News has only just reached Owl (via a notice to anyone interested in making a claim against his estate in an Archant publication) that notorious ex-Councillor Graham Brown died on 16 March 2019.
As far as Owl can recall, this was not marked by East Devon Conservatives. But then, of course, he did have to resign from the party after many years loyal service to it.
The following anonymous comment was received today:
“Democracy is a wonderful thing and Pratt won fair and square. But seeing as you pride yourself on ‘keeping a close eye on our district’, how did you possibly miss that the last councillor failed to show up to any meetings?”
(Councillors must attend one official meeting such as a Cabinet meeting per six months (this does not include think tanks, informal meetings, etc )
Owl responds:
Quality not quantity, dear boy (or girl). One of EDDC’s most assiduous councillors – turning up at anything and everything and with fingers in many, many pies such as the Local Development Framework and the notorious East Devon Business Forum was long-time Conservative councillor Graham Brown and look how that panned out:
Is this any different to having a (Tory) COUNCILLOR in charge of planning running his own planning consultancy AND chairing an influential business forum? And if this expose came about from a Freedom of I formation request about events in Wandsworth in 2011 and 2013 …..
“A lobbyist for some of the UK’s biggest property developers used a direct communication channel to the leader of a flagship Conservative council to help push through planning applications for luxury apartment developments.
Peter Bingle used his longstanding relationship with Ravi Govindia, the leader of the London borough of Wandsworth, in attempts to circumvent council officials he believed were being obstructive to his clients, including over the size of payments due to public projects.
Bingle’s access has been revealed in a cache of emails released under the Freedom of Information Act that show him asking Govindia, a former flatmate, to smooth the passage of planning applications for hundreds of luxury homes between 2011 and 2013. Govindia responded in some cases by promising to chase officials and fix meetings.
Berkeley calls affordable housing targets ‘unviable’ as chairman earns £174m
Bingle is a former Conservative councillor at Wandsworth and was chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, once one of the country’s biggest lobbying firms. He set up Terrapin Communications, whose clients have included Ballymore and Bellway, the housebuilders, and Royal Mail when it was selling off its land for housing.
When Royal Mail complained about the junior rank of the planning officer assigned to its application and having to repeat details of its plans to officials, Bingle emailed Govindia: “This wouldn’t have happened under the old regime. Your help would be appreciated in sorting things out.”
Bingle later forwarded the Royal Mail’s plan for its presentation to the Wandsworth planning committee to Govindia asking “What’s your advice?” Govindia replied two minutes later: “Will call as soon as I finish this meeting”.
Nearly 100 London councillors have links to property industry
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing, but the correspondence provides a rare window on the methods developers use to apply pressure to politicians behind the scenes to speed up high-stakes planning decisions and to reduce infrastructure payments. An investigation last week revealed how Berkeley Homes, one of London’s largest developers of luxury homes, routinely told local authorities that their affordable housing targets were unviable.
In April, the Guardian revealed planning lobbyists regularly entertained Robert Davis, Westminster city council’s former planning committee chairman. Davis received hospitality or gifts 893 times over six years, frequently from developers and their agents, including Bingle. He has since resigned as deputy leader.
The emails relate to when Bingle was working as a lobbyist for the Royal Mail, which had submitted plans for a 1,800-home development on its site close to Battersea Power Station. In one email to Govindia he lambasted the council’s handling of a negotiation about how much his client should pay to the public purse as “chaotic and shambolic”. He told Govindia it “does nothing for Wandsworth’s reputation in the property world … Something has gone seriously wrong.”
The planning application was eventually approved. Royal Mail last year sold part of the site to US investors for £101m.
Bingle chased Govindia for updates on progress of another 252-home application at Battersea for another client, complaining about “non-committal” planning officials. He applauded the leader when a separate application for 104 private flats in Putney by Berkeley Homes was approved, signing off an email: “Many thanks for a great result.” It had no social housing.
Bingle has denied exerting any undue influence and Govindia said he made no apology for delivering more homes for Wandsworth.
Public records show Bingle has entertained at least 31 councillors in different London boroughs in recent years, taking some out for lunch or dinner more than a dozen times. When Govindia, who was among those he entertained, was awarded a CBE in 2017 Bingle said: “Never has an award for services to local government been more deserved.”
Govindia did not sit on Wandsworth’s planning committee, but Bingle repeatedly urged him to help, often simply forwarding on complaints from property developers.
In January 2012, Royal Mail was concerned about what the council wanted in terms of payments for schools and education. Bingle forwarded an email about that directly to Govindia saying “Ravi, Views?”
Govindia replied later that day: “I will chase the education chaps”.
By March, the development consultant on the scheme asked Bingle to “prod Ravi that we need to get on with this”. Bingle forwarded the email to Govinidia saying “I thought it simplest just to forward this to you”.
When Bingle sent an email asking: “Leader, Can we get a meeting with you in the diary for next week? This scheme is now stuck,” Govinida replied: “I have asked for an update from planners next week.”
Asked about the relationship Bingle said: “The fact that this information came from a freedom of information request shows that it was always available for scrutiny in the public domain. And rightly so. Having been a long-standing friend of Ravi I know it is impossible for anybody to have undue influence over him. Since his earliest days on Wandsworth as a backbench councillor he has always resolutely defended his own viewpoint even if it meant voting against the Conservative group.”
Govinidia said: “It is first and foremost the job of any council leader to press those on all sides to deliver improvements to their borough and improve the lives of their residents. To do the job effectively you need to listen to all voices and make sure that when problems or snags arise that you are on top of them and that you can secure solutions to drive forward and deliver these improvements. I make no apology whatsoever for fulfilling my role as a council leader to deliver more homes, more jobs and more opportunities for our residents.”
He said the Royal Mail development will deliver 318 new affordable homes, a higher number than the developers were originally offering.”
So says a writer (Labour) in a Huffington Post blog. No problem in East Devon – most of the dwindling local Tory party membership are already councillors!
Some of the comments seem quite pertinent to East Devon:
” … a council leader who oversees a large budget and thousands of local government workers, is only selected by the party members who live in their individual ward to be a candidate for councillor, from there a vote of councillor colleagues takes place behind closed doors. There is no mechanism for members to have a say on who should be the Labour [or other political party] group leader or to debate the principles, priorities and policies they will lead before they are in place. In practice, there is no recourse for members if the leader chooses to act in a way that undermines the values our party is founded upon – other than to deselect them as a candidate to be councillor when they are next up for election, which may be four years away. …
[Ah, yes, who can forget Diviani being told to save community hospitals at EDDC and voting to close them at DCC]
… Too often we see Council Cabinet members dependent on the grace and patronage of their leader for their income and livelihood – no Cabinet position means no job, and as such very little dissent. In some places even scrutiny chairs – the name should give away what they’re there for – are put in place by the very leadership they are supposed to scrutinise. …”
[Scrutiny – we never did manage to get to the bottom (or even very slightly below the surface) of the relationship between disgraced Councillor Graham Brown, the council and their relationship with the East Devon Business Forum]
Source: Huffington Post
Hugo Swire:
“My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be aware of my view—as he and I have discussed it—that most objections to large planning developments are based on the fact that the developments themselves add nothing to the local vernacular, do not acknowledge it and are often poorly built. That is partly owing to a lack of local planning officers and the fact that planning officers are poorly trained. Could the Government consider affiliating some of them to the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and empowering them so that they can stand against the volume house builders?”
Owl says: What about councillors who roll over to have their tummies tickled by developers – or who are developers themselves!!!
Or even those in your own (Tory) back yard in East Devon, who run their own planning consultancies and boast they can get planning for anything but don’t expect to be paid peanuts for it:
KPMG were, until recently, the auditors of East Devon District Council. Let’s hope that Grant Thornton (now back in the frame at EDDC) perform better – but who recalls their pitiful performance when they “investigated” the disgraced Councillor Graham Brown affair and found ….. nothing.
“KPMG, the accounting firm that signed off the books in the years leading up to Carillion’s collapse, has been singled out by the industry regulator in a report that says the overall quality of the audit profession is in decline.
The Financial Reporting Council, the watchdog for the UK’s accountants, said the profession had demonstrated a “failure to challenge management and show appropriate scepticism across their audits”.
There have been calls for the “big four” accountants – KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, EY and Deloitte – to be broken up to spur competition and improve standards.
All four gave Carillion financial advice before the construction and outsourcing company failed. MPs accused the four of “feasting” on Carillion, whose finances proved far less healthy than directors had suggested.
The FRC reported a decline in the quality of the work of all four, with KPMG performing the worst. The watchdog is already investigating KPMG over its role in the collapse of Carillion and it said on Monday there had been an “unacceptable deterioration” in the quality of its work.
The FRC cited figures that showed half of KPMG’s audits of firms in the FTSE350 index had required “more than just limited” improvements, up from 35% in the previous year.
“The overall quality of the audits inspected in the year, and indeed the decline in quality over the past five years, is unacceptable and reflects badly on the action taken by the previous leadership, not just on the performance of frontline teams,” the regulator said.
“Our key concern is the extent of challenge of management and exercise of professional scepticism by audit teams, both being critical attributes of an effective audit, and more generally the inconsistent execution of audits within the firm.”
It added: “[KPMG] agrees that its efforts in recent years have not been sufficient; the FRC will hold KPMG’s new leadership to account for the success of their work to improve audit quality.” …
The FRC said it would now scrutinise KPMG more closely as a result of its findings. It will inspect 25% more KPMG audits than before and monitor the firm’s plans to improve the quality of its work.
In the FRC’s overall assessment of eight accountants, it found that 72% of audits of all firms, including those outside the FTSE350, required no more than limited improvement, down from 78% last year. While only half of KPMG’s FTSE350 audits were deemed satisfactory, rivals scored far higher, although all showed declines and fell short of the FRC’s target of 90%.
Deloitte scored 79%, down from 82% last year, EY fell from 92% to 82% and PwC was down from 90% to 84%. The four firms immediately below the big four – BDO, Mazars, GT and Moore Stephens – were told that the quality of their audits had generally improved.”
Tim Ford, once a much-respected plumbing and electrical contactor in Sidmouth, is renewing his controversial application to build a business park in the AONB at Sidford. (18/1094/MOUT)
Incredulous locals wonder how it was possible for a council to allocate an ‘employment site’ in its local development plan that is on a flood plain, is a rich wildlife habitat, and whose main access would be a narrow street where two lorries can’t pass without mounting the pavement!
For the dominant Tory group on East Devon District Council it was easy!
First, they let landowners and developers decide where to build. In 2007 they asked East Devon Business Forum how much employment land the district would need over the next 25 years. EDBF was a lobby group which included the Carters of Greendale, the Stuarts of Hill Barton and Tim Ford of Sidmouth. Their answer was predictable: lots and lots!
Second, they put Chair of EDBF, Cllr Graham (‘I ain’t doin’ it for peanuts!’) Brown:
in charge of quietly asking landowners where they would like to build. Apparently, the proposal for a Sidford business park was first mooted at one of these confidential meetings in July 2010.
Third, in 2011 they elected Paul Diviani, founder member of EDBF, as leader. Under him the District Council became what many saw as a ‘Development Corporation’, the planning system became less about protecting the environment and more about encouraging building.
Fourth, they didn’t listen to the public or community groups whom they ignored or misrepresented. Sidmouth Chamber of commerce said the business park would be catastrophic for local businesses, Council minutes recorded the Chamber as supporting it!
Fifth, they whipped their large political majority to vote through the Sidford allocation. When hostile public reaction worried them just before the 2015 council elections they voted to ‘remove it’ from the Local Plan. Universal Rejoicing! But in 2016 the Inspector kept it in the Plan. Why? Because East Devon’s chief planning officer had not been instructed to give the Inspector reasons for the council’s change of mind!
Former EDDC Leader Diviani is now EDDC’s representative on the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan. In its confidential meetings he is helping to oversee a gigantic overspill project along the A3052 in the west end of the District where hundreds of acres of land are being earmarked for a massive expansion of business parks and thousands of new houses.
Indeed one such expansion was announced only this weekend near Cranbrook, where the developer is quoted as saying:
“The first, ‘Scenario 1’ is a response to existing market demand with the provision of a single large unit of around one million square feet (92,9000 sq.m.).
‘Scenario 2’ would see the site offer a multi-unit option, providing a range of sizes and configurations informed by ongoing market need.”
Which all makes the wretched Sidford application even less necessary!
Would you choose immediate A-road and motorway access to Exeter and the M5 or access down a country road where two medium-size vehicles cannot pass?
” … The inquiry comes after a government adviser warned that the Coalition “threw out the baby with the bathwater” when it abolished the controversial Standards Board for England that enforced a nationwide code of conduct for councillors.
Dr Jane Martin, the member of the Committee leading the inquiry says she “regularly receives correspondence” from the public expressing concern about councillors’ behaviour. …
There are concerns that council standards committees can only “censure” politicians, rather than suspend them in the most serious cases. …”
Source: Sunday Telegraph
Owl says: once again, too little too late:
See and hear our own disgraced Tory ex-councillor Graham Brown (ex-chief of the equally disgraced council-run East Devon Business Forum) explaining that “if I can’t get planning, nobody will” but that he won’t work for peanuts:
and the chapter on East Devon in Anna Minton’s Spinwatch report “Scaring the living daylights out of people – the local lobby and the failure of democracy”:
https://www.annaminton.com/single-post/2016/03/21/Scaring-The-Living-Daylights-Out-Of-People
Journalist Anna Minton wrote a damning report in 2013 (“Scaring the Living Daylights out of People”) heavily featuring the chilling antics of the East Devon Business Forum and its disgraced Chairman, former EDDC councillor Graham Brown and mentions this in today’s article in The Guardian:
Click to access e87dab_fd0c8efb6c0f4c4b8a9304e7ed16bc34.pdf
This article on the politicisation of planning is reproduced in its entirety as there was not one sentence that Owl could cut. Although the article concentrates on cities it applies equally to areas such as East Devon.
“The politicisation of planning has come with the growth of the regeneration industry. While once planning officers in local government made recommendations that elected members of planning committees generally followed, today lobbyists are able to exert far greater influence.
It’s not easy to see into this world, but there are traces in the public domain. Registers of hospitality, for example, detail some of the interactions between councillors and the commercial property business. Take a week in the life of Nick Paget-Brown, the Kensington and Chelsea leader who resigned in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire. In October last year he had lunch at the five-star riverside Royal Horseguards Hotel courtesy of the property giant Willmott Dixon. The previous evening he had been at a reception put on by the business lobby group London First, whose membership is dominated by property and housing firms. He had breakfast with the Grosvenor Estate, the global property empire worth £6.5bn, and lunch at Knightsbridge’s Carlton Tower Hotel. This was paid for by the Cadogan Estate, the second largest of the aristocratic estates (after Grosvenor), which owns 93 acres in Kensington, including Sloane Square and the King’s Road.
Rock Feilding-Mellen, the councillor in charge of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment, who has stepped down as the council’s deputy leader, had his own list of engagements. As the Grenfell Action Group noted earlier this year, he was a dinner guest of Terrapin, the firm founded by Peter Bingle, a property lobbyist renowned for lavish hospitality.
Bingle is also a player in the other big regeneration story of recent weeks: Haringey council’s approval of plans for its HDV – Haringey development vehicle. This is a “partnership” with the Australian property developer Lendlease, a lobbying client of Terrapin’s. The HDV promises to create a £2bn fund to build a new town centre and thousands of new homes, but local residents on the Northumberland Park housing estate, whose homes will be demolished, are vehemently opposed. The Haringey leader, Claire Kober, has lunched or dined six times at Terrapin’s expense.
In Southwark, just as in Haringey and Kensington, there is a revolving door between politicians and lobbyists. The former leader of Southwark council, Jeremy Fraser, went on to found the lobbying firm Four Communications, where he was joined by Southwark’s former cabinet member for regeneration Steve Lancashire. Derek Myers, who until 2013 jointly ran Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham councils, is now a director of the London Communications Agency, a lobbying agency with property developers on its client list. Merrick Cockell, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea until 2013, now chairs the lobbying firm Cratus Communications, which also specialises in property lobbying. In Westminster, the hospitality register for the last three years of its deputy leader, Robert Davis – chair of the council’s planning committee for 17 years – runs to 19 pages.
Cities other than London and rural areas also provide examples of worrying relationships. In East Devon a serving councillor was found in 2013 to be offering his services as a consultant to help developers get the planning decisions they wanted. In Newcastle a councillor who worked for a lobbying company boasted of “tricks of the trade” that included making sure planning committees included friendly faces.
Meanwhile the culture of regular meetings and socialising does not stop with councils. The diary of David Lunts, head of housing and land at the Greater London Authority for the first three months of 2017, reveals a lunch in Mayfair with Bingle, a VIP dinner laid on by a London developer, another meal paid for by a housing giant, and dinner on Valentine’s Day with a regeneration firm. Consultants and a developer furnished him with more meals before he headed off to Cannes for Mipim, the world’s biggest property fair. He also had dinner with Rydon, the firm that refurbished Grenfell Tower.
Further up the food chain, it was only because of Bingle’s boasts that we heard of a dinner he gave the then local government secretary, Eric Pickles. Held in the Savoy’s Gondoliers Room, it was also attended by business chiefs, including one who was waiting for a planning decision from Pickles’s department. The dinner was never declared on any register of hospitality because Pickles said he was attending in a private capacity.
Lunt’s former colleague Richard Blakeway, who was London’s deputy mayor for housing until last year, and David Cameron’s adviser on housing policy, became a paid adviser to Willmott Dixon. He is also on the board of the Homes and Communities Agency, the government body that regulates and invests in social housing. Its chair is Blakeway’s old boss, the former London deputy mayor for policy and planning Ed Lister, who is also a non-executive director of the developer Stanhope.
The MP Mark Prisk, housing minister until 2013, advocated “removing unnecessary housing, construction and planning regulations” as part of the government’s red tape challenge. He became an adviser to the property developer Essential Living, eight months after leaving office. Prisk advises the firm on legislation, providing support for developments and “brand” building. Essential Living’s former development manager Nick Cuff was also a Conservative councillor and chair of Wandsworth’s planning committee. A colleague of Cuff’s, who spent 30 years in the south London borough’s planning department, now works for Bingle’s lobbying firm, Terrapin.
This is the world that Kensington’s Paget-Brown and Feilding-Mellen, Haringey’s Kober and countless other council leaders inhabit. Socialising between these property men – and they are mostly men – is used to cement ties, and the lines between politician, official, developer and lobbyist are barely drawn. This culture, and the questions of accountability it raises, must be part of the public inquiry into Grenfell. It is perhaps no surprise that the government doesn’t want it to be.
• Tamasin Cave, a director of the lobbying transparency organisation Spinwatch, contributed to this article”
“A loophole in planning rules is allowing developers to build housing estates in England’s finest countryside.
Ministers are waving through applications for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) despite promising to protect them.
The High Weald in Sussex, the North Wessex Downs and the Cotswolds are among the protected areas being built on.
Six hundred homes, a hospice and a school were approved last month near Pease Pottage in the High Weald despite objections from Natural England, the government’s advisory body on protecting the natural environment.
Campaigners said that the rules were being swept aside in the rush to meet housing targets. Ministers are threatening councils with a “presumption” in favour of development unless they allocate enough land.”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/protected-beauty-spots-are-sacrificed-to-build-houses-tw2jjrk5r
Recall that, when EDDC dragged out its Local Plan process for years and years (abandoning the first secret attempts run by Councillors Brown and Skinner and starting again) developers had a free run in East Devon.
Should we find that we do NOT have a 5 year land supply when the Local Plan comes up for review (due every 5 years so we should be starting now) then, presumably, that will happen all over again.
Recently (November 2016) EDDC brought up the idea of external auditors being consultants for the review, but the auditors themselves quickly pointed out that they had no experience in such projects and it should be led by an organisation with proper expertise:
“Problem (page 134 of agenda papers):
“Undertake a Review of the process for writing the Local Plan in future”
The solution
“A meeting has been held with our external auditors to scope out this review but it was quickly determined that they are not the right people to undertake this review due to their lack of knowledge of the plan making process. Other options including using the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) are now being pursued.”
Click to access 241116-scrutiny-agenda-combined.pdf
Things seem to have gone quiet again since then, with no public announcement of a new consulting organisation.
Questions: Shouldn’t external auditors anyway be at “arms length” from council business? Which bright spark thought of offering them the job?
Although it was not found on Symonds and estate agent’s website after its brief appearance in one edition of the Midweek Herald, Ware Farm is now being given its appropriate exposure.
The farm, belonging to former disgraced District Councillor Graham Brown is advertised not only with details of its agricultural tie but also with the comment:
“Basic Payment Scheme
The vendors will endeavour to transfer the entitlements under the BPS, with the purchasers being
responsible for the agents costs involved.”
These are, of course, the Basic Payments received from the European Union for farming subsidies that ex-Councillor Brown neglected to mention when he applied to East Devon District Council to have his agricultural tie lifted saying that he had not practised farming on the land for many years. The council refused the application as “[it] was not satisfied as to the lawfulness at the date of application of the use specified in the application”.
see: Planning Application 14/2032/CPE
And just to be absolutely clear, the brochure says:
Planning
The house was built subject to an Agricultural Occupancy Condition. Planning Reference 00/
P0940/01309 which states that “The occupation of the dwelling shall be limited to a person solely or
mainly working, or last working, in the locality in agriculture as defined in Section 336 of the Town
and Country Planning Act 1990, or in forestry or a dependant of such a person residing with him or
her or a widow or widower of such a person”.
Former East Devon District Councillor Graham Brown’s home was apparently briefly on the market this week. The home, with its agricultural tenancy, was advertised as up for sale for £1 million plus. Here is where it appeared in a local newspaper on 11 May 2016:
However, if you are interested in buying it, that may prove to be a little difficult, as it does not appear on the Symonds and Sampson estate agent website, nor on either of the major property websites Rightmove and Zoopla and Google searching does not bring it up.
Ex-councillor Brown attempted to remove the agricultural tie a year or two ago saying that he had not farmed the land for many years, but his application was refused after EDDC received evidence that the land had been receiving EU farming subsidies.
Removal of an agricultural tie can add at least 40% to the value of a property.
There are companies that will work on a “no win, no fee” basis specialising in removing such ties, but rules say that the property should be marketed first with its tie for a reasonable price and continuously for a reasonable period of time, usually at least six months.
As it seems to have been marketed only for a very short period before disappearing completely from the internet, it seems that the owner must have decided to stay put or perhaps he has decided to change estate agents and to market it again later.
Update: The property was on offer in March 2013 for £1.55M via Hall and Scott. See
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41090060.html
Note that at the time the spec was for approx 25 acres — but now it’s being advertised at 22 [sic] acres – and that it was clear that “Ware Farm is subject of an Agricultural Tie”.
Self-evidently if that tie were lifted, the owner should expect to get substantially more than the £1.55M asking price of three years ago. That wouldbe a nice little earner.
Interesting article in Sunday Times Business section with the boss of former external auditors Grant Thornton (Sacha Romanovich, who lives in Exmouth and London). EDDC were forced by new government rules to change to KPMG recently.
The reporter quizzes her about several recent alleged failings at Grant Thornton (including a very high-profile law suit taken out against the company involving alleged pressure used by the company with the Serious Fraud Office to do with a property tycoon) and reveals that the Financial Reporting Council fined the firm £1m over flaws in its auditing of a Manchester building society.
She points out that the company has more than 40,000 clients so this should be put into context.
She ends her interview by saying: ” … audit is a watchdog, not a bloodhound. If people have deliberately gone about their affairs to hide things, it won’t always be found by a statutory audit … “
which then begs the question – so how will it be found?
Grant Thornton were criticised in East Devon for producing a very superficial consultants report into whether disgraced ex-councillor Graham Brown (who chaired the first iteration of the Local Plan committee and was Chairman of the East Devon Business Forum) brought too much influence to bear on the council after he was secretly filmed telling Daily Telegraph reporters how he could influence planning but “didn’t come cheap”.
Here is an extract from the Daily Telegraph front page expose almost exactly three years ago:
“Another councillor in Devon appeared to use his position in a similar way. Graham Brown has been a Conservative councillor for Feniton and Buckerell ward on East Devon district council for more than 10 years.
He is also chairman of East Devon Business Forum, a member of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee and the business and tourism champion.
“I’m the best,” said Mr Brown at a meeting with undercover reporters in Devon last month. “If I can’t get planning, nobody will … I’m low-profile, have access to all the right people for the right clients. Don’t come cheap.” He said he was no longer involved in planning decisions and would need to be careful when talking to other councillors about projects he was involved in, but he was clear about what benefits he would bring.
“I know — without trying to be clever — I know more than most of the councillors, and I know more than most of the officers.”
When a reporter asked what his “strategy” was when it came to winning approval for a planning application, Mr Brown explained: “Where I’m good, I know all the different people to go to … Like if you came to me with a set of problems, I’d say, ‘Right the first thing we do, we need to go and talk to, say, the economic development manager’.
“So I’d pick up the phone to [name removed for legal reasons] and I’d say, ‘I’ve got a project, I want to talk to you about it.’ And it’s about almost kick-starting a dead motorbike”. Mr Brown told the undercover reporters that Devon had traditionally been one of the hardest areas in which to obtain planning permission for new developments, but that it might change because the council had not met its targets for land supply, meaning it was “quite vulnerable to any planning application that can be seen as sustainable”.
Mr Brown explained why this might be useful for the overseas developer the reporters were purporting to represent.
“What it means is — or what it could mean, and I can’t tell you definitely yet because it could get a deal worse or a deal better depending on — I’ve talked to three Government ministers about it because I’m reasonably — I sound terribly pretentious but I’m not — but you know, I’ve spoken to three individual Government ministers I know because I’ve been sort of in the Tory party for a long time and — how can I say it without sounding – I bet you go away and say, ‘that fat arrogant bastard’.”
“It sounds like you’re very well-connected?” the reporter suggested.
“Let’s take that for granted then,” Mr Brown said.
“Which means that whereas East Devon was traditionally one of the three hardest areas in the country to get planning permission, that will change … They will retain within the rules the ability to refuse things which fall down like if the design is poor, certain green belt areas, there will be certain areas so I don’t see it as the floodgates opening, but I do see a stampede coming.” His costs would vary according to the project, but he said he was normally paid £80 an hour or between £1,000 and £20,000 for a project.
His fees would vary “depending on the viability of the scheme, if we get it, like if I turned a green field into a housing estate and I’m earning a developer two or three million, then I ain’t doing it for peanuts … especially if I’m the difference between winning it and losing it.”
Not the false start made by the first Local Development Framework group, which spent 2-plus years visiting sites of favoured developers.
Not the East Devon Business Forum and its Chairman disgraced ex-councillor Graham Brown which attempted to get an iron grip on it.
Not the officers and councillors who employed consultant after consultant until they found one they agreed with.
Not the same officers and councillors who had their drafts thrown out twice by the Planning Inspector.
NO! NO! NO! IT IS ALL THE FAULT OF – SIDMOUTH!!!
Sidmouth delayed the Local Plan! and Mark William’s loses it!
At a heated meeting of EDDC councillors tonight to approve the Local Plan, CEO Mark Williams lost control of himself in a big way.
In response to a fairly conciliatory speech from resident Richard Eley, on behalf of Save our Sidmouth, a furious Williams lambasted Sidmouth for delaying the Local Plan and increasing the number of houses in it!
“But for Sidmouth we would have had a local plan three years ago,” he ranted, adding that “the end result of all your objections is that we’ve ended up in the local plan with more houses than originally proposed.” (Gasps of astonishment from the public and cries of “rubbish” and “nonsense”.)
A few minutes later he rounded on Richard Eley again accusing him of “churlishly” calling the Inspector “idiotic”. Eley sprang to his feet and angrily denied he had used that word about the inspector, and demanded an apology – supported by more cries of “scandal” and “apologise” from the public.
He insisted on reading the offending part of his speech again which proved his point that the i-word was never used. In fact, he described the decision to include land at Sidford for a business park as “stupid”.
After more moments of mayhem and shouting from the public, a reluctant apology was extracted from the CEO.
Many observers were left wondering if Mr Williams might not need a long rest –as in retirement on a generous pension………
The latest blog post of Independent Councillor Susie Bond:
It’s been a fascinating run up to the 2015 election.
I’ve enjoyed dropping off my leaflets to the houses in Feniton, Gittisham and Buckerell and chatting to those who were at home and had time to talk to me. People are really engaged with this election and want to talk about national issues as much as local ones … and there was a lot of interest in the ‘rise of the Independents’, as one resident described it.
There were several recurring themes which were of concern to everyone in my ward … planning inevitably being at the top of the list.
On the stump, Question 1:
What about the attenuation tanks?
This is a continuing issue in Feniton, where developer Wainhomes eventually succumbed to pressure from me, the Parish Council, EDDC and the media, and provided the attenuation tanks which were required of them following the planning inquiry in 2012. However, the Parish Council is not happy with the system the developer was forced to install and has grave concerns that the tanks will fail. This is an unresolved issue and a great worry to those who live ‘downstream’ of the site.
There is quite reasonably very little faith in developers and the promises they make to sweeten the offer of concreting over precious sites. Residents still bemoan the loss of the tennis courts which were such a feature of life in Feniton before the developer of the existing Acland Park site bulldozed them in pursuit of profit. Promises were made that they would be reinstated, but the tennis courts never reappeared.
On the stump, Question 2:
Whatever happened to the Graham Brown affair?
The police investigation into former Councillor Graham Brown was closed with no action taken in 2014 as there was insufficient evidence to take the case forward. End of story.
My concern is not with the individual, but what process allowed anyone whose main source of income was building and development to be put in a position of such authority (he was for some time Chairman of the Local Development Framework panel, the committee set up to steer the Council towards adoption of a Local Plan, identifying possible sites for development and deciding on strategic allocations for development within the district), and who must have found it extremely difficult not to confuse the two roles. I have called on a number of occasions for an internal inquiry at EDDC to look into the lapse in decision-making which allowed this to happen. Each time I posed the question, I was met with the response that the matter was in the hands of the police and therefore any internal investigation would be inappropriate.
At the full Council meeting in February, and given that the police investigation had concluded, I asked the question again.
I was surprised on this occasion when my request for an internal inquiry was met with the minimal response, ‘Why?’, with no further explanation. In other words, whether the former councillor was charged with any misdemeanour or not, EDDC never had any intention of conducting a full internal inquiry.
Something to think about for the next council.
On the stump, Question 3:
What is the East Devon Alliance?
There was lots of interest on the doorstep in this umbrella organisation formed to support independent candidates.
It’s a lonely business being an Independent.
I chose to stand as an Independent in 2013 so that I was not constrained by party politics which, to my mind, should have no business in local government. But standing alone means that you don’t have the backup of the party machine to write your leaflet for you and even pay for it to be printed, as well as the advice of those who have been councillors before.
Had it existed at that time, I would have welcomed the help and advice of the East Devon Alliance to steer me through the minefield of the election process. Two years on and EDA candidates have the support of their leader, Cllr Ben Ingham, whose 25 years of experience is invaluable to those who don’t know how the system works. Their excellent website (http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/) has given the candidates an on-line profile and their YouTube videos have reached a wide audience.
Once elected, every ‘Independent EDA’ candidate will work hard in their ward and represent that ward at Council. No Party Whip to ‘encourage’ them to vote in a particular way and no question of being lambasted by senior party figures if they fail to conform.
Final thoughts
Don’t forget to voteBut whatever the issues and whatever hue your politics, the main thing is to make your voice heard and Remember To Vote. The turnout at elections has fallen steadily from an all-time high of 83% in 1950 to just 65% in 2010, reflecting disillusionment and mistrust of party politics.
If you want to change the status quo, Thursday 7 May is the day to make a difference!
See her latest blogpost here: https://susiebond.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/and-were-off/
You only have to look at the records of our Independent councillors such as Susie, Claire Wright, Roger Giles and Ben Ingham to see that independent councillors makes the biggest impact on scrutiny of our current majority Conservative council. Now we need them to be the decision-makers.
Recall that before Susie was elected Feniton was in the hands of ex- councillor Graham Brown …
Jeremy Woodward, whose Freedom of Information requests led to the current court case betweem the Information Commissioner and EDDC pens his personal story:
It all started with a simple request back in November 2012. I had asked the chair of the DMC – the Development Management Committee, which is the District Council’s planning committee – for details about the secretive ‘Office Accommodation Working Parties’. (I later discovered that there are in fact several of these…). This was because I thought there might be conflicts of interest should any from one committee be sitting on another committee, as the DMC was expecting to consider the Council’s own planning application for Knowle. Moreover, I had also asked for access to the ‘Reports, Action Notes and Updates’ on relocation which had been presented to Cabinet meetings, as I felt they should be available for ‘public scrutiny’ in the context of the planning application.
Of course the answer was ‘No’ to all of these. Perhaps that was to be expected, and over the coming months and years it became clear that the East Devon District Council is really one of the most intransigent and arrogant local authorities in the area not to mention the most secretive and least transparent.
For example: if you go to the whatdotheyknow website and type in the name of a pubic authority, whilst Mid Devon has 117 Freedom of Information requests, North Devon 102, West Devon 105, Teignbridge 109, Torridge 101 and South Hams zero, East Devon has 299 to date – three times that of any other in Devon.
Of course, East Devon District Council is not alone in refusing to allow more transparency when it comes to its planning decisions. To put this into context, the Guardian’s architecture correspondent Oliver Wainwright looked into ‘the truth about property developers and how they are exploiting planning authorities’ – and he concluded after considerable research that “Across the country authorities are allowing planning policies to be continually flouted, affordable housing quotas to be waived, the interests of residents endlessly trampled.”
These same authorities will insist that they cannot divulge any pertinent information because it is ‘confidential’. However, as Wainwright noted, “confidentiality is closely guarded, in order to preserve developers’ trade secrets, but where the sale of public assets is concerned, there is increasing pressure for the books to be opened.” And the pressures are increasing – helped largely by the Freedom of Information Act.
To quote again from Wainwright on a specific but illuminating case of cosy relationships: “Without some commercially sensitive information remaining private, developers could simply refuse to work with councils, leaving boroughs without the housing and regeneration we all need,” says a spokeswoman for Southwark Council. The borough brought a legal challenge against a decision by the Information Commissioner’s Office last year ordering the council to disclose the full details of a viability report, after a freedom of information request was denied. The tribunal concluded that the information must be disclosed, stating … ‘the importance … of local people having access to information to allow them to participate in the planning process’. It sets an encouraging precedent for campaign groups battling similar situations elsewhere.”
And perhaps we can be similarly ‘encouraged’ – especially as the FOI Act in the UK seems to be working to some extent. Most famously, Heather Brooks broke the MPs’ expenses scandal story by first filing an FOI request. In other words, much of this has been achieved only through the clenched teeth of the powers that be: Tony Blair regretted the introduction of the Act and, still, government generally would like to see the FOI Act ‘neutered’ and is not “embracing the spirit of openness but [prefers] finding ways of avoiding compliance while staying within the letter of the law.”
Disappointingly, in the USA, which trail-blazed the whole notion of freedom of information, the FOI system does not seem to be working – to such an extent, that in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about how the National Security Agency abuses access to information, people now believe that transparency can only be gained through whistleblowing: “[the NSA] don’t release anything through normal means. The only way the public really learns about them is through leaks.” Ironically, Snowden is now in exile in Russia, where lies and secrecy are the norm, where there is absolutely no tradition of a civil society and where the arrogance of power is all pervading.
Which brings me to the question of: How is it possible for them to get away with it? After all, whilst the UK is not Russia, nevertheless, it does seem that those in power will generally prefer to deal with others in power and seek to limit the amount of information the common man should have access to.
On the one hand, we have ‘managed democracy’ – and the example of Russia is pertinent, as ‘Putin’s puppet-master’ Vladislav Surkov and other ‘political technologists’ seem to have done very well in creating a society of ‘pure spectacle’. And yet in the West, we have many more years’ practice: it was Edward Bernays, father of the modern PR industry (and nephew of Sigmund Freud) who said: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society… It is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically.”
And so we have the churning out of press releases from the East Devon District Council reassuring us that everything’s alright and that we can sleep well in our beds – whether it’s the surreal nonsense of ‘Another happy year for Cranbrook’, which contrasts somewhat with several other perspectives, or the production of clever pictograms to sell the notion of energy savings by relocating from Knowle, or the announcement that Skypark is no longer the centre of the known universe.
Meanwhile, the situation around the Knowle relocation project gets progressively more Kafkaesque , with “misleading figures, loaded and biased consultations and the heavy handed (and expensive) use of lawyers to force a decision through…” – all of which contrasts with a set of hopelessly out-of-date ‘Moving and Improving’ pages which provide plenty of questions but very few answers.
On the other hand we have what politicians complain of as the ‘democratic deficit’ – ie, that nobody can be bothered because we can’t make a difference anyway. Of course, we are ‘too busy changing nappies to change the world’ – although we manage to enjoy our regular dose of ‘bread and circuses’. Besides, as the stand-up comedian George Carlin said about the American Dream , we are expected to be “just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all” the other stuff.
Meanwhile back in East Devon, we have a Scrutiny Committee which does not scrutinise and a system which prefers patronage and cronyism to serving constituents.
In May 2011, the new District Council administration announced “a fresh outlook on serving East Devon for the next term, with a promise of greater transparency.” And yet it was Anna Minton’s excoriating analysis of ‘the local mafia’ in East Devon which captured the sense that ‘there have been a large number of concerns about the operation of the council subverting the democracy process… and that this culture won’t change.’ In the meantime, there are still serious, unanswered questions about lobbying and transparency – and particularly about the ex-Councillor Graham Brown saga and the influence of the East Devon Business Forum, especially with regard to development – all of which the District Council has been determined to both ignore and quash.
And so it is left to those ‘outside’ to ask the difficult questions and to try to bring to account those who manage our democracy. The Freedom of Information system might be flawed and terribly slow, but it is one of the few mechanisms we have to challenge the arrogance and insulation of power.
Jeremy Woodward
28th Feb 2015
Oh, Malcolm, we know how hard it is for someone who has “done nothing wrong” who ends up being ditched by his party and having to resign.
We’ve seen it for ourselves here in East Devon a number of times over the years with our Tory councillors – and quite recently, too with our ex-Tory Councillor Graham Brown. AND he was stung by the Daily Telegraph too. AND he was on the front page too – saying that he “didn’t come cheap”.
People can be so unkind whe all you want is to have the money to live the life you deserve …
Our thoughts are with you.
“It is claimed that Mr Straw was recorded describing how he operated “under the radar” and had used his influence to change EU rules on behalf of a firm which paid him £60,000 a year.
On the subject of payment, Mr Straw is heard saying: “So normally, if I’m doing a speech or something, it’s £5,000 a day, that’s what I charge.”
Sir Malcolm is reported to have claimed he could arrange “useful access” to every British ambassador in the world.”
Ring any bells? Only the place, names and the numbers change!
AND they both say they did nothing wrong.
Came across this gem today from July 2013:
and the EDDC “Ribbon Fairy” staking out its land grab in November 2013:
https://sidmouthindependentnews.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/ribbon-fairy-at-knowle/
East Devon Watch 
