Question sent in to EDA:
‘The most recent entry on the ‘Moving and Improving’ page of East Devon District Council’s website was in February last year.
Should someone suggest that they remove it?’
Category Archives: Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation
Another split amongst East Devon Tories?
All is not quite as it seems in the (02/01/2015) Sidmouth Herald photo of MP Hugo Swire with three of the Sidmouth District Councillors!
See http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.3902104!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/image.jpg
Conservative Cllrs Drew, Newth and Sullivan voted AGAINST putting the Knowle relocation project on hold (proposed by Independent Cllr Claire Wright), just a few days before Mr Swire’s press release followed Cllr Wright’s lead. (Mrs Wright is of course standing against Hugo Swire in this year’s May election, as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for East Devon).
The same three councillors were present at the public open meeting organised by the Sid Vale Association in advance of the Full Council vote on Knowle (Dec 17th 2014). But the straightjacket of party politics seemed to restrict their perspective on Knowle. Cllr Frances Newth (appears by Hugo’s right shoulder in the picture), former EDDC Environment champion, did not utter a word about the environmental impact of relocation; Cllr Christine Drew (pictured on Hugo’s left) appeared blissfully unaware of the knock-on effect of the loss of the major Sid Valley employment site, and the ‘need’ for a large business park planned alongside a minor country road between Sidford and her beloved Sidbury; and Cllr Peter Sullivan responsible for Health and Wellbeing, made no comparison of the benefits of a workplace set in parkland with that of an industrial estate (as now proposed at Honiton).
As 2015 unrolls, will they all just keep smiling for the camera …?
Will the Councillors stay loyal to Leader Paul Diviani, or to their local MP?
A tricky call!!
Council staff speak out about office relocation
..and they should know! Some telling comments (already referred to on our own website) are put into context in the comprehensive summary of how the plan to move from Knowle has proceeded, on today’s blogpost at http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/knowle-relocation-project-if-knowle-is.html
EDDC “Lurching from one idea to another at taxpayers’ expense”, claims council employee
Plan B was Plan A until Plan Zero became Plan A which then …
Isn’t it interesting that in 2011 EDDC was planning to move to Heathpark and Exmouth Town Hall (anticipating the move of Devon County Council that took place only recently):
Click to access relocation_reports_july2011tosept2012.pdf
Then suddenly Skypark appeared … and dusappeared … and here we are back where it all (very secretly) began.
New Year, new Freedom of Information requests
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/opportunities_for_service_provis
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/full_access_to_the_alder_king_re
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_the_accommodation_ques
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_the_full_report_to_the
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_statistical_justificat
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/full_access_to_kensington_taylor
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_contracts_for_alder_ki
Folly and hubris in politics
From The Guardian editorial on Mrs Thatcher’s disastrous decision to go along with Dorset MP Oliver Letwin’s idea of poll tax, in spite of more sensible advice from Tory “wets”:
“A few years before Lady Thatcher and Mr Letwin became obsessed with the poll tax, the American historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book about the march of follies in human affairs, from the Trojan to the Vietnamese war. [She] argued that a folly’s success was marked by the determination of its supporters to pursue a foolish and failed policy in the face of clear arguments in favour of an alternative course. The poll tax was Mrs Thatcher’s folly. But her supporters and her party have not yet learned the lessons of her act of hubris.”
Information Commissioner v EDDC: are press releases and FAQ web pages “public consultation”?
Readers will be aware that only 2 “public consultation” events have ever neen organised regarding Knowle relocation – a very brief and rather uninformative event in Sidmouth and a highly stage-managed “stakeholders meeting” at Exeter Airport.
However, it seems that EDDC believes that highly stage-managed press releases with only good news and a highly stage-managed Frequently Asked Questions page on their website where they choose all the questions is all the public consultation required.
Why are we not surprised?
Relocation costs: what about Turk’s Head junction in Honiton?
The “major supermarket” which pulled out of the Honiton Heathpark site would surely have had to contribute to changes at the Turk’s Head jubpnction – already heavily congested and about to get worse with the construction of the Premier Inn on the site of the old motel.
An EDDC building will add even more to the severe congestion. S106 payments are meant to compensate a local community for such changes. Their car park will not be much smaller than that which would have been built by the supermarket.
Will EDDC be contributing to changes? If not, why not? And if so, how much will changes cost? And are they included in current costs?
Judicial Review slams “fundamentally flawed” mathematics of council
Torbay Council has been landed with a massive bill because they underpaid care homes by hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In a judgment that should send shivers down the spines of EDDC councillors, a judge said:
“Accountants commissioned to report on the council’s workings agreed with TQCF’s claim that the authority had made “illogical mathematical errors” and TQCF won a judicial review at the High Court in London.
The judge agreed that the calculation it used was “fundamentally flawed”.”
That’s what can happen if you don’t get your sums right …
Wright and Swire v Diviani goes regional
Knowle? Me? What do I know? Ask her!
It’s official: Swire backs Claire Wright on Knowle and Diviani ignores both of them!
The commonsense call from Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Cllr Claire Wright, to put EDDC’s office relocation project on hold, has now somewhat belatedly been echoed by the current East Devon MP, Hugo Swire.
Despite this, the New Year message about Knowle from EDDC Leader Paul Diviani is all too clear, as reported here: http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/knowle-relocation-project-prudent-thing.html
New HQ: a design idea for Mr Cohen
North Devon District Council on the move too
One interesting fact is that they estimate that it would cost £2m to demolish their current building.
It seems VERY fashionable these days to move HQ after a few years – wonder how long Honiton and Exmouth would be declared not fit for purpose?
http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/civic_centre_exit_is_on_schedule_1_3884759
So does he or doesn’t he …?
Several very reliable sources have said that current MP Hugo Swire heartily disagrees with EDDC’s current relocation plans to the point where he will go into print about it, rather than just talk about it as he apparently did last week in Sidmouth.
But still no sign of his views on his website or elsewhere – though the site does include a very interesting page that lists all the things a constituency MP COULD do for us if he were not so terribly busy at the Foreign office and rushing around the Middle East and Looking after Proctor and Gamble:
Too late, too late … the nag has gone!
It belatedly appears Hugo Swire has suddenly realised that spending £11m plus on a new HQ is an EDDC Tory folly.
Councillor Troman, who has announced this, though there is yet no confirmation from Mr Swire, now only has to persuade all his other Tory councillors (including those from Sidmouth) to follow suit.
What a pity Mr Swire has not been on board since 2011 when this project was announced (indeed since 2007 when it was apparently first mooted by the Tory majority). And no peep from him as we tried to get access to the figures on the move (culminating in EDDC appearing at Exeter Magistrates Court, dragged there by the Information Commissioner) and nvo help at all when we pointed out the folly of an HQ on Exeter’s doorstep rather than in the middle of his constituency.
However, there is a General Election looming, so U-turns seem to be the order of things now.
But OUR loyalty goes to those brave Independent councillors (particularly Claire Wright, Ben Ingham and Susie Bond) who have pointed out these follies consistently and tried to right the wrong – to the rude and arrogant derision of the majority of Tory councillors.
What a pity they fail to see the stupidity of spending vast amounts of our money on themselves in a time of austerity and at the same time selling our silver. And what a pity it came only hours AFTER the full cabinet endorsed the move. When the announcement could have carried so much more weight if it had been made before the event. Whilst the stable door was still on its hinges, so to speak.
But, the ballot box awaits and we can have our say then – thank goodness!
MP to call for Knowle relocation to be put on hold?
EDA hears on the grapevine that this is East Devon MP Hugo Swire’s intention. Any truth in this rumour?
If so, Cllr Claire Wright has pipped him to the post (possibly not for the last time), at last Wednesday’s Full Council meeting…as reported on the front page of today’s Sidmouth Herald (Fri 19/12/14).
Advice from relocation advisors
Government “special advisers” cheaper than EDDC!
“The cost of ministers’ special advisers has risen to £8.4m following a rise of more than £1m in the past year.
There are now 103 “spads” employed to give advice over and above the work carried out by civil servants, up from 98 last year, official figures show.
They include a total of 26 working for David Cameron in Downing Street and 20 working for Nick Clegg.”
But it doesn’t seem so much when one adviser is costing EDDC upwards of £10,500 per month to provide relocation expertise (which led to hundreds of thousands of pounds being abortively spent on the Skypark project).
At that cost Ministers could only have afforded 70 special advisers rather than the 103 they actually employed!
East Devon Watch 
