Just 12 months ago, East Devon voters helped topple Boris Johnson in a by-election after the tractor-porn MP, Neil Parish, resigned. Now Johnson himself has resigned as an MP (because he knew he’d lose a by-election in his London constituency), it feels as though what we started last year is coming to fruition.

Richard Foord, our new Lib Dem MP, has certainly hit the ground running. Having stood for election myself to save the community hospitals threatened with closure in 2017, I was especially pleased to see his new campaign to bring the beds back into Axminster, Honiton, Ottery and Seaton hospitals. The need for these wards was amply demonstrated during the pandemic, when Devon NHS was reduced to commandeering hotels to cope with the extra patients.

I’m sure Richard would agree that this will be just one part of restoring the NHS to a state where we can all be sure of the right care. It will require massive investment in nurses and doctors, which realistically is only likely to come from a Labour government under Keir Starmer. Although he is playing down the issue, it’s obvious that Labour will have to put in huge extra funds as Tony Blair did after Margaret Thatcher and John Major ran down the NHS in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

How can we in East Devon help the big national change which is needed? Our first priority must be to keep Richard as our MP in the election which is due in 2024. The constituency boundaries have changed and reading between the lines it looks likely that he will stand in the new Honiton & Sidmouth constituency. Here he will be up against the Tories’ Simon Jupp, who has done a chicken run from the new Exmouth & East Exeter constituency (where 78 per cent of the people he currently represents live).

Jupp’s shift testifies to the fact that on paper, Honiton & Sidmouth is the safer Tory seat. By the same token, all of us who want to keep the Tories out must rally behind Richard, assuming he is the Lib Dem candidate. It was great in the local elections to be able to vote Independent, Lib Dem, Green or Labour, and see a good mixture of candidates elected. In the general election, it will be a different kettle of fish. Many Tories who stayed at home in the by-election will come out and put their cross against Jupp. If anything, Richard will be the underdog, and he will need absolutely every vote.

Keeping our first non-Tory MP will be an enormous achievement for the area and a boost for the Lib Dem-Independent-Green alliance which runs EDDC. It will also help to ensure that when Starmer takes over from Sunak, we have an independent voice to put our concerns to the new Labour government. Keeping our Lib Dem MP will be a win-win.

It’s time too to start thinking seriously about the General Election options in Exmouth & East Exeter. Jupp is fleeing this seat precisely because it’s a better option for a strong anti-Tory candidate – Independent candidate Claire Wright made it a marginal and was just 5,000 votes behind last time. With Claire out of the picture, it’s important that a single strong challenger emerges to replace her.

I don’t know who that will be, but the worst possible outcome would be a close contest between the Lib Dem and Labour candidates which lets the Tory squeak through the middle. Historically the Lib Dems have been stronger in this seat and they need to choose a credible candidate who can continue where Claire left off. In 2024, both East Devon constituencies could elect progressive MPs. It’s a historic opportunity and we must not let it slip.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

12 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Freeports are costing a fortune. Why aren’t they being monitored?

“The Plymouth and South Devon Freeport will supercharge the South West economy by building on our region’s unique national capabilities in marine, defence and space to form globally impactful clusters and a UK Innovation Superpower.” – Owl

Darren Jones MP, the Labour chair of the business and trade committee, has secured for himself a place on the shortlist for what I’m going to call the “Wait, What?” award for June.

James Moore www.independent.co.uk

I shall bestow this on those who say things in otherwise anodyne-looking press releases that immediately pull you up.

Here’s his quote on the subject of freeports, one of Rishi Sunak’s flagship economic policies, something we have repeatedly been told will be a major benefit of Brexit. If that’s not an oxymoron. (PS: it is.)

“The government hopes that freeports and investment zones will transform regional economies, but we don’t yet have an agreement on how success should be measured.”

Wait, What? Think about what Jones said for a moment. These are government-certified big deals that the then little-known Sunak extolled the virtues of in a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank, way back in 2016.

Boris Johnson would happily bang on about them to anyone who cared to listen. And yet, here is Jones, announcing the terms of an inquiry into them, telling us there’s no agreement on how the policy should be assessed.

This matters. These specialised zones offer a series of generous concessions to the businesses operating within them.

There are eight in England, with two more given the go-ahead in Wales. Scotland has its own take on the wheeze, having announced two “green” freeports, which had to include plans for lowering emissions in the bidding process although they don’t face hard requirements to actually deliver on saving the planet.

The lot of them sit outside the UK’s main tax and tariff rules and enjoy lower regulation. But they have many critics. The TUC has, for example, expressed fears that they will serve as a “Trojan horse” which will usher in lower standards to the detriment of people working within them.

They aren’t cheap. The Office for Budget Responsibility thinks they will cost £50m a year from the current financial year, with the largest costs arising from employer national insurance contribution relief and business rate incentives they grant.

The OBR, however, admits that its estimate is a shaky one for a variety of reasons. The extent to which the various tax reliefs will be taken up is not known. Another outstanding question is how much freeport activity will be genuinely new investment and how much will simply be displaced from other parts of the UK by businesses seeking to take advantage of the tax breaks.

Critics of them see this displacement as another major problem.

It’s not as if they’re really new. A number of them were set up in the 1980s but the Conservative-led coalition government led by David Cameron phased them out in 2012 because their success was strictly limited.

Ah, but this time it’s different, say their proponents, such as Sunak. Now we’re outside the EU we can do all sorts of exciting things with them.

Well, we’ll see, shall we? The government does indeed have more flexibility than it had. The EU has been taking an increasingly dim view of the 80 within its member states because of some of the failings they are accused of. Here’s some more: critics say they facilitate money laundering and tax avoidance.

If the UK ones get too exciting in terms of incentives (and subsidies), the EU may very well take umbrage and levy retaliatory tariffs. There’s no such thing as a (tax) free lunch. We ought to have realised that by now.

With all those concerns, you would think a framework for measuring the success of this important and expensive economic policy would have been constructed, agreed and signed off years ago, but apparently not.

A cynic might suggest that this is because it isn’t just a big chunk of taxpayers’ money that is being invested in these things. An even more substantial amount of political capital has been pumped into them.

It would therefore be quite inconvenient if our putative framework were to adjudge them a white elephant at best, and a venue for the realisation of critics’ fears at worst.

Over to Jones’s committee, which will seek to measure the impact that freeports are having on business and trade and to consider where the cash lavished on them has been spent and whether it has been well spent.

Thank goodness someone is looking into this.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

12 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Sidmouth: Lethal metal poles stick out of sand at beauty spot

Beachgoers at a Devon beauty spots have been warned of what lurks beneath after what looks like scaffolding metal poles have been spotted sticking out of the sand. The scaffolding poles were pictured by Devon Arborists who took the picture above as a warning to dog walkers and swimmers enjoying Jacob’s Ladder in Sidmouth.

Olivier Vergnault www.devonlive.com

Jacob’s Ladder is one of the town’s two large beaches. An expanse of sand and shingle, the beach gets its name from the series of wooden steps that lead down from Connaught Gardens.

Over the past few weeks parts of the promenade have been fenced off as work is underway to repair it. People who have commented on the Devon Arborists’ post on Facebook have branded the metal poles sticking out of the sand a “horrific accident waiting to happen”.

Commenting on the post which was reposted by the Sidmouth Community for the people group, Leitch David said it was vital people going to the beach checked out where they swim before diving in as “you never know what lurks beneath”.

Samantha Day added: “Goodness, that’s a horrible accident waiting to happen, especially when the tide is in and you can’t see them.”

Richard Davey agreed, adding: “Absolutely lethal and horrible to think someone may have had a serious head or facial injury. Well done for bringing it to our attention.” Roger Hamilton-Kendall couldn’t agree more, adding: “Need to remove that sort of thing. Dread to imagine someone diving into the sea.”

Deborah Milward said: “Can it be removed ASAP as children or dogs could really have nasty accidents on those dread to think?”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

11 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Devon devolution deal could be offered by the autumn

Will this make the Local Enterprise Partnership, Heart of the South West (HotSW), and all the other unelected, business led bodies trying to bid for central government strategic regional funding redundant? – Owl

Ollie Heptinstall www.devonlive.com

A devolution deal for the whole of Devon is progressing and could be offered to the county by the autumn. Outline approval was given in March to transfer new money and powers to local leaders – part of ‘levelling-up’ proposals by the government.

The ‘level two’ deal does not require an elected mayor, nor change the established council structure. Instead, a combined board would be created with the leaders of Devon County, Torbay and Plymouth councils, as well as district representatives.

The South West Local Enterprise Partnership’s scrutiny committee was told on Thursday [8 June] that work is now underway on the formalities, with six areas of greater powers being focussed on. These include more say on housing, devolution of adult education funding and more control of public transport commissioning.

Phill Adams from Devon County Council, who updated the committee, said the government is also open to exploring other areas for devolution, including innovation, tourism and culture. The planned combined authority will be “standalone from existing councils” according to Mr Adams.

“It would be led by the three upper-tier councils in conjunction with the districts in Devon … a business voice and some partners – most likely education.”

The combined board would be chaired by one of the three upper tier leaders – Cllrs John Hart (Conservative), David Thomas (Conservative) or Tudor Evans (Labour).

“It doesn’t replace anything,” Mr Adams stressed. “It’s not taking over. It’s not a super council or anything like that. This is purely around local government having a body to work through some of these functions that come down from government together. It’s very different from a mayoral approach. This is very much around developing what we’ve got.”

Once the deal has been offered by the government, it will then be subject to approval by local councils and a formal consultation process.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

11 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Comments

1 Comment

A cautionary tale of a council’s reckless regeneration vision

Woking has a council tax income on a similar scale to EDDC’s.

On an annual council tax take of £11m, it is now paying £62m a year to service £1.8bn in loans on assets worth £600m less than what was paid for them.

A local resident “”armchair auditor” has been writing warning letters for years that have been ignored.

A picture is now emerging of: “Municipal recklessness, non-compliance with financial rules, over-optimism, egomania, incompetence, lack of transparency and regulatory neglect.”

A Tory council out of control – who could believe such a thing? – Owl

‘Eye-watering’: how Woking council’s glittering dream turned to dust

Patrick Butler www.theguardian.com

In the autumn of 2020, the Tory leader of Woking council announced he was stepping down. In his valedictory speech, David Bittleston insisted Woking was not merely the best council in the country but was going places. “Ahead of us, this borough has an exciting future,” he declared.

Bittleston’s self-congratulatory boosterism was par for the course. He and the town’s municipal leaders were signed up to a grandiose high-rise vision that would transform the modest commuter town in leafy Surrey into a glittering modern city, Singapore-style economic hub and “premier global business location”.

This week Woking filed for effective bankruptcy after running up a deficit of £1.2bn on a series of risky property and regeneration deals. The place perhaps best known as the inspiration for The Jam’s hit song Town Called Malice has become the biggest financial basket case in UK local government history.

The epic scale of the council’s collapse has sent shock waves through local government. As auditors sift through the wreckage, an astonishing picture is emerging of municipal recklessness, non-compliance with financial rules, over-optimism, egomania, incompetence, lack of transparency and regulatory neglect.

The numbers involved are staggering. Tiny Woking, with an annual council tax take of £11m, is paying £62m a year to service £1.8bn in loans on assets worth £600m less than what was paid for them. “It’s simply eye-watering,” said Rob Whiteman, the chief executive of Cipfa, the public sector accountants body. “It is almost impossible to comprehend.”

No one seems quite sure about how to fix the problem. Woking could put up council tax bills by 15%, sell off all its assets and cut local services to a skeletal legal minimum, and it may still not bridge the deficit. Experts say the government, which approved Woking’s debt pile, must now decide whether to write off the loans.

It is not just Woking council’s head-spinning profligacy – the skyscraper developments, the hundreds of millions pumped into town centre regeneration, the £11m loan to a local private school, the purchase of pubs and farmland – that is coming into focus. It is how, despite warnings, things were allowed to spin out of control.

One local politician who had questioned the plans said: “There were no controls, no proper project management, no financial risk assessment. Just this naive idea that it was cheap money and what could possibly go wrong … You had this magic money tree, and they started playing Monopoly.”

The blame game is in full swing. The ruling Liberal Democrats, who took power in May 2022, say the Tories, who had controlled or led the council for the previous decade, are entirely culpable. The Conservatives claim the Lib Dems supported all of the key investment decisions at the time.

Some point to the role of Woking’s former chief executive Ray Morgan, the most senior official at the council between 2006 and 2021, when he retired. Made an OBE in 2007 for services to local government, people who know him say he was outspoken, cocky and ebullient with a reputation for getting his way. “A big fish in a small pool,” according to one source.

A key architect of the regeneration vision, Morgan overreached his brief, some suggest. “All roads lead to Ray,” one local politician said. Morgan has always insisted decisions were taken collectively. “Various people accuse me of being a megalomaniac,” he told a public meeting in 2013. “But at the end of the day I do what the council decides.”

Morgan was perhaps uncharacteristically unforthcoming when approached about the council’s collapse this week. In a statement to the local news website Surrey Live on Thursday, he said: “I am no longer employed by the council, I do not think it appropriate for me to engage in a public discussion when I am no longer in possession of the facts of the matter.”

What is not in dispute is that Woking had become the most highly leveraged council in the country, with the debt levels of a major city. Yet as a government review revealed last month, it lacked commercial expertise, took major decisions without proper risk assessment or business cases and breached Treasury borrowing rules.

This week’s section 114 notice declaring the council’s insolvency said there was a high probability that much of the internal financial advice that underpinned the council’s investment decisions contained “inaccuracies and misassumptions”. Had these issues been understood earlier, the report suggested, Woking would have struggled to remain solvent as far back as 2018.

Why did the problems not come to light before? In the past three years, Anthony Fraser, a local resident, retired operations director and “armchair auditor” with a keen interest in local government finance, wrote a series of detailed letters to the council, its auditors and ministers at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities warning of the dire risks Woking faced.

Trawling through the council’s published financial documents, Fraser explained how it had become drastically overexposed, had failed to set aside money to service its borrowing and was in effect using Treasury loans to enable its struggling partner companies to meet day-to-day costs, in contravention of government rules.

The town’s borrowing was out of all proportion to its core ability to repay, putting its solvency at risk, he told Woking’s auditors, BDO, in 2021. “In effect, financially we are a relatively small town tacked on to and heavily dependent on the fortunes of a group of big development companies.”

That letter was not answered. Others were politely batted away. It was frustrating, he said, that no one was prepared to listen. Fraser’s concerns were largely borne out by this week’s section 114 report. “You spell it out to the people responsible for overseeing it, and it gets ignored,” he said.

Some still quietly insist the council was right to be ambitious. One local political figure said the dream of town centre regeneration, affordable housebuilding and green belt protection was basically sound, and would have prevailed had it not been for the pandemic. Over time, they said, Woking would be proved right.

But such optimism is rare. Many see Woking’s crash as a consequence of austerity and laissez-faire policies. Councils were hit by huge cuts in funding, and ministers encouraged town halls to be entrepreneurial and find alternative income streams. Government provided councils with billions in cheap capital loans while cutting core audit oversight of their finances.

Woking joins Thurrock, Croydon and Slough on the list of recent local government bankruptcies. All had borrowed heavily from the Treasury to invest in property and regeneration projects. Whitehall is closely monitoring several more highly indebted councils.

Before Covid, Woking’s financial wheeler-dealing brought in £22m a year to fund services, insulating it from the chilliest winds of austerity. Despite a 40% cut in funding since 2010, the council insisted its commercial prowess meant it had not had to close any frontline services for local residents.

Now, however, its future looks very different. The council’s interim director of finance, Brendan Arnold, signalled this week that things had changed. “The enriched service suite that the borough has enjoyed over a number of years will need to be removed,” he wrote.

In plain language, it means Woking faces a fire sale of assets, unprecedented budget cuts and council tax rises. Municipal austerity has finally arrived.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

11 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Income from holiday lets overtakes buy-to-let

The number of people making money from renting out holiday lets has risen by nearly 40 per cent in a decade, as data shows holiday homes have now become more profitable than buy-to-let investments.

David Byers www.thetimes.co.uk

Figures released by HMRC after a Freedom of Information request show that 63,000 individuals received income from 65,000 furnished holiday let properties in the UK according to the latest data available — up from 46,000 making money from 50,000 properties in 2011-12.

Further statistics show the increasing profitability of owning a holiday let compared with the diminishing returns of being a landlord, with holiday let income rising by an average of 63 per cent in the past decade compared with just 5 per cent for buy-to-let. The average annual holiday let income actually exceeded buy-to-let income for the first time in 2020-21 — reaching £15,600 compared with £13,400 for buy-to-let. A decade ago, holiday lets generated an annual average of £9,600 compared with £12,800 for buy-to-let.

Critics say the figures further illustrate why tax rules that incentivise investing in holiday properties, while turning people against being traditional landlords, are driving up prices in rural hotspots such as the Lake District while simultaneously creating a chronic shortage of rental properties in cities.

For holiday lets, if your property qualifies as a self-catered holiday let — meaning that in England it must be let for at least 70 nights a year and available for at least 140 — you can switch from paying council tax to business rates. However, if your annual business-rates bill is less than £12,000 and you only rent out one property, you are exempt and will pay no tax. In Wales the rules are tighter — properties not let out for at least 182 nights a year and available for 252 are classed as a second home and the council tax bill is doubled. You can also get tax relief on mortgage interest payments, and tax relief on expenses such as furniture.

On the other hand, buy-to-let owners used to be able to deduct borrowing costs and some property management costs from their rental income before paying tax on it, but that has been phased out, ending completely in 2020.

The Freedom of Information figures on holiday lets relate only to those people declaring income in personal names, and therefore excludes anything in a company structure.

David Fell, a senior analyst at Hamptons, who submitted the request, says the number of people investing in holiday lets rose dramatically during the pandemic because so many more people were confined to staycations as a result of international travel restrictions. “While Covid undoubtedly distorted the market, the longer term upward trend in revenue predates Covid, and it’s a trend the government has been increasingly worried about.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

11 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Tim Farron: ‘Short-term lets are a catastrophe in the countryside’

I am incredibly privileged to represent the most beautiful constituency in the United Kingdom. Westmorland and Lonsdale is home to the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the Arnside and Silverdale area of outstanding natural beauty, the Cartmel peninsula and the rolling hills of south Cumbria.

But I’m very sad to say that wonderful and iconic towns and villages here face an existential crisis — a housing catastrophe, which means fewer and fewer homes for people to live in.

There are three principal causes: a lack of genuinely affordable homes being built; excessive numbers of second homes displacing full-time residential accommodation; and a short-term rented sector that has gobbled up the long-term private rented sector.

On the first, I have been proud to support affordable housing developments in every corner of my constituency, but we desperately need more of them.

On the second, this has been an issue I’ve been campaigning on since I became an MP in 2005. People are of course entitled to own a second home — and in many ways you certainly can’t blame them from wanting to own a home somewhere as stunning as here — but it means so many streets and hamlets stand empty for so much of the year.

On the third, this has been a more recent and startling development. Just after the pandemic, we saw a 32 per cent rise in holiday lets in just one year, and that is in the Lake District where there were already a huge number of them.

Those new holiday lets were until recently the homes of local people, who were evicted so their landlord can go to a short-term let, normally an Airbnb, and therefore cash in. There are no other places for those people to go and live so their kids are uprooted from the local school, and they have to give up their jobs and move many miles away, robbing our communities of life and of a workforce. We saw this largely because the government failed to scrap section 21 evictions at the time they said they would.

The consequences are huge and human. I think of the couple with two small children in Ambleside, she a teaching assistant and he a chef. They were evicted from their flat because the landlord wanted to go to Airbnb. They had literally nowhere else to go, so the children were taken out of school, a teaching assistant was lost to the local primary school and a chef lost to a local hotel. They had to move 25 miles away and out of the area.

I think of a mum and her 15-year-old son, who lived their entire lives in a village just outside Grange-over-Sands before they were evicted. Again, there was nowhere they could remain within the community. When people are evicted in communities like ours, there is nowhere else to go.

The holiday lets boom in places like Windermere in the Lake District means that many employees in the tourism industry can’t find anywhere affordable to live, Tim Farron says

Holiday lets obviously bring huge economic benefits to the tourism hotspots like the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. However, it’s gone too far. So many bars, cafés, restaurants and shops in that industry are struggling to recruit the staff they need to operate largely because their potential employees can’t find anywhere affordable to live.

It is not just the tourism economy that is affected, but the care sector and other professions. At one stage, earlier this year, 32 per cent of hospital beds in my local NHS Trust were blocked. Why? The bottom line is that we cannot get people out of hospital because there are not enough carers, because there is nowhere for them to live.

This week a consultation closed on the government’s plans to introduce a separate category of planning use for short-term lets. This is a move I have long been campaigning for and I remember putting it to Rishi Sunak in a debate I led in parliament back in 2019 when he was junior housing minister.

By doing this, we can give local planning authorities the power to put a lid on new short-term lets and instead ensure those homes remain for local people who can raise a family here and contribute to the economy and community life.

I really hope the government don’t waste any more time, crack on and put this into action, so we can start to turn the tide on Britain’s housing catastrophe.

Tim Farron is Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland, Furness and Eden www.thetimes.co.uk

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

10 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

High levels of drugs found in sea off south England coast

A study looking at water pollution on the south coast of England has revealed high levels of potentially harmful chemicals including recreational drugs and antidepressants.

Harriet Grant www.theguardian.com

Scientists involved in the research say marine life is being harmed by human drugs, pointing to evidence that oestrogen in water can feminise male fish through biological changes.

Bianca Carr, the co-founder of the Clean Harbour Partnership (CHP) that coordinated the work, said: “We need to go beyond talking about poo in the water – now we are looking at what’s in that human waste? Now we know the chemicals that are in it, the next step will be to look across the UK at what cocaine and other human drugs are doing to our water, to our food chain.”

Campaigners in Hampshire and Sussex joined forces with Portsmouth and Brunel University London to analyse hundreds of water samples across Chichester and Langstone harbours.

In more than 288 samples, researchers have so far detected more than 50 compounds across 22 sites. These include pharmaceuticals and diabetes medicines as well as a chemical produced by the liver after cocaine use.

The team also discovered pesticides, including some that are banned in the UK.

Prof Alex Ford, from the University of Portsmouth’s school of biological sciences, said: “We know there are billions of litres of sewage discharges annually around the UK but the impact of these discharges are not clearly understood.

“This project is enabling us to determine what chemical contaminants are in our marine life and coastal waters. We have found a large variety of prescribed and illegal drugs plus a variety of pesticides in coastal waters and marine organisms, such as crabs and oysters.

“This is important, because we know that aquatic ecosystems are under threat from pharmaceuticals and farming practices, such as biocides and fertilisers.”

Ford has previously published research showing that even tiny quantities of antidepressants in water can affect wildlife, such as crustaceans and molluscs. Drugs will affect the behaviour and biological makeup of these creatures, including causing them to change colour or reproduce in a different way.

Ford said: “There is a staggering list of prescription drugs passed from humans to wastewater treatment plants and into receiving streams, estuaries, or oceans by direct consumption, metabolism and excretion or by toilet flushing of old prescriptions.

“The release of human pharmaceuticals into aquatic ecosystems is an environmental problem we should consider seriously.”

The study also found E coli bacteria at high levels. A post-storm seawater sample taken from near an outflow pipe from Budds Farm sewage treatment works, near Langstone showed a reading of 380,000 colony forming units per 100ml of E coli, which is 760 times the safe levels set out under the European bathing water directive.

The work is part of growing efforts around England’s coast to highlight the dangers of water pollution. CHP’s co-founder, Rob Bailey, said: “Thanks to community funding, we are starting to get an insight into the cocktail of chemicals polluting our seawater and their sources. Some pesticides seem to have been lingering for several years and the presence of partly digested antidepressants, drugs for type 2 diabetes and bladder infections is concerning. So little is known about their impact on marine life.”

Campaigners have been highlighting the amount of sewage entering Britain’s seas in recent months. In April, figures from an analysis of Environment Agency data done by the Liberal Democrats showed that some popular beaches, including in Sussex, are affected particularly badly.

One of the worst-hit was Brighton beach in East Sussex, where Southern Water discharged sewage 45 times last year, over more than 107 hours. At Meadfoot beach in Torquay, Devon, there were 79 dumps lasting 946 hours.

Southern Water said removing chemical substances from wastewater was not asked for by the Environment Agency.

The director of wastewater operations, John Penicud, said: “Tackling chemicals and impurities, especially ‘forever chemicals’, is a global challenge that requires close collaboration of industry, agriculture and other sectors, including water companies and regulators.

“Our treatment processes already comply with stringent Environment Agency rules relating to the removal of contaminants, and we are working with partners to explore how we can go further – through the use of cutting-edge technology and science, and investing in our network to improve treatment.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

10 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Nuclear weapon secrets in the bathroom: five revelations from Trump’s unsealed indictment

Donald Trump took classified documents including information on nuclear weapons in the US and secret plans to attack a foreign country, according to a 49-page federal indictment unsealed Friday afternoon.

www.theguardian.com

The former US president, alongside a military valet, now faces a sweeping 37-count felony indictment related to the mishandling of classified documents.

Here are some of the most shocking revelations in the indictment.

Trump took nuclear documents out of the White House

Upon leaving the White House in January 2021, Trump took with him boxes of classified documents, including information regarding US nuclear capabilities, as well as those of a foreign country.

One classified document from June 2020 contained information “concerning nuclear capabilities of a foreign country”. Investigators found another undated document “concerning nuclear weaponry of the United States”.

Boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Photograph: AP

Trump stored classified documents in the shower, among other places

The former president stored boxes of classified documents in various locations at Mar-a-Lago, including an office space, his bedroom, a storage room, a bathroom, a ballroom and in the shower, according to the unsealed indictment.

On 5 April 2021, a Trump employee texted a colleague to ask whether boxes in the business center could be moved to make room for staff to use it as an office.

The employee responded, “We can definitely make it work if we move his papers into the lake room?”

First employee: “There is still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is. Is it only his papers he cares about? Theres some other stuff in there that are not papers. Could that go to storage? Or does he want everything in there on property?”

After that text exchange, some boxes containing documents were moved from the business center to a bathroom and shower in a space at the Mar-a-Lago club known as the Lake Room.

Trump conspired with his valet to hide documents from attorneys

Trump’s valet, Waltine Nauta, was indicted alongside his former boss for conspiring to hide classified documents from attorneys searching for them. Nauta faces six federal charges, including concealing evidence and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

According to the indictment, Trump directed Nauta, who is currently a personal aide to the former president, to move boxes containing documents in order to hide them from his attorneys, the FBI and a grand jury.

When questioned under oath, Nauta said he was unaware Trump held on to boxes with classified documents. That was a lie, prosecutors found during their investigation, as Trump had instructed Nauta to move them from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort.

In July 2021, Trump shared unauthorized information about his desire as president to attack a certain country and a classified conversation with a senior military official during an interview with an unnamed writer and their publisher.

“Look what I found, this was [the Senior Military Official’s] plan of attack, read it and just show … it’s interesting,” Trump told the writer, the publisher and two members of his staff, acknowledging he held on to classified documents detailing the plans. None of those he spoke with had security clearances to know that information.

“See as president I could have declassified it,” Trump said. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

“Now we have a problem,” said a staffer.

Trump: “Isn’t that interesting?

Trump suggested attorneys lie to DoJ about having no documents

The indictment suggests when lawyers for Trump met with him to discuss how to respond to a May 2022 subpoena seeking documents marked as classified at Mar-a-Lago, Trump allegedly suggested they should tell the justice department that they had no materials that needed to be turned over.

The indictment stated that Trump said: “I don’t want anybody looking, I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t, I don’t want you looking through my boxes.”

He allegedly added: “What happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” and “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

10 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Comments

1 Comment

Devon council accused of ‘massive scandal’

Mid Devon District Council has been accused of a “massive scandal” over Three Rivers Development’s Ltd (3RDL). 3RDL is a company wholly owned by Mid Devon District Council and is behind projects such as St George’s Court, the development behind Tiverton Town Hall.

Lewis Clarke www.devonlive.com

Speaking during the democratic period at a council meeting on Wednesday, May 24, member of the public Goff Welchman spoke about a “massive scandal with criminal prosecution potential created by the previous administration”.

Mr Welchman was prevented from asking his question, being told it was not in relation to anything on the agenda for the evening’s meeting.

However, Mr Welchman continued his questions saying: “Although it was a problem created by the previous administration, it’s now down to this council to sort it out, even though they weren’t involved in the creation with it.

“The problem was handled with a lot of secrecy, behind closed doors, the public were not given information, and what has transpired is the elephant in the room, which is Three Rivers Development’s Limited, and the potential for criminal prosecution, and I want to know why, when 3RDL has absorbed vast summed of money, possibly approaching £20million of council tax payer’s money, has filed late accounts which are riddled with potential inaccuracies, why is this matter high on the agenda?

“The public is sick and tired of secrecy, and this council needs to demonstrate a line is going to be drawn under this whole, sorry affair.”

Councillor Frank Letch (Crediton Lawrence, Liberal Democrats) the newly elected chairman of the council responded: “This is the annual general meeting where we set the administration and appoint to various bodies. I’m sure this is a very serious issue, but may I suggest you bring this up at the next full council meeting and you discuss it with the new leader, new cabinet, and new team.

“This is not the right meeting.”

Tim Bridger, a member of Tiverton Town Council then asked: “Which of the committees will be tasked with investigating what has happened in relation to 3RDL and how has the competence of the people appointed to that, been discussed and will we be able to question that at a later date if we find out the people appointed to such committee do not have the relevant skills in order to take that role.”

Cllr Letch responded: “Again, I think you’ll have to wait and discuss with the new leader and then you’ll be able to put your thoughts forward. It looks to me it will go to audit and scrutiny.”

Councillor Luke Taylor, MDDC’s leader said: “I can assure those who have asked questions regarding 3RDL that I and my cabinet will be quickly looking at this, and setting meetings immediately with relevant officers and directors and we understand the concerns you have raised.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

10 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

You “stayed at home” while those who partied are honoured

“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.”

Why didn’t Rishi Sunak bin Boris Johnson’s disgraceful honours list?

Sunak approves Boris Johnson honours list including aides linked to Partygate

Rowena Mason www.theguardian.com

Rishi Sunak has been accused of allowing Boris Johnson to hand out rewards to those involved in the Partygate scandal, including more than 40 honours and peerages for his closest allies at the time.

The prime minister faced criticism for approving the list despite police looking at fresh potential evidence of rule-breaking in Downing Street and Chequers during lockdown, as well as an ongoing parliamentary inquiry into whether Johnson misled the Commons.

Hours before Johnson announced he was quitting as an MP accusing the investigation of trying to “drive him out”, his long-awaited honours list was published.

Awards went to Johnson’s closest aides from the Covid era including an Order of the Bath for his former principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, who oversaw a garden party during lockdown restrictions in 2020.

He also gave a peerage to his chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, and a CBE to Jack Doyle, his former director of communications, both of whom were in office during some of the Partygate era of controversy within No 10 and the investigations into the scandal.

Doyle was one of those in charge of formulating the response to the Mirror’s initial investigations about rule-breaking, saying to another official at the time: “I don’t know what we say about the flat … Ignore the Xmas quiz bullshit, who cares. Just be robust and they’ll get bored.”

Shelley Williams-Walker, who reportedly was the DJ in charge of the playlist at a Downing Street gathering on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, was made a dame, while Rosie Bate-Williams, a former press adviser, who issued some of the denials about rule-breaking, was made a CBE, alongside an OBE for Sarah Vaughan-Brown, a press adviser to Johnson’s wife.

Labour said the list amounted to “rewards for those who tried to cover up rule-breaking”, while the Lib Dems said it was “gongs for Johnson’s Partygate pals” and described it as “corruption pure and simple”.

No 10 insisted that Sunak had only been following “convention” by approving the list but he faced criticism for refusing to block it in its entirety.

The prime minister vetoed the inclusion of four sitting Conservative MPs, Nadine Dorries, Alok Sharma, Nigel Adams, and Alister Jack. However, Dorries resigned anyway on Friday, triggering a difficult byelection for the Conservatives in Mid Bedfordshire. Labour sources highlighted a poll showing them only three points behind in the seat.

Johnson’s proposal of a knighthood for his father, Stanley, was rejected, and widespread speculation about peerages for donors and other family members was also wide of the mark.

However, almost 40 honours and seven peerages made it through the vetting process. Political aides, Ross Kempsell and Charlotte Owen, were put forward for peerages and will be two of the youngest members of the House of Lords. Kempsell now works for Johnson as a media adviser.

Johnson also gave a knighthood to Ben Elliot, the former chair of the Conservative party, who faced controversy over the mingling of his political and business interests, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, while his former home secretary, Priti Patel, received a damehood. Other MPs to get knighthoods include Johnson allies Michael Fabricant, Conor Burns and Simon Clarke, while there were damehoods for Andrea Jenkyns and Amanda Milling.

Shaun Bailey, the former London mayoral candidate, also received a peerage, while former adviser Ben Mallet, a friend of Johnson’s wife, was given an OBE. Both men were pictured at a Conservative HQ for a buffet-style Christmas party during lockdown restrictions, which was investigated by police but ultimately no action was taken.

Two more aides to be rewarded with peerages were Johnson’s long-term aide Ben Gascoigne, and a former city hall adviser Kulveer Ranger. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, was given a peerage despite him battling a controversy over the Teeswork project.

Ray Lewis, a former deputy mayor of London who resigned after a Guardian investigation into his conduct in 2008, was made a CBE. Other aides to get honours included the former communications director Guto Harri, who has launched a tell-all podcast-memoir about his time in No 10, Johnson’s personal assistant, Ann Sindall, who is to be made a dame and a longstanding House of Commons hairdresser Kelly Jo Dodge who gets an OBE.

Sunak faced an outpouring of criticism from within his own party for allowing Johnson’s list. One formerly loyal Johnson aide said it was a “list of bullies, sycophants”.

“Boris has slammed the door shut on the prospect of any return to the frontline of British politics and trashed what remained of his legacy,” they said. A second former senior Tory aide said it was “rewards for failure”.

A government source accused Johnson’s resignation honours of “dragging the whole thing into the gutter”, while a former cabinet minister called it “put out the trash day”.

A senior Tory said: “Let us hope this ghastly list brings down the final curtain on the Boris embarrassment.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

10 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

“The truth is now, he is a spent asset” and other headlines

“The truth is now, he is a spent asset, he has destroyed his credibility” – Sir John Curtice.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

9 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

NHS waiting lists continue to grow

The latest figures show that there are now 220,000 more people waiting for treatment than when Rishi Sunak made cutting waiting lists one of his five priorities!

(Ben Zaranko, Senior Research Economist, Institute for Fiscal Studies.)

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

9 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Mathematicians work out the north-south divide: where Greggs meets Pret

[Makes us, in the SW peninsula, “northerners”]

Or should it be where Morrisons meets Waitrose?

[Categorising us as “southerners”]

This tongue-in-cheek analysis aims to highlight more serious factors highlighting the North-South divide, such as life expectancy, education, and poverty.

(See original article: a Machine Learning analysis of consumer habits as a metric for the socio-economic North-South divide in England) – Owl

Some say it’s the Watford Gap services, some say it’s the Severn-Wash line — but isn’t the true marker of arrival in the north the moment you reach a place where you can’t get a smashed avocado and roasted pepper baguette but can get an impressive variety of sausage rolls?

Tom Whipple www.thetimes.co.uk

That is the contention of mathematicians, who have calculated the location where the writ of poncey southern Pret a Manger sandwiches ends and the rule of honest northern Greggs pies begins — and they have declared it the north-south divide.

And, lest the analysis seems flimsy, they have strengthened it by augmenting it with a separate set of strongly correlated data: the Waitrose-Morrisons Index.

As far as Sophie Maclean, from King’s College London, is concerned, this study ends a discussion that arguably began with William the Conqueror, who noticed that the residents in the north of his kingdom were more unruly and, “In mad fury . . . descended on the English of the north like a raging lion.”

Which were these recalcitrant northerners who resisted the raging lion? Where was their unruly land? “There’s a lot of debate but thankfully mathematicians have worked this out,” said Maclean, speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival. “Really there is only one way to judge what’s north and what’s south and that is by looking at the distribution of Pret and Greggs.”

The analysis, published in the preprint journal ArXiv, used machine learning to define the optimal north-south boundary, seeking to divide the country in two according to the ratio of Prets to Greggs and, separately, Waitroses to Morrisons. Then, researchers combined the two.

This produced a line that cut off the top of Norfolk and all of Cornwall and Bristol, decreeing these traditionally southern regions spiritually and culinarily northern.

Part of this may be explained by the metric failing in the west country. While most of the country has a preponderance of one of the fast-food chains or another, Cornwall is low on Prets, possibly on socioeconomic grounds, but also resists Greggs, on grounds of pasty-purism.

Less controversially, further east the line confirmed conventional intuition — passing close to the Watford Gap.

Dr Robin Smith, from Sheffield Hallam University, led the study, adapting machine-learning techniques normally used to look at nuclear reactions. He said that in an inevitably subjective area, this analysis was as good as any. “The food we eat is a very good indicator of whether someone is northern or southern. Greggs is very popular in the north, where people do seem to prefer a steak bake.”

The new definition will nevertheless provoke some disquiet, possibly vigorously so. Cheltenham residents, for instance, who like little better than meeting on a Saturday morning in Waitrose to pick up “essential” parmigiano reggiano, might at the very least argue the case they are an exclave of the south.

Maclean conceded there would always be anomalies, but then the same goes for any other measure. There was even sometimes a pathos to the data, where you can see the anomalies in action — for instance in the few individuals trying to eke out a sophisticated culinary lifestyle amid the pastry-based wastelands of the north.

“You could imagine the single Pret in Newcastle surrounded by a swarm of Greggs,” she said. Whereas, she added, “In London, they say you’re never more than 6m from a rat, or a Pret.”

How long this might still be the case, though, is unclear. Smith said there were signs the usefulness of the metric might change. Already, Greggs has begun a southern invasion, with an appeal to more liberal metropolitan tastes. “Since Greggs produced the vegan sausage roll, it has become more popular in the south, so this might not be a marker of northernness for that much longer.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

9 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Energy generators’ soaring revenues highlight deep problems in the way Britain prices its electricity

Twenty-nine billion pounds is a lot of money. It’s how much we estimate the total annual revenue to British electricity generating stations increased as a result of last year’s energy crisis – from £20.5 billion before COVID (in 2018 and 2019) to £49.5 billion in 2022. The indications are that these revenues increased by about twice as much as overall generation costs.

Serguey Maximov Gajardo theconversation.com

Getting at the numbers is not easy. Britain has a competitive market for “wholesale” electricity, the bulk electricity sold by major generating companies from fossil fuel (overwhelmingly gas), nuclear and renewable energy power stations.

The price is set in an auction between the electricity consumers (large industries or electricity suppliers that purchase electricity for their clients) and its generators. Consumers submit the demand they are expecting during the next day, and generators offer a block of electricity to meet this demand for a certain price. The price in this “day-ahead” market reflects the cost of the highest-priced block needed to match demand.

Renewables and nuclear plants are relatively cheap to operate. But fossil fuels, although more expensive, are still required to meet demand nearly all the time. This means that gas largely sets the day-ahead price, with a margin. In 2021, the electricity price followed gas prices 98% of the time in Britain, despite gas generating only 40% of the country’s electricity.

But this is just the beginning of the pricing complexities. In practice, much gas and electricity is traded through forward contracts. Your electricity suppliers need to know they can buy the electricity their customers will demand, so they “buy forward” from generators on contracts ranging from months to more than a year ahead – usually at prices reflecting conditions at the time of contracting.

On purely day-ahead prices, the total revenue in 2022 would have soared by almost £40 billion. Our best estimate of forward-contract structures brings this down to the £29 billion indicated for last year.

However, this likely means some of the huge day-ahead prices in 2022 have been shifted forward into this year, whatever happens to gas generation costs (in reality, gas prices fell slightly during the first half of 2023).

Furthermore, gas-powered electricity generators buy their gas in advance, to be sure they have the fuel to generate – so a lot of their generation this year could reflect last year’s gas prices.

Our first conclusion: whatever happens to gas prices, don’t expect electricity prices to drop fast.

Soaring revenues

A key finding from our research is how revenue changed for different generators, with the growth for renewables of particular note. We estimate their revenue doubled from £7.7 billion pre-COVID to £15.5 billion in 2022 – yet there is no reason to think their costs increased.

Nuclear benefited too – but proportionately less than renewables. Nuclear generators sell more electricity on a year-ahead basis, given its predictable cost and output levels.

How revenues changed for different electricity generators (£ billion/year):

Maximov et al. (2023), CC BY-NC-ND

Perhaps the biggest surprise regards gas generation. Since these companies’ costs shot up following the start of the Ukraine war, it seems no surprise that their prices did too. We estimate their total annual revenue rose by about £13 billion, roughly trebling from the pre-COVID average of £6.3 billion. But the evidence suggests that this increase was, in fact, much bigger than the increase in their costs.

An industry metric called the “spark spread” historically gave gas generators an operating margin of about £5 for each megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated. That quadrupled in 2021 and doubled again in 2022, to an average of over £40 per MWh. This correlates with our best estimate that, while gas generators paid more for gas, their bill rose by a lot less than the £13 billion increase in their total revenue.

So what happened?

Electricity is supposed to be a competitive market, with competition holding down prices. But in reality, there is little competition between gas and other generating sources in Britain, since these other sources can’t increase their output or rapidly build more capacity when gas generators put their prices up.

Until at least 2020, a major factor constraining higher prices in the wholesale market was imports through interconnectors from mainland Europe. Yet, factors including post-Brexit trade frictions and low hydro (Norway) and nuclear (France) generation have impeded the inflows of competitive electricity from continental Europe over the past few years.

Exacerbated further by the gas crisis in Europe, this meant electricity generators in Britain were able to raise prices further above costs.

In the final quarter of 2022, the generators also knew that raising their prices even higher would not ultimately matter to customers – because in October last year, the UK government committed to subsidising energy bills down to £2,500 per household through its Energy Price Guarantee.

In addition, gas generators are exempt from paying the new Electricity Generation Levy – which imposes a tax of 45% on the revenues of electricity generators for the fraction of electricity they sell at above £75 per MWh each year. This levy is applied only to those generators who were assumed to be benefiting from the exceptional wholesale prices while their costs hadn’t increased.

Implications for the future

The real paradox is that all this happened just as non-fossil sources, with stable costs, started to account for more than half of Britain’s electricity (56% if we include nuclear).

As renewables expand further, we will start to see more periods when renewables and nuclear can meet electricity demand, so that gas no longer sets the day-ahead price and the wholesale price collapses. By 2030, non-fossil generation is expected to account for more than 75% of total electricity generation in both the UK and the EU. However, most of the time, the day-ahead price will still be set by the sliver of fossil fuels that are still required.

Given the experience of the past year, and what we will see this year in terms of high wholesale electricity prices, this doesn’t really make sense. For how long can the declining fossil fuel tail continue to wag the dog of Britain’s renewables-based electricity system?

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

9 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

England raw sewage taskforce has only met once in last year, FoI request reveals

An example of the government taking your concerns over sewage “very seriously”. – Owl

The storm overflows taskforce set up by the government to tackle raw sewage discharges by water companies in England has only met once in the last year, a freedom of information request has revealed.

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com

The group, which was promoted by ministers as evidence that they were taking the issue of raw sewage discharges by water companies seriously, is supposed to meet fortnightly, according to its mission statement.

But in response to a freedom of information request by the Good Law Project, officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the taskforce had only met once in the last year.

The storm overflows taskforce was set up in August 2020 after the Guardian first uncovered the scale of raw sewage discharges into rivers by water companies.

It is made up of representatives from government, regulators, the water industry and environmental NGOs. Its terms of reference state: “The taskforce will meet fortnightly, with exact frequency and timings of meetings at the discretion of the chairperson in consultation with the group members.” Its goals are “to develop: proposals to significantly reduce the frequency and impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows short-term actions to accelerate progress to reduce the harm caused by storm overflows”.

Last August the group published its storm overflows reduction plan, which gives water companies a deadline of 2035 to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into bathing water and areas of ecological importance. Water companies were given a deadline of 2050 to stop dumping raw sewage elsewhere.

The then environment secretary, George Eustice, said water companies would have to invest £56bn over 25 years to tackle storm sewage discharges by 2050. But the plan was heavily criticised as too weak and is to be challenged in court by the Good Law Project and the campaign group WildFish. Since that publication the taskforce has not met again, the freedom of information request shows.

The Good Law Project sought all fortnightly meeting dates of the taskforce between 1 April 2022 to 25 April this year, but Defra revealed it had only met once in that time, on 30 August 2022. There have been no follow-up meetings to drive through the storm overflow reduction plan, or to check progress.

Defra said as the taskforce had published its storm overflows reduction plan in August last year it had not met again. “These proposals were outlined in the storm overflow discharge reduction plan (the plan). The plan was published on 31 August 2022, and we have therefore not called a meeting of the taskforce following the publication of the plan.”

Defra said in its response: “Since last summer officials have continued to take action on sewage discharges, including the development of the water restoration fund, launching the continuous water quality and event duration monitoring consultation and the variable monetary penalties consultation, as well as continuing to work with regulators to hold water companies to account. We have also recently announced a new statutory target for storm overflows and plans to consult on expanding the storm overflow discharge reduction plan.”

England has about 14,500 storm overflows, which are supposed to be used in exceptionally heavy rain to stop the sewage system backing up into people’s homes. But water companies have been routinely dumping raw sewage into rivers and seas even in periods of dry weather.

In 2021 the taskforce published a report that estimated the cost of cutting millions of hours of raw sewage discharges from storm overflows would be between £150bn and £660bn – figures that were challenged by some experts.

Emma Dearnaley, the legal director at the Good Law Project, said: “We now know that the government’s storm overflows taskforce has met only once since April 2022 – and not at all since its plan was published. That is, unfortunately, typical of this government’s laid-back approach to the sewage crisis blighting our country.

“We need the government to impose tougher measures to stop water companies from polluting our waters and bring this unacceptable situation to an end. That is why we are supporting a legal challenge to try to compel the government to put in place a much more robust and urgent plan.”

Ashley Smith, of the Windrush Against Sewage Pollution group, said: “[The taskforce] produced precisely what it was designed to do – nothing. We need an independent inquiry now to make sure this disgraceful scam on the public and environment is ended and never repeated.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

9 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Calls for South West Water resignations over ‘obscene’ dividend

Tough talking from a Tory MP, but its not Simon Jupp – Owl

A South West MP has called for the entire board of the owners of South West Water to resign after approving what he called an ‘obscene’ dividend to shareholders.

Lewis Clarke www.plymouthherald.co.uk

Ian Liddell-Grainger said that for the Pennon Group to line shareholders’ pockets while presiding over long-term water shortages in Devon and Cornwall was totally unacceptable – and consumers were rightly infuriated.

“There may have been worse examples of companies putting two fingers up to their customers but I cannot recall one,” said the Bridgwater and West Somerset MP.

Pennon Group, which also owns Bristol Water, posted a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million in the year to April, compared with a profit of £127.7 million in the previous 12 months. Yet it has raised its shareholder dividend by more than 10 per cent to £112 million.

In April South West Water was fined £2.15 million after being prosecuted by the Environment Agency for illegally dumping sewage into the sea.

It is currently the subject of two Ofwat investigations – one for its management of waste water treatment plants, the other into the accuracy of statements the company made last November about its performance in reducing leaks and on customer consumption rates.

It is one of only two water companies to have drought restrictions in force. These were imposed last year, extended in the spring and are likely to remain in place until December unless there is exceptional rainfall.

In April Pennon Group chief executive Susan Davy, announced she would not be taking her £450,000 bonus because of public anger over sewage pollution in rivers and seas.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said that had been a tacit admission of failure.

“But one highly-paid official declining a fat bonus looks like a token gesture when within weeks millions were being poured into the shareholders’ trough,” he said.

“Those shareholders are being rewarded with money that should rightly have been invested in improving and extending water supplies to the region and the fact that there are now long-term drought orders in force is manifest proof that South West Water has failed to do its job.

“Consumers in Devon and Cornwall are being asked to restrict water use so there is enough to go round when the main tourism season arrives – a highly precarious state of affairs by any measure.

“I lived in Devon for 25 years and even back then all the official agencies were aware that tourist numbers were going to grow year by year and infrastructure improvements would be necessary to cope with all the extra demands that would ensue.

“But South West Water has appeared more concerned about rewarding shareholders than building new storage capacity and the fact that it has been systematically fouling the finest beaches in the UK merely underlines the fact that it has prioritised profit, salaries, bonuses and obscene dividends before everything else.

“This is failure on a colossal scale and the chief executive and the entire board should pack their bags and go.”

If the Ofwat inquiry uncovers discrepancies in SWW’s reporting on leaks and consumption it could face a penalty equivalent to 10 per cent of its turnover.

If it is found to be in breach of wastewater regulations it will be ordered to implement improvements and could also be fined, the cost in both cases falling on shareholders.

A South West Water spokesperson said: “Pennon Group, including its subsidiary South West Water, is delivering record levels of investment, particularly in environmental initiatives such as reducing storm overflows and developing new water resources. We know more than ever before the growing concerns from customers about dividends. As we continue to accelerate the changes we all want to see, dividends are not made at the cost of greater investment.

“Our shareholders include UK pension funds, savings, and charities, as well as customers and colleagues, and most of our ultimate owners are ordinary people in the UK. They have fully endorsed our commitment to invest their money to make Pennon Group better. We are investing record amounts in the most important areas where customers want to see change.

“Alongside this, we have delivered over £85 million of customer support, including the industry leading WaterShare+ scheme, benefiting customers in the South West region.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

8 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

£150,000 levelling up grant awarded to Tory donor’s amusement centre in Hastings

A £150,000 grant from Boris Johnson’s flagship levelling up towns fund was awarded to an amusement centre launched by the Conservative donor Lubov Chernukhin, raising questions about whether public money has gone to projects most in need of financial help.

Rowena Mason www.theguardian.com

Chernukhin, a businesswoman who has given more than £2m to the Conservatives since 2014 and is married to a former Russian finance minister, co-founded the Owens entertainment centre in Hastings, East Sussex.

The centre received £150,000 from the government’s towns fund in October after a tender process, through a company called C&O Entertainment. A further £250,000 went to the developer behind the refurbishment of the former Debenhams building in the seaside town.

It includes several restaurants, a bowling alley, immersive experiences, virtual reality rides, an oddity museum and amusement arcade. There is no suggestion of any political consideration in the award of the grant.

Chernukhin launched the project in October 2022 as a joint venture with an entertainment entrepreneur, Graham Owen, and she has been a director of C&O Entertainment since February this year. It is owned by a company called Triple 8 Holdings, held by two senior partners at a wealth management firm, and is believed to be at least in part owned by the businesswoman.

Owen does not own any shares in the company. Despite giving his name to the attraction, he is now believed to have left his role at the company.

A spokesperson for Chernukhin said Owens Entertainment was opened with a vision to “revive the British high street and stimulate local economies through the establishment of family-orientated entertainment centres”, with an estimated 100,000 visitors since launch. They said the centre had provided jobs by hiring 45 contracted staff members and space for four concession holders.

The spokesperson confirmed her involvement in C&O Entertainment but did not respond to a question about its ultimate ownership. She said Chernukhin “was not involved in any way whatsoever in the grant application process” and that it was driven by the developers and the Hastings towns deal board without her knowledge.

Last September a finance manager from Owens Entertainment gave a presentation to the Hastings towns deal board setting out that “development of the entertainment centre is going well, and it is hoped it can be officially opened on or around 14 October”.

In the minutes, it was recorded that the project by this time was already close to completion and the extra money was used to “extend the centre’s originally planned offer, therefore allowing for more attractions to be created”.

The bid was not part of the original towns fund allocation process but was added in summer 2022 by the Hastings towns deal board after another bidder pulled out and the tender was re-run. It was subsequently approved by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the money was paid in October 2022.

Hastings council said the business case for the town deal bid by Owens was confidential but had been “independently assessed against various criteria including jobs created, amount of public and private investment, wider economic impact in the town and value for money and deliverability”.

“The funding for Owens Entertainment was to enhance and extend the number of entertainment offers. It was also bringing back into use a large former Debenhams building which had been empty for more than a year,” a spokesperson said.

“There were no political considerations in the decision to support a project that brought a large potentially long-term empty building back into use so quickly.”

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP and chair of the House of Commons standards committee, called into question whether the project was deserving of the money, saying that “so-called discretionary funds” were a cause of concern. “Especially now we know the company of the largest female donor to the Conservative party has benefited in this way. Public funds should go to those areas most in need,” he said.

Chernukhin, a British citizen, is a former banker who has been under scrutiny over her links to offshore wealth and her husband’s former membership of Vladimir Putin’s government until he was sacked in 2004. Labour has previously called for the Conservatives to hand all money given to the party by Russian-linked donors to humanitarian causes, including more than £2m given by Chernukhin since 2014.

On her donations, Chernukhin’s spokesperson said: “It is correct that Lubov has donated more than £2m to the Conservative party, and all such donations have been properly declared in accordance with Electoral Commission rules. As a British citizen, Lubov is entitled to make donations to political parties as she sees fit, and any suggestion to the contrary would be patently xenophobic.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

8 Jun 2023

Posted under

Misc

Woking council declares bankruptcy with £1.2bn deficit

Woking council has declared it is in effect bankrupt after admitting a risky investment spree involving hotels and skyscrapers overseen by its former Conservative administration had left it facing a deficit of £1.2bn.

The cost of a Tory attempt at “regeneration”, Owl can think of local examples that haven’t gone too well but not on such a scale.

Richard Partington www.theguardian.com

In what is thought to be the biggest financial failure in local government history, the Surrey council said it had issued a section 114 notice on Wednesday in response to “unprecedented financial challenges” facing the town.

A section 114 notice is effectively an admission that a local authority does not have the resources to meet current expenditure, with Woking joining Thurrock, Croydon and Slough as the latest English council to run into trouble after ploughing cash into risky commercial investments.

Woking said that against its available core funding of £16m in the 2023-24 financial year, the council faced a deficit of £1.2bn.

Laying bare its financial position, the tiny home counties authority in the affluent London commuter belt warned it had failed for the past 15 years to set aside enough money to keep up with payments on a vast debt pile amassed under its former Tory leadership.

Racked up to finance the building and acquisition of a vast empire of commercial assets, its investments included a complex of sky-high towers – standing as the tallest buildings outside a big city in England – including a four-star Hilton hotel, public plazas, parking facilities and shops.

Woking warned its debts were forecast to hit £2.6bn, while it had taken the uncomfortable step of writing down the value of its investment portfolio by more than £600m in a reflection that its property holdings were worth far less than previously anticipated.

Ann-Marie Barker, the council’s Liberal Democrat leader, whose party took over from the former Tory administration after it was voted out in local elections last year, said there was a danger that services could be cut as a consequence.

“We’re going to have to look at those and provide the services in a very different way in future. Inevitably it’s not going to be such a good service as it was in the past,” she told the Guardian.

Woking was put into special measures by ministers late last month amid rising concern in central government over the scale of its debt problems.

Most of the council’s spending had been financed by an obscure arm of the Treasury – the Public Works Loan Board – with £1.3bn worth of borrowing that Woking could now struggle to repay.

The process will be overseen by a team of expert commissioners after a review launched this year. It is believed the council’s troubles are so significant they could have an impact on the national government finances.

“The debt in Woking is staggering,” said Meg Hillier, the Labour chair of the Commons public accounts committee, adding that the government needed to have a “stronger oversight” of how councils were investing.

In 2020, the powerful cross-party committee said ministers were “blind” to “extreme risks” of investment by cash-strapped councils.

Hillier said: “We have seen too many councils borrow multiple times their annual budget at huge risk and real cost to local council taxpayers.”

Many councils piled into property and other commercial enterprises to raise money to fill gaping holes in their budgets and to undertake regeneration projects after sharp cuts to central government funding introduced under the Conservatives’ austerity drive.

Kevin Davis, the Conservative group leader on Woking council, said his local party had issued an apology to residents for the financial position the local authority was now in, while arguing that council’s investments were made in good faith in an attempt to regenerate the town.

Davis said: “Remember the cost measures coming through every year with the revenue grant being steadily reduced. It’s safe to construct an argument that says that period led the council to look for other ways to generate that missing income.”

He added that the pandemic had significantly affected the valuation of the council’s assets, but also suggested further investigation was required to establish whether the former Tory administration had adequate checks and balances in place when it was making investment decisions.

“It’s likely the answer is that, no, it was not robust enough, it is more than just Covid,” Davis said.

A government spokesperson said: “Following serious ongoing concerns about the financial situation of Woking council, the government announced an intervention into Woking’s financial position in May and commissioners have been appointed. We will continue to work closely with the authority and will take action if necessary.”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Trump took nuclear documents out of the White House

Trump stored classified documents in the shower, among other places

Trump conspired with his valet to hide documents from attorneys

Trump suggested attorneys lie to DoJ about having no documents

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Soaring revenues

So what happened?

Implications for the future

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: