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31 Mar 2015

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Local Plan, Mark Williams CEO EDDC, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury

From the archives – 2 – Sidford employment land

Here is where our CEO said in July 2013 that you can’t change the Local Plan – and then did just that by adding Knowle redevelopment and then in Februart 2015 allowing 5 new business parks to be listed in the most recent draft Local Plan:

“It would be straightforward to remove the Sidford allocation from the Local Plan: failure to do so would risk the rejection of the whole plan by the Inspector. He seconded Cllr Troman’s motion that it should be deleted.

Chief Executive Mark Williams then advised that this would not be possible legally as it was not a minor amendment.

This provoked an extraordinary attack on Mr Williams by Cllr Allen. His advice was a “biased” view which showed ignorance of the NPPF. He did not have a “grip” on the legal situation, and had not taken account of all the legal considerations.
Tory Whip, Phil Twiss, jumped up to defend the CEO who must be right “because he is a solicitor” and Cllr Allen wasn’t!

Allen, who, in his day job is the Officer Responsible for Regeneration at South Somerset District Council, calmly replied that he had a considerable legal authority on his side – the NPPF.

A rather shell-shocked Council then proceeded to vote on the motion to delete Sidford. It was rejected.”

The Tory majority – immune to argument- went on to approve all the “minor amendments” to the Local Plan which approves the Knowle and Sidford proposals.

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

27 Mar 2015

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East Devon Alliance, EDDC, General Election, Independent Councillors, Mark Williams CEO EDDC

Inappropriate remarks about Parliamentary Candidate, by EDDC Chief Executive

Extraordinarily, there have been two Extra Ordinary Meetings of EDDC on consecutive days this week. On Wednesday evening (25 March), councillors attended a hastily-called decisive meeting about Knowle relocation. The very next afternoon (26 March), with similar rapidity, a meeting about the revised Local Plan was fixed, with the aim of approving it.

A correspondent tells us,

‘At the second of these meetings, Cllr Claire Wright had moved two very sensible amendments which the Chief Executive did not appear to like. The first was to ask the Inspector to allow two weeks more time for public consultation on the changes which were to be agreed at this meeting. The proposal had been to allow six weeks from 1st April. As was said by Hon Alderman Vivienne Ash, this would virtually disqualify many parish councils from commenting, because of the election ‘purdah’ period in which they would not be meeting. Councillors accepted the amendment, and so it was agreed to ask the Inspector to increase the public consultation period from six, to eight weeks.

Cllr Claire Wright’s second amendment was to invite the authors of the report on which EDDC was being asked to increase housing numbers, to a meeting in the near future to explain their findings and give members the opportunity to question them. Cllr Roger Giles backed the idea, adding that two opportunities for questions to the housing numbers experts, had already been missed this week (namely at the special Development Management Committee on 23 March, and ,indeed, at the current meeting (26 March).

It was at this point that the Chief Executive made what could be taken as totally inappropriate remarks. Arguing against Cllr Wright’s amendment, Mark Williams referred to “Councillor Wright`s parliamentary ambitions” and then veered off course, lecturing the rather bemused assembly about about the Exeter wards of Topsham, and St Loye`s being part of the East Devon constituency.

Cllr Giles made a point of order, and protested that what the Chief Exec was saying was irrelevant to the debate and inappropriate.’

Many of East Devon’s electorate, who will be living with the consequences of the Local Plan, would strongly agree with Cllr Giles.

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East Devon Watch

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27 Mar 2015

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EDDC, Mark Williams CEO EDDC

Government to make it easier (cheaper) to sack Chief Executives and other senior staff

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22369:dclg-to-publish-secondary-legislation-on-dismissal-of-senior-staff-by-councils&catid=57&Itemid=25

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

27 Mar 2015

Posted under

EDDC, Mark Williams CEO EDDC

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Senior officers of the council must be politically neutral, especially now

It says so on page 186 of EDDC’s constitution.

Political neutrality

3.1 You must serve all Councillors equally regardless of their political beliefs.

3.2 If you are asked to advise one of the political groups, you must do so in an impartial way and only with the prior approval of the Chief Executive.

3.3 You must follow every Council Policy and not let your own personal or political opinions interfere with your work.

So, why did CEO Mark Williams, when dealing with incisive questions from Councillor Claire Wright at the Council’s meeting about the Local Plan, (when she suggested consultants who wrote recent reports to the council should be questioned by those councillors) refer to her “political ambitions”?

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East Devon Watch

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20 Mar 2015

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Electoral Commission, Mark Williams CEO EDDC

Missing voters: EDDC is doing nothing … again

http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/east_devon_district_council_to_rely_on_national_publicity_to_encourage_vote

Are they worried that the missing voters would vote them out?

Seems Mr Williams has taken none of the criticism he received from his enforced appearance at the Parliamentary Commission on Voter Engagement when he was rapped over the knuckles for doing nothing for years.

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

11 Mar 2015

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Democracy, East Devon Alliance, EDDC, EDDC HQ, General Election, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation, Latest news, Local Plan, Mark Williams CEO EDDC

Unseemly haste leads to confusion at EDDC

Frantic rearrangement of EDDC’s schedule (“Nothing to do with the election” , said Cllr Paul Diviani at this evening’s Cabinet meeting) has prompted a correspondent to send us this:

‘I trust that when the next set of EDDC councillors control the army of Knowledge communications officers, the EDDC website will continue to provide as much amusement (and possibly a bit more information) for local residents. See eddc-press-release-manageable-growth ‘

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

24 Feb 2015

Posted under

East Devon Alliance, East Devon Electoral/Returning Officer, EDDC, Electoral Commission, General Election, Mark Williams CEO EDDC, Voting

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We have identified most of those 6,000 missing voters – just in time for the coming elections

Our long- running campaign (Sidmouth Independent News, EDA former blog, then this blog) has – with little thanks to EDDC – ensured that our district has at last caught up with most of the 6,000 voters missing from the electoral register in 2014 – a misfortune that got our CEO and Electoral Returning Officer, Mark Williams, hauled before the Parliamentary Commission on Voter Engagement to explain. Rather unsatisfactorily.

In its most recent report: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/182375/Analysis-of-the-December-2014-electoral-registers-in-England-and-Wales.pdf

the Electoral Commission has this to say about East Devon, key paragraph:

“In contrast, in East Devon, where the challenges are different, there hjas been an increase in the number of entries on the register. The ERO has attributed this to the success of making visits to non-responding properties and individuals, which were carried out across the area in 2014 for the first time since 2010.”

In other words, Mark Williams has effectively admitted that, had he carried our doorstep canvassing as he was required to do between 2010 and 2014, rather than trying to cut corners (for whatever reason) then most of the missing voters would have almost certainly been registered in that period.

This could well have affected the outcome of European elections in East Devon and, had these voters not made it on to the register, the outcome of district and Parliamentary Elections in May 2015. An election where results may hinge on only scores or hundreds of votes.

Next on the agenda to fix – Households of Multiple Occupation.