https://susiebond.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/hes-behind-you/
Shameful – politics before people, politics before common sense, politics before the safety of children.
How can you sleep at night, councillors?
Category Archives: Ottery St Mary
Localism has a price in Ottery St Mary
Some of Devon’s flood defences failing: Lympstone, Ottery and Clyst St Mary
“... The Environment Agency data showed the majority were in areas where large numbers of homes and businesses could be vulnerable to flooding.
However, the agency said “most of the issues are minor”.
Other failures from the agency’s latest inspection report included some sea defences, culverts, outfalls and embankments.”
Devon – Tavistock, Horrabridge, Plymouth, Lympstone, Ottery St Mary, Exeter, Totnes, Barnstaple, Dawlish Warren, Ilfracombe, Tiverton, Kingsbridge, Teignmouth, Torbay and Clyst St Mary”
Straitgate Quarry: update
Protesters say a separate West Hill parish council would be “snobbish”
The Herald revealed last year how the West Hill Parish Campaign Group (WHPCG) revealed its intention to split away from the Ottery parish and form its own authority. Campaigners say this would enable better provision of services for people in the woodland village and give residents greater influence over issues that affect them.
But the plans have been met with criticism on social media from some residents of Ottery and surrounding areas, who feel the plans are ‘snobbish’ and unnecessary – accusations that are refuted by campaigners. Ray Bagwell, 35, of Longdogs Lane, Ottery, said: “The plans are pointless and a waste of money.” His views were echoed by Sidmouth resident Matthew Baker, 37, who believes that West Hill is a more affluent area and feels that is why people there want to disassociate from Ottery. He said: “It is snobbish.”
Others said they would be interested to see how the changes – if they go ahead – would affect services for people in Ottery. Town councillor Jessica Bailey is one of the campaigners and has hit back at critics. “West Hill has its own identity and it needs to have its own voice,” she said. “Parish councils have wide ranging powers. A parish council in our village is the best way of identifying needs and providing services to the people who live here.”
She encouraged people to attend a public meeting on Friday, March 6, at 7.30pm in West Hill Village Hall, to voice any concerns and find out more. If successful, the bid for an independent West Hill council would mean drawing up new ward boundaries for Ottery St Mary Town Council.
Before an application can formally be put to East Devon District Council, the WHPCG needs to gather at least 250 signatures from West Hill residents. The campaign group is holding a drop-in session for anyone interested in getting more information on Saturday, January 31, from 9am to noon, outside McColls in West Hill Road.
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/west_hill_council_campaign_comes_under_fire_1_3935848
River Otter beavers can stay for now
West Hill wants its own parish council
Analyst says British supermarkets will need to close 20% of their shops to remain in profit
“Britain’s biggest supermarket groups must close one in five shops in order to turn around their performance, analysts at Goldman Sachs have warned.
In a damning report on the grocery industry, the Goldman analysts said closing stores is the “only viable solution” if the major food retailers are to grow profits again. The comments came after Waitrose boss Mark Price told The Telegraph that the “Big Four” supermarkets could be forced to start closing shops as the industry faces its biggest transformation since the 1950s.
Shares in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, the listed supermarket groups, have already fallen by 50pc over the last year as their sales have slumped. However, the Goldman analysts, led by Rob Joyce, warned: “We believe the major decisions that will shape the future of the UK grocery market are yet to be taken.”
Hugo needed yet again to sort out Sidmouth’s drains!
Forget Ottery, Hugo – Sidmouth (and Woodbury) need you back to sort out their drains!
Here is where he promised to sort the sewers out:
http://www.hugoswire.org.uk/news/towns-arteries-clogged-fat
and indeed the clogged fat was said to have been cleared in July:
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/news/sidmouth_s_sewers_cleared_of_fatbergs_1_3698046.
Back to the drawing board on water drains and a need to put on the high-vis jacket again, Hugo, with or without the shovel and with or without the clogged arteries!
Just a thought, but it might be Victorian drains trying to cope where massive development and more houses hasn’t led to massive upgrading of infrastructure.
Could you, too, be a SWIMBY?
Check this link and consider.. http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins/2014-10/our-month-rethinking-real-estate-why-i-m-proud-be-swimby
Clinton Devon Estates plans for River Otter flood relief
Where Claire Wright leads, Hugo Swire follows – except where drains and pizzas are concerned
Claire Wright, EDDC Independent Councillor, has long been campaigning to keep the River Otter beavers. Hugo has just jumped on her bandwaggon rather late in the day.
Claire Wright started campaigning to save local community hospitals as soon as news got out that they were threatened and immediately organised a public meeting about her local hospital, attended by more than 200 people. Hugo was initially pro “efficiency changes” saying ” now is not the time to “whip up excitement”
However, he did bring up smelly drains in Sidmouth and Ottery, having been pictured with his nose down one such drain, promising to get it fixed when it was clear from marks on the pavement in the accompanying picture that remedial work had already been scheduled – as it is in all the towns and villages of East Devon.
He also stole a march on pizza-making in Sainsbury’s in Ottery.
So, if you want to save hospitals and beavers, perhaps Claire Wright is your best bet. But if you want an acute nose for nasty smells and you need to have a pizza made in Sainsbury’s Hugo is your man.
And it’s still more than six months to the general election!
Local unemployment figures at a record low
Information sent to us by an EDA correspondent, with a following comment:
An article on p.13 of today’s issue of Sidmouth Herald states:
“A fall in the number of people claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance in Sidmouth and in Ottery St Mary has contributed to the lowest Devon-wide claimant figures on record.”
61 claimants in Sidmouth
32 claimants in Ottery St Mary
0.9% of working age population v national average of 2.3%
________________________________________
Only 61 claimants? How does that square with EDDC plans for 1,350 jobs planned for Sidford and their ambitions to reduce commuting?
Local Health service “consultation”
We have been told by our local health group that we are being “consulted” on widespread changes to community care, particularly community hospitals.
Then almost immediately we hear that in Ottery there is to be a “temporary” stroke unit
http://www.northdevonhealth.nhs.uk/2014/10/trust-to-centralise-community-stroke-rehabilitation-services-in-ottery-st-mary/
and Axminster’s inpatient beds are to close over winter and nurses will be transferred to Seaton
The so-called “consultation” document did not include either of these plans nor did they include costings of ANY of the various other alternatives in their report.
So what exactly ARE we being consulted about? And is it worth the paper it is written on?
Ottery Community Hospital: does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
Who passed the planning application for the Conservative Party notice board in West Hill?
Current MP Hugo Swire and prodpective candidate Claire Wright have had a spat about who said what about the local heealth service changes in East Devon
As can be seen from comments, it was suggested that she puts her riposte in the same place (by the local shop) so people can judge for themselves who said what. However, Councillor Roger Giles pointed out that is was a Conservative Party notice board so it is unlikely that she would be allowed to post a reply on it.
Try as we may we have been unable to find any planning application for this notice board on the EDDC website Planning Applications Online service.
Can anyone pount us to the planning application number and details of where the siting of this notice board was agreed, when, by whom (was it by officer delegation, for example or by committee) and what conditions, if any, were placed on it?
Is it owned by the shop or someone else?
Community hospital closures
Our area health group have said they will not cut community hospital beds until people have adequate alternative care provided:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29501588
So, looks like those cuts will (should) never happen or at least not for a very, very long time.
Left hand and right hand out of sync again – this time on community hospitals
.…. The NHS chief executive will outline new models of care amid warnings of critical shortages of family doctors and fears that the NHS could not cope with a bad winter. Mr Stevens will suggest that GP practices could open in hospitals, especially in urban areas, where doctors are spread too thinly between a number of traditional local practices. In other areas, family doctors could band together to run expanded community hospitals, employing hospital consultants and other staff and offering extra services, such as scans, outpatient chemotherapy and dialysis.
The plan follows indications earlier this year that Mr Stevens wants to see a bigger role for “cottage”, community and local district general hospitals.
He will say that there will be no national blueprint, but that towns, cities and rural communities should find models which work for their populations, and ensure services work around the patient.
EU law may protect Otter beavers
Praise be! Hugo Swire is going to personally sort out Ottery’s drains!
Hope he remembers his (expensive) wellies:
And as for all the hardworking people who have been working for years and years to sort out drains in East Devon – where can we expect him to pop up next! He’s already (not) sorted out the drains in Sidmouth but we live in hope!
East Devon Watch 