loss on this piece of work, and it seems to me that there is a very high probability that there will need to be major contract renegotiations (DCA will likely claim a “change in scope”, EDDC will deny most of it, arguments will go back and forth – all of which will delay things further), and possibly eventually an agreement for EDDC to spend a lot more money spent to get this work completed by DCA – or worse still the contract being re-let and re-awarded to someone else to start again at the beginning.
So questions I want to know about the DCA contract:
A. Why has the SHMA not been delivered by DCA? Why were they still predicting they would deliver in in June as late as early May, and why were we surprised by its non-delivery with only 1 of 6 stages currently completed?
B. Is DCA still committed to deliver the SHMA within the current contract & existing costs?
If so, what is DCA’s revised schedule, and what happens if they miss it again?
If not, what are the EDDC plans to get the contract back on the rails so that the SHMA can be delivered, and what are the likely timescales and additional costs for revised or new contracts?
2. Timescales
The special DMC meeting on 8 May 2014 http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/combined_dmc_agenda_080514.pdf page 5 onwards, discusses the draft Action Plan response to the Planning Inspector, and on page 19 there is a timetable which suggests that by now they would be providing “Feedback report on comments received [from the Consultation on the new SHMA] to Development Management Committee” for approval so that “Feedback sent to Inspector” by the end of August.
However if you look at the draft Action Plan, it is clear that there are several other pieces of work to do before Feedback to the Inspector, so this seemed unrealistic even then.
As far as I can see, the following still need to be done:
A. The remaining 5 stages of the SHMA as documented in Section 3 of the current report.
B. The activities described in the draft Action Plan.
C. The activities in the timetable from 8 May.
Personally I cannot see these being completed this year, and I would guess that it might take considerably longer than that.
SUMMARY
The DMC needs to get a grip and take both control and responsibility for the completion of the Local Plan.
They need to find out the state of the contract with DCA and get it back on the rails.
They need to create a robust plan for redelivery of the revised Local Plan to the Inspector, providing additional resources to the Planning Policy unit if that is required to speed things up.‘
EDDC v Information Commissioner – press release from J Woodward
Press release from Jeremy Woodward, Sidmouth resident, whose Freedom of Information request led to this case, and who will be allowed full representation at the Magistrate’s Court on 28 August 2014 at 10 am, Court 3:
“This Tribunal is the first of its kind for East Devon District Council.
The Council has acted as both executive and policeman, making key decisions in private and then determining which information it deems fit to be made public. And yet the default position is to make information available – but the Council refuses to abide by the spirit of Freedom of Information legislation.
The fact that the Council has appealed against the Information Commissioner’s decision shows how determined it is to keep these key reports on relocation from the public gaze: one wonders, therefore, what is hidden within.
This case is fundamentally about transparency of process. Research I have carried out strongly suggests that the political leadership at the Council has been making decisions about its relocation project in private without adequately informing Members. Moreover, it is clear from reports in the press and other documentation that the decision to relocate from Knowle was made well before 2012 – and yet the Council insists that there can be no disclosure of sensitive information because the project is still ‘live’.
This has had the effect of preventing any proper debate of the issues. There has been virtually no open discussion, hampered by the political leadership controlling the flow of information. I have argued that key documents which have guided decision-making on relocation should be published in full (apart from any company or private names, of course) to enable an informed debate to take place.
The fact that the reports were produced by external consultants Davis Langdon, who employs the author of the reports Mr Steve Pratten, simply consolidates the argument that these documents should be published.
The East Devon Alliance blog is following the case closely – with helpful directions to the Court for members of the public:
http://eastdevonalliance.org/
I will not be able to attend, due to professional commitments. However, I will be represented by Mr Richard Thurlow; he is also the Chair of the Save Our Sidmouth campaign, as well as the Chair of the Sid Vale Association’s planning committee. I am copying him into this correspondence as he will be taking any questions from the press next Thursday.”
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.
“Honiton for Sale” part 2 – some questions but very little chance of answers
This week’s Midweek Herald adds some interesting information to the story carried yesterday that former Chairman of East Devon District Council and town councillor, Peter Halse, believes that Honiton is being asset-stripped to pay for the vanity project EDDC HQ office relocation.
The Midweek Herald adds more comments from Councillor Halse:
… “In my personal view, Honiton is being put up for sale. Assets are being raised in order for the council to move to the outskirts of Exeter, which is not in the public interest”.
Mr Halse told the meeting that he had made strong protests to the district council regarding the move and added that he thought the district council had now realised “the Knowle is not quite the jewel in East Devon’s crown as it thought it was and that it was having to find other assets elsewhere.
An EDDC spokesperson said in response to this:
… “The question of succession to East Devon Business Centre has given us an opportunity to look again at how we can help meet the needs of business into the future in a words of enterprise and entrepreneurism very different from what existed when Heathpark Business Centre first opened its doors.
Lead members for business and officers carried out a tender exercise and interviewed four different consultancies. The chosen company, Carter Jonas, are in the process of gathering evidence and are expected to report back with their findings and recommendations within the next month or so”.
This raises several interesting questions:
If a respected and long-serving majority party Councillor has no real idea what is going on – how on earth do councillors not privy to the thoughts of those in the “inner sanctum” understand what they are voting for with the Skypark project?
The press release speaks only of something going out to tender – it does not say exactly what the tender was for and we will never know because the Asset Management Forum at EDDC has always met in secret and provides no agendas or minutes of its meetings for the public.
Councillor Halse’s comments seem to imply that EDDC is not going to get as much as it had wanted for Knowle. They have long said that the move will be “cost neutral” but that was when only Knowle and Manston Depot were mentioned. Is it still cost neutral when you add in the loss of the Heathpark site and the East Devon Business Centre? Again we will never know because the Relocation Working Party meetings are also held in secret and no agendas or minutes are produced.
We have a situation now where ALL decisions are now made in secret. Instead of information going to committees for discussion and decision they are being referred to creatively-named “Forums” and “Groups” so that the decision-making can all take place behind closed doors where even majority party councillors have no idea what is going on.
Let us hope that when the next council is convened it votes for a Committee system of decision-making rather than an Executive Board system which allows a very small number of people – hand-picked by the Leader – to take decisions on behalf of the majority.
Remember Leader Diviani’s last election promise: Clean, Green and Seen. Not Unclean, Ungreen and Unseen.
Developer allowed to chop protected trees because local authority did not mention them in search documents
One to watch out for, councillors – and to alert our council Arboriculturalist about:
We don’t want EDDC getting sloppy with our developers do we.
Most new jobs are consultancy or self- employment
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that 1.1 million jobs have been created since the start of 2008.
But of those, 732,000 are accounted for by the self-employed, a category of worker that tends to earn roughly half the wages of those in staff jobs.
Construction remains the single biggest sector for self employment.
Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28866302
The mystery is that, if most are in construction (outdoors and not needing much office space)and many self-employed people work from home or at small business hubs (like the East Devon Business Centre that is being demolished to pay for Skypark relocation) why are we building smaller houses and more and more big industrial sheds in East Devon?
Tourism is our biggest industry and our biggest earner – where is the stimulus for it from our district council (apart from flogging the family silver in Exmouth).
EDDC “Tourism Champion” – hello, anyone out there?
“Town Up for Sale” says Honiton Mayor, EDDC Councillor (and former Chairman of EDDC) as he criticises his own council on the Knowle relocation
Councillor Peter Halse, Honiton Town Councillor, East Devon District Councillor and former Chairman of EDDC is quoted in the “View from Honiton” newspaper today. He says the town is being “put up for sale” by district councillors to fund their costly relocation project. The article is quoted below”
“He [Councillor Halse] says decisions were being made that were not in the interests of Honiton residents. Land at the Heathpark estate had been identified as a possible location for EDDC’s new office complex. But in a controversial move earlier this year, councillors opted to reject the Honiton site and build new headquarters at SkyPark on the outskirts of the district. The land [at Honiton] now looks likely to be sold for the development of a new supermarket.
And in a further blow to the local economy, the district’s business hub – currently based at Heathpark – has also been lined up for closure.
At a town counbcil meeting last week, former mayor Councillor Vernon Whitlock raised the issue of businesses being forced to relocate. And Councillor Halse admitted that he shared the concerns of businesses, councillors and residents, who feel the town is being stripped of its assets.
“I am a loggerheads with the (district) council on the way this has been done. I am disappointed that they will be demolishing a building that is of great use to the town and is not costing anything. Initially they told us another facility would be provided, but it turns out that they were thinking the private sector could replace it. The fact of the matter is that Honiton is being put up for sale and its assets are being razed in order for the district council to move to the outskirts of Exeter”.
Budleigh Car Park Round 2 – traders and residents bite back
http://www.devon24.co.uk/news/new_twist_in_campaign_to_keep_car_park_free_1_3728674
and as our commentator informs us, look here for details of the covenants:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/budleigh_salterton_car_park
Will it be yet another case of EDDC “buying out” the covenants from Clinton Devon Estates as they did with Exmouth seafront, and, if so, has this cost been factored in?
When black is white and white is black …
Here is an article from 2001 where the Conservative Party (then in opposition) bemoan the fact that, under Labour, there is too much town hall secrecy and pledging that, should they get into power, everything will change.
“Before the election, Tony Blair promised to make government more open. But obsessed with control-freakery, Labour are now creating a new culture of secrecy in local councils.”
He warned that the new law could create a “breeding ground for inefficiency and corruption” and accused the government of trying to “sneak through” the regulations.
Tories will revoke law
Mr Norman pledged that a future Tory government would reverse the changes and “force” councils to open their meetings to both public and press alike.
But the new law was defended by a spokesman for the Department of the Environment who said that the old access to information regime was “not appropriate for the new executive constitutions” introduced by the Act.
“The system is changing, therefore the kinds of regulations you have covering scrutiny and access change as well.
“At the heart of the new system is accountability, efficiency and transparency.”
24,000 homes in Devon and Cornwall empty for more than 6 months
Buckinghamshire businesses raise £25,000 to research better ways of running local government and cutting waste
Including research into whether a unitary authority would save money:
https://make-a-donation.org/campaign/cutting-the-cost-of-local-government
“Are we making the best use of Council meetings?” Councillors clearly don’t think so!
At last night’s Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Committee,there was overwhelming support for Cllr Roger Giles’ motion that Council meetings should have no presentations unless there is a compelling reason.
This was no reflection on the presentation to the Committee by hardworking Portfolio Holder, Cllr Jill Elson. But could her almost 40-minute report on Housing have been summarised more succintly? Later in the meeting, Cllr Ray Bloxham suggested a possible maximum of 10 minutes for presentations would suffice.
The debate is to be continued…..
Dear Mr Thickett …
EDDC does not seem to have written to our Local Plan Planning Inspector since 22 May 2014. He wrote back immediately suggesting October/November 2014 for re-examination.
The next Development Management Committee is scheduled for 23 September 2014 (there is no item on the agenda in August for the Local Plan). Even if the revised Draft Local Plan were ready then (which it won’t be it appears) there would need to be a six week re-consultation period which, even if it started the next day (always assuming we WILL be consulted), would take us to the middle of November and then time would be needed to collate comments so October/November re-examination is looking near impossible. And then, of course, comes Christmas.
Perhaps time for EDDC to write to Mr Thickett again? And perhaps let the public know what is going on – we can assume, of course, that developers are up to speed.
Interesting that all these delays take us just about up to council elections in May 2015 (with or without those missing voters!).
Rural housing – smoke and mirrors
… “But we’re back to smoke-and-mirrors because it is simply not a fact that, once more new houses are built, they mean more new jobs.
Add this to the constant watering-down of agreements concocted in things called “pre-applications” (known as pre-apps for short) and what we see are housing developments, originally given planning permission IF they included a healthy percentage of affordable homes, being built with just one or two per 100.
I do not know many people in the Westcountry who would welcome a politician saying: “We are going to build all these new houses – and just building them is going to create so many new jobs we will have to bring workers in from Eastern Europe to help – then they can live in some of the few affordable homes that have gone up and look for new jobs once the last slate has been put on the last bijou, unaffordable, home.”
But it is exactly the kind of crazy scenario we are looking at when we smash through the smoke-and-mirrors surrounding magic catchphrases like “cut-red-tape” and “seeding economic opportunity”.
Careful development aimed at the region’s many brown-field sites is what is needed first and foremost – not the killing of the beautiful rural goose that lays our golden tourism egg. That seems to be the result of the New Planning Policy Framework which many see as a government induced land-grab or developer’s charter.”
East Devon Watch 