Using the postcode finder (and note this does not include 2018 when AT LEAST EDDC sold off son]me of Knowle park and Beach Light Housing at Seaton);
“Between 2014 and 2017, East Devon Council sold
15
spaces for more than
£233,853”
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-03-04/sold-from-under-you?
Details of the properties can be found using the pistcode finder on the website.
Rewilding would (according to the Environment Secretary) focus on:
Native woodlands
Salt marshes
Peat bogs
Ponds and lakes
Meadows and grasslands
all of which we have in abundance in East Devon.
Perhaps it is now time to revive the idea of a Jurassic Coast National Park (West Dorset would be an already-enthusiastic partner) which was squashed by the previous council because they feared losing their cosy relationship with housing developers …
And, as part of our climate emergency, make rewilding an integral part of all future neighbourhood, district and Greater Exeter development plans.
“Unless your readers live in a new house on an estate they will have little understanding of what happens today.
I moved onto a new estate which had a grassed open area. I was aware that there was some infrastructure to prevent flooding beneath it and knew that I would have to pay a share of the upkeep. I did not fully understand was that it was a public open space which was available for anyone’s use, not just the residents on the estate.
Maintenance charges have rocketed whilst quality of service has been poor. Any talk of with holding service charge payments is referred promptly to debt recovery. The whole system is unregulated and frankly, stinks.
I have dug deep to try to understand how a simple purchase of a freehold house is suddenly caught up in a land charge where I am compelled to pay for maintenance of land owned by someone else.
The root cause of the problem seems to have started with the council. In this case EDDC. As part of the planning condition for the estate the developer had to provide a public open space and a SUDS system to prevent flooding. In all probability it was an attempt by the council to stick their fingers up at the developers and force them to provide facilities for public benefit at no cost to the local authority.
The next stage was to make the developers responsible for the maintenance of the new open spaces. They could either do that themselves or pay a lump sum to the council to maintain it for the next 25years. Clearly the developers were unable to afford that so they passed the maintenance charges on to the residents within the title deeds for each house.
That was very unpopular and most developers, wanting to distance themselves from the problem, gave the piece of public land to a land management company. It seems that none of those companies are regulated and can charge what they like. If you don’t pay their bill they could apparently seize your house. All quite outrageous.
There has been lots of bad press about these land management companies and the matter discussed in Whitehall although the housing minister has taken little interest.
In East Devon our Conservative council has decided to stick their nose in the trough and has decided to offer to take over the public open spaces at Cranbrook and offer to carry out the maintenance of the public open spaces and charge F band houses £370 per annum and H band houses £512 per annum. Both of those figures are in addition to the normal council tax which is supposed to cover supply and maintenance of public open spaces !!
So lets look at this…. EDDC created the problem by insisting that the developer provide the public open spaces which the council had no intention of maintaining. When it all starts to go wrong EDDC offer to take the responsibility over but only by penalising the residents who live on those estates.
To make it clear those public open spaces are available for use by anyone. So maintenance of those public open spaces should be maintained at public expense. The costs must be paid out of council tax revenue.
This mess has been created by EDDC who enjoy a massive Conservative majority. Any proposals are just nodded through without opposition.
I have always voted Conservative in the past but things have got out of hand. Things must change. The public has a chance to voice their opinion in the local elections on 2nd May.
I know I won’t be for any Conservative Councillor and no, it’s got nothing to to with Brexit….”
Public open spaces
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sold-from-under-you-explainer_uk_5c796bdee4b033abd14b61c8
Land and buildings:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/revealed-councils-are-selling-off-buildings-to-fund-more-council-cuts_uk_5c7cdc1be4b0e1f776539948
No-one goes into public service to do this:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/council-funding-austerity_uk_5c794d31e4b0de0c3fc03024
Owl says: with many urban parks being sold off for poor-quality, high-cost housing it seems “wellbeing” just isn’t a priority.
“… Researchers from the University of Alabama found people who visited their local parks experienced physical and mental health benefits ranging from stress reduction to recovery from mental fatigue.
“Overall, we found park visitors reported an improvement in emotional wellbeing after the park visit,” said lead researcher Hon Yuen. “We did not find levels of physical activity are related to improved emotional wellbeing. Instead, we found time spent in the park is related to improved emotional wellbeing.” …”
Ramblers Association:
“We have until January 2026 to save our historic rights of way.
Well over 140,000 miles of public paths criss-cross England and Wales. This network has evolved over centuries with many paths dating back to medieval times – or earlier! These paths link villages, hamlets, roads and towns – they describe how generations before us travelled to the pub, field or shops and reflect the changing patterns of human interaction with the landscape. To this day, millions of people across our towns, cities and countryside, use this fantastic network. However, miles and miles of our public paths are unrecorded and if they are not put on the map by 1 January 2026, they will be lost for ever.
Download our guide below and get started on the hunt for lost rights of way in your area (requires form fill-in)
Note the words. Not a publicly OWNED green space – a publicly ACCESSIBLE green space. Big difference!
Sorry there is no link to the masterplan. The three EDDC-dictated press releases Owl has seen on various sites include no link, just rather hazy schematics or cartoons, so far.
Developer definition of trees – two trees which residents have to pay high maintenance charges on
Developer definition of open space – pocket handkerchief, which belongs to them but which residents have to pay for high upkeep costs
“Developers will be forced to demonstrate to planners that they are improving wildlife habitats whenever they build new homes, Michael Gove will say on Sunday.
Under plans that will go out for consultation next week, builders will be required to deliver a ‘biodiversity net gain’ when building new housing or commercial development.
This means that wildlife habitats must be enhanced and left in a measurably better state than they were before development started.
It could also see developers planting more green spaces around new developments. …”
“Playgrounds are being closed at the alarming rate of nearly two a week as they fall victim to neglect, vandalism and property developers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
To the dismay of families, a staggering 347 council playgrounds have been axed since 2014 – the equivalent of seven a month – according to the new figures.
Local authorities have removed 70 playgrounds in the last year alone – and they plan to further slash spending on facilities by almost half in the next two years. …”
The Mail on Sunday today has launched a petition stop parks being sold off.
If only they had created it BEFORE the massive sell-off, instead of after.
But then Tory donor developers – who bought the parks – wouldn’t have liked it.
“Plans for a new country park serving the 2,500 homes to be built on the edge of Exeter are being cut back, it has been claimed.
The 70-hectare park (173 acres) in the area of the new homes around the Devon Hotel is being dropped by Teignbridge District Council in favour of one that is much smaller, says local county councillor Alan Connett.
Cllr Connett says he has uncovered the council’s plan for a park less than two-thirds the size of the original plan, at 39 hectares (96 acres).
He said: “Teignbridge’s own Local Plan, which sets out how the district will develop over the next 20 years, promises a ‘ridge top park of approximately 70 hectares’. “However, we see yet again how the council promises the earth and then quietly changes the plan.”
In a confidential report going to Teignbridge Council’s Executive committee on Tuesday, October 2, Mr Connett said it was understood the ruling Conservative councillors would be asked to back a new, smaller countryside park for the South West of Exeter development.
Cllr Connett, a Liberal Democrat, said: “Teignbridge now wants to concentrate on a country park that is over a third smaller than it promised residents. “Much of the development at South West Exeter is, in fact, in the parish of Exminster, which will see an extra 2,000 houses within the community, and just 500 ‘over the border’ in Exeter.
“The ridge top park is seen as an essential part of the development not only to provide open space for the residents who will live in the new homes but also to take pressure off the Exe Estuary and reduce the number of visitors.
“This is another example of the planning system promising one thing but delivering less than that promise.
It was the council that put forward a country park of approximately 70 hectares but now, in a secret meeting not open to the Press or the public, and without any consultation, it plans to renege on that promise.
“This is why local people lose faith in the planning system and don’t believe councils when they say good quality community benefits will be gained from large scale housing developments.
“Of course, a park of 96 acres will still be a big space to walk dogs, enjoy picnics and family time together, but that is not the point. “The park will be part of the community for ever more, we hope, and it’s already being downsized.
“As Exeter and Teignbridge continue to grow in the years to come, future generations will come to regret that the Park was not the promised 70 hectares.
“Also, as a local councillor I am now gagged and prevented from saying more about what I have uncovered because the council has ensured all this is being discussed in private, in secret session.”
“Teignbridge says it is an ‘open and transparent’ council, but yet again we see it is anything but that. “It prefers to do its business and cut back on its promises in a private meeting which the public are not allowed to attend.”
A spokesman for Teignbridge Council said Teignbridge adopted its Local Plan in 2014 and at the time the Plan’s independent Inspector noted that the Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace allocation at South West Exeter was sufficient to address the impacts planned development, as well as possible needs in the future.
He said: “The same year, a masterplan for South West Exeter was publicly consulted on and adopted by the Council.
“It explained that 36 hectares of the 70 hectare allocation were needed to accommodate planned development and that the allocation of the larger area therefore provided longer term flexibility.
“The additional provision to the total of 70 hectares indicated was put in there to provide greater flexibility for the countryside park to expand in the future.
“In all cases the land areas being talked about are significantly larger than Dawlish countryside park.”
Cllr Humphrey Clemens, Teignbridge’s Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Housing and Planning, said: “In line with council procedure, Cllr Connett has had the opportunity to raise any questions in advance of the Executive and I welcome the opportunity to have an open discussion with him during the meeting.”
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/devon-country-park-shrinks-2062679
“A bid has been launched by Cranbrook Town Council (CTC) to halt the building of the new country park resource centre.
The move comes a month after permission was granted by district planning chiefs for the 135sqm centre on land west of Stone Barton.
However, a report by CTC clerk Sarah Jenkins said East Devon District Council (EDDC) went back on an ‘understanding’ to adopt the country park resource centre, which its country park ranger would use it as a base.
However, EDDC cite the ‘economic climate’ and ‘availability of local authority funding’ as the reason it prefers to merge a number of facilities into a single building.
In her report, Mrs Jenkins said: “Under the section 106 agreement (private agreements made between local authorities and developers), the Consortium are required to provide a country park resource centre, hence the recent planning application.
“At the time, there was an understanding that EDDC would adopt the centre and their country park ranger would use it as a base. Since then, EDDC has decided that it does not want to adopt the centre.”
In January this year, councillors at CTC resolved to agree in principle that it would take ownership of the centre direct from the Consortium, once it is delivered.
They also resolved to enter negotiations with EDDC to determine the future role of the country park ranger and their future employment arrangements.
But in her report, Mrs Jenkins said: “The country park ranger has since left and EDDC has made the decision not to recruit a replacement ranger.
“Having been faced with the EDDC withdrawal, the town council has indicated to the Consortium and EDDC that it may not wish to have resource centre.”
At a meeting last month, CTC resolved to request the centre is not built and that the function of the facility and country park ranger be accommodated instead in Cranbrook’s future town hall.
Councillors also resolved to request that the section 106 funding for the country park centre be transferred to the town to provide other ‘much-needed’ facilities.
A spokesperson for EDDC said: “The section 106 agreement that secures developer contributions and obligations in relation to the country park resource centre and other infrastructure at Cranbrook was originally signed in 2010.
“At the time, it was envisaged that the town would be served by a number of individual buildings to accommodate civic and community uses.
“When the original legal agreement was approved, EDDC had been indicated as taking ownership of the country park resource centre.
“In the absence of having responsibility over any part of the country park, that now sits with Cranbrook Town Council, it was decided to offer the asset to the town council for adoption.
“From April 2018, Cranbrook Town Council adopted the country park in the town and is now responsible for its management and maintenance.
“A building housing the permanent offices of Cranbrook Town Council (as well as the library) is envisaged to be built on land immediately south of the country park in the town centre, a location where many of the functions of a country park resource centre could be accommodated.
“The community space element of the previously proposed country park resource centre could be accommodated in another community building and this could be part-funded by some of the monies that would have otherwise been spent on the centre.
“The Cranbrook country park ranger had been employed by East Devon District Council but the ranger left post earlier in 2018 and before the end of the developer funding for the position.
“A new legal agreement to pass the remaining funding to Cranbrook Town Council to enable them to employ a ranger to manage the land they have adopted is under way.
“In the interim there is currently no Cranbrook country park ranger in post.”
Ed Dolphin (Sidmouth Arboretum) is being interviewed by ITV in the ex-flower meadow tonight – for ITV SW.
“London’s Hampstead Heath isn’t just a great place to hang out in during the summer, it’s also a vital tool for preventing global warming.
According to a new study by University College London, the UK’s urban forests such as Hampstead Heath can actually store the same amount of carbon as a tropical rainforest.
The remarkable findings will be vital for city planners who are hoping to create the next generation of sustainable cities.
The study was carried out using airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data collected by the UK Environment Agency, combined with ground-based LiDAR measurements.
Together the University was able to generate a map of the carbon stored in an estimated 85,000 trees in the London Borough of Camden.
Using that data they found that green areas such as Hampstead Heath were able to store up to 178 tonnes of carbon per hectare. This is in comparison to the median value for rainforests which can store up to 190 tonnes of carbon per hectare.
“Urban trees are a vital resource for our cities that people walk past every day. We were able to map the size and shape of every tree in Camden, from forests in large parks to individual trees in back gardens.” Explained lead author of the study, Dr. Phil Wilkes….”
“A teenage girl has spoke of the moment a grown mum swore at and attacked her and her 14-year-old friend – while a group of children watch on.
The shocking clash, filmed by an eyewitness and shared publicly to Facebook, happened at a park next to St Martin’s Primary School, Cranbrook, just before 10pm on Friday.
The heavily-built woman and her friends loudly challenge a group of teenagers, snapping selfies against that evening’s striking sunset, in front of what appears to be their own children.
A row breaks out and the woman, wearing a flower-patterned dress, walks toward the group and shoves a 14-year-old girl before appearing to slap Angel Robinson, 17, in her face.
The force of the blow sees her knees buckle, as the park erupts with shouting and swearing.
Angel’s mum Sheena Robinson is fuming over the assault on a daughter who “would not hurt a fly” and weighs only six stone.
Speaking with Devon Live, Angel and her mum spoke of their anger and upset over the shocking incident – filmed by her friend Dayna, also confronted in the footage.
Angel said: “Basically, we were up the park and there was a family drinking vodka and wine and getting really, really drunk. “While we were stood taking selfies one of them started shouting at us.
“Another woman then gobbed off and started on Dayna. Then she whacks the 14-year-old. I went in and then she hits me.”
Angel says that, luckily, the swipe did not leave a mark on her.
For Angel, it proves that teenagers aren’t necessarily the cause of anti-social behaviour in the East Devon town.
“You see all over [Facebook community page] Belonging To Cranbrook complaints about teenagers and that we are the problem.
“But these were grown women. The parents are just as bad as the teenagers.”
Angel and her mum say the family at the table are not known to them, and it had been the first time Angel had encountered them at the park.
She says the incident won’t put her off returning with her mates.
Sheena says Devon & Cornwall Police have been made aware of the footage and are looking into the incident.
It wasn’t the only fight to break out in Cranbrook that evening.
Police were called to an altercation between two men at Great Meadow at 6.45pm.
A row led to one of them being shoved into a bush.
Police are using CCTV to help their enquiries.”
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/row-over-sunset-selfies-erupts-1711868
“A coalition of countryside groups and environmentalists are calling on the government to protect the UK’s parks and green spaces which are at “crisis point” following years of swingeing budget cuts.
The group has today put forward a “Charter for Parks”which calls on ministers in England, Wales and Scotland to make it a legal requirement for all parks and green spaces to be maintained and managed to a “good standard.”
It also calls on them “to recognise the right of every citizen to have access within walking distance to a good-quality public green space.”
Dave Morris, Chair of the National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces, said “time was running out” for the UK’s parks.
“Budget cuts to staffing and maintenance are leaving them vulnerable to neglect and deterioration, or even sell offs. Many people think local councils are legally responsible for maintaining local parks and open spaces but unfortunately, unlike waste collection, that’s not the case yet.”
He said the charter called on politicians “to take action to ensure these essential and highly-popular public resources are properly funded, managed, maintained, and protected for current and future generations.”
He added: “As the voice of the movement of more than 6,000 local Friends of Parks Groups throughout the UK we recognise the immense contribution that these community volunteers are playing. Now it’s time for government to show an equal commitment to act. The public will not forgive political leaders who let the sun set on the UK’s parks.” ….
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/21/time-running-out-for-uk-parks-government-told
And guess what? They are being sold off (as in land appropriated by EDDC for PegasusLife) or kept under the control of developers – as in Cranbrook.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/07/uk-parks-save-nhs-111m-year-study-suggests
Of course, some councils (naming no names) positively relish selling off the family silver to fund such things as posh new HQ … and note the bit about “transforming services” … a phrase our council adores!
“On Friday, the government-appointed inspector sent in to examine Northamptonshire county council’s books after it went effectively bankrupt is due to publish his report on what went wrong.
While he may identify some failings that can be laid at the council’s door alone, in reality Northamptonshire merely had the dubious honour of last month becoming the first local authority since 1998 to be unable to balance its books. According to last week’s report by the government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, there are around 15 councils that could follow suit in the next three years. The most likely contenders seem to be the Tory-run Surrey, Somerset, Lancashire and Norfolk county councils.
The NAO’s analysis highlights the financial predicament facing councils across England. Government funding has fallen by nearly 50% since 2010. Combined with increased demand for adult and children’s social care and homelessness services, as well as paying higher national insurance contributions for staff, implementing the “national living wage” and the apprenticeship levy, growing numbers of unitary and county councils are relying on their reserves to balance their budgets, the watchdog found.
If current rates of spending continue, the NAO calculates that 10% of social care authorities will have exhausted their reserves within the next three years, while more than 20% will have depleted them within four to five years. A recent survey by the Local Government Information Unit thinktank (LGIU) found that 80% of councils were concerned about their finances. Having already slashed spending on management, administration and non-statutory services, as well as raising council tax, local authorities are desperately trying to find sources of revenue. Most plan to increase or introduce charges for services such as parking, garden waste disposal, burials, planning, home care and meals on wheels. With no financial lifeline from the chancellor, Philip Hammond, in his spring statement on Tuesday, many are also having to sell off their assets to raise cash.
Although councils have long been able to sell school playing fields, swimming pools and leisure centres, they were previously barred from using money from building or land sales to fund frontline services. But since 2016, the government has allowed them to invest the proceeds of assets sold by April 2019 in “transforming” frontline services. This has given councils a greater incentive to flog assets. According to the NAO, in the year to April 2017, £118.5m of such capital receipts were used in this way.
Northamptonshire’s proposed sell-off of its new £53m HQ has been widely reported. But numerous other councils are hoping to sell their historic town halls, from Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, to Southall in west London and Shotley Bridge in County Durham. Until last month Broxtowe borough council in Nottingham had also planned to sell Beeston town hall to developers, but in the face of fierce local opposition it is now inviting bids from those interested in making alternative use of the building.
“It’s a historic building which has been the civic centre for Beeston since 1936 and represents a lot for the people,” says Matt Turpin, a project and communications manager at Nottingham Unesco City of Literature and the co-founder of a blog about Beeston. “The locals are hugely against it. The council ran a consultation last year and 94% said they were against demolition.” A spokeswoman for the council says shortlisted proposals will be asked to submit business plans before a full council meeting makes a final decision.
With buoyant land values, it is hardly surprising that council-owned parks are vulnerable. Knowsley council in Merseyside is planning to sell 17 parks to developers for an estimated £40m. This will be used to create a charitable trust that will fund all future maintenance and upkeep of its remaining parks. The council will no longer fund parks and green spaces after 2019. After its 2018 budget was approved last week, the plans will now go before the scrutiny committee before a final decision later this year.
Knowsley is far from alone. More than half of cash-strapped councils in the north-west of England are considering selling their parks or finding other organisations to maintain them.
A 2018 parks survey being published on Thursday by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) reveals that 85% of cash-strapped councils expect to cut parks and green spaces funding. Paul O’Brien, APSE’s chief executive, says this is a false economy. “While divesting parks may seem like a quick solution to financial pressures, in the long term we lose a valuable community asset that can generate a real return for local places and local people, he says.
“If we want to create healthy, active communities, develop attractive public realms to bring in new businesses and jobs, and safeguard the environment, then parks are the answer not the problem.”
“… in all the proliferating discussion about the rights and wrongs of the history of privatisation in Britain – both from those determined to row back against the neoliberal tide and those convinced that renationalisation is the wrong answer – Britain’s biggest privatisation of all never merits a mention. This is partly because so few people are aware that it has even taken place, and partly because it has never been properly studied. What is this mega-privatisation? The privatisation of land.
Some activists have hinted at it. Last October, for instance, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), a progressive thinktank, called in this newspaper for the government to stop selling public land. But the NEF’s is solely a present-day story, picturing land privatisation as a new phenomenon. It gives no sense of the fact that this has been occurring on a massive scale for fully 39 years, since the day that Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street. During that period, all types of public land have been targeted, held by local and central government alike. And while disposals have generally been heaviest under Tory and Tory-led administrations, they definitely did not abate under New Labour; indeed the NHS estate, in particular, was ravaged during the Blair years.
All told, around 2 million hectares of public land have been privatised during the past four decades. This amounts to an eye-watering 10% of the entire British land mass, and about half of all the land that was owned by public bodies when Thatcher assumed power. How much is the land that has been privatised in Britain worth? It is impossible to say for sure. But my conservative estimate, explained in my forthcoming book on this historic privatisation, called The New Enclosure, is somewhere in the region of £400bn in today’s prices. This dwarfs the value of all of Britain’s other, better known, and often bitterly contested, privatisations. …”
East Devon Watch 