Lessons from a small town: imagination and community is the key to sustainability

Lindsay Poulton www.theguardian.com 

When the remote town of St Just, Cornwall, was locked down in March, the small community worried that its economy wouldn’t survive. But one town councillor, Daisy Gibbs, rallied an army of volunteers to form ‘the Daisy chain’, an informal support network to ensure every household in the district had support. Inspired by her imagination and resilience, filmmaker Sky Neal followed the Daisy Chain for seven months, as local businesses adapted and the community pulled together to realise a more sustainable future.  However, as a second wave of restrictions threatens, the town has to dig deep to find the resilience they need to ensure their future. Can they re-invent their local economy to survive and thrive beyond Covid?

Lessons from a small town: imagination and community is the key to sustainability

Lindsay Poulton www.theguardian.com 

The new Guardian documentary follows the innovative activities of a volunteer support network, the Daisy Chain. For seven months, filmmaker Sky Neal immersed herself in the community of St Just, the most westerly town in England. As food producers and business owners in the town struggle to survive the first lockdown, how will they find the resilience to pull together and face a second wave with winter approaching?

What inspired you to make this film?

The town of St Just has strange depths, with a landscape littered with remnants of lost industries and ancient prehistoric sites, its bleak rugged coastline often immersed in a deep, eerie fog. When I heard about the Daisy Chain it immediately captured my attention. The idea of this metaphoric chain of humans weaving throughout this tiny peninsula at the end of the land, taking care of each other and striving for a more caring and resilient community struck me as a beautiful story that was really needed at such a strange time.

What was your creative approach?

With the descent of Covid and the strict lockdown restrictions it was obviously a tricky time to be approaching people to make a film, so it helped enormously that I had such personal connections. My overall aim was that audiences would experience the important themes at the heart of the film but through the reflections and epiphanies of the contributors. That it wouldn’t feel like a campaign film but would have the effect of triggering thought about where our food is coming from, the fragility of our dependence on the global supply chain, how heavy our footprints are, and how community resilience is key for sustainability.

It was safer to film outside rather than indoors and that actually became a strength of the film because the natural world means so much to every one of my contributors. I wanted to reflect the coherence of this community and for it to feel like a weaved tapestry of interconnected lives, and this became an interesting creative challenge to transcend into a collective story arc. The recurring radio motif served to help mark the passage of time as well as connect us with the national climate.

You say much was unknown but the film feels particularly resonant now that we are heading into winter and a second wave?

Yes, as this film is being released there is a significant light being shone on food poverty, and once again we see a national movement of communities working together to protect the most vulnerable. It’s a time when so many of us have been seriously reflecting on how sustainable our lives are and how much inequality, isolation, stress and environmental damage is generated by our current economic model.

In Cornwall, where neighbourhoods number among some of the most deprived in the country, this crisis has forced many of us to think about what it means to have such a fragile economy that has lost or almost lost its key industries, and been forced to become overly dependent on tourism. A depressing £41m out of £177m coronavirus small business grants went straight out of the county to owners of holiday homes. Supermarkets have had a major impact on the self-sufficiency of all communities, and this time has shown us that, as we face so many unknowns, we have to start investing in and strengthening our local economies.

Who were the team that shaped this film?

This was a wonderful film to make – how often do you get a chance to show the little pocket you grew up in to the rest of the world? St Just has an exceptional community. There is something about being at the end of the land exposed to the elements that creates a hardy and creative bunch, and a wicked sense of humour to match.

West Cornwall is a hive of creative talent, so I was lucky enough to be able to put together a strong team from the local area – brilliant editors, Robin Simpson (who is from the centre of St Just) became a solid force behind the film throughout the seven months, and Melissa Warren really helped me wrestle the narrative and tease out the character journeys. Morgan Lowndes, a great cinematographer who has worked on the Poldark series among many others, helped bring the sense of movement into the film with his great gimbal work from his push bike, as well as some superb scenic shots, and Nick Harpley who came in last minute and pulled the lovely soundtrack out of his hat in a few short days. But also the contributors themselves were really key to the creative journey.

As with all my films I like to make the process as collaborative as possible – it always adds nuances to the film I would not have found alone.

About the filmmaker: Sky Neal is a producer/director and founder of Satya Films. Her BFI and Sundance supported feature documentary Even When I Fall (2018), received numerous awards, nominations and official selections including a British Independent Film Award nomination. Sky has been making films since 2006 after graduating from a Visual Anthropology masters at Goldsmiths University. Her work is often rooted in human rights (Including Children at Work, Series for BBC, 2013, Nepal’s Lost Circus Children, Al Jazeera English, 2012) and Satya Films’ current slate includes films resonating with migration, gender and identity.

Watch more Guardian Documentaries here.

On Tuesday a London council decides over a 20-storey tower in Brixton – a tale familiar to cities from Manchester to Sydney

[‘Scaring the living daylights out of people’: The local lobby and the failure of democracy, featuring historic “goings on” in East Devon, also by Anna Minton, is also relevant. – Owl] 

Anna Minton www.theguardian.com

Taylor McWilliam, the Texan property developer, friend of Prince Harry and DJ, has been no stranger to gentrification battles since he bought large swaths of Brixton, in south London, with the backing of a New York hedge fund.

One of the most multicultural and vibrant parts of London, Brixton has been at the heart of the UK’s gentrification struggles for more than a decade. A hard-fought community battle to save the famous glass-covered indoor markets eventually resulted in listed status, which staved off demolition, on the basis of their cultural significance as one of the principal centres of the Afro-Caribbean community.

More recently an equally heartfelt campaign to save small businesses in the railway arches failed after the £1.5bn selloff of thousands of arches around the country by Network Rail. After the sale to the Arch Company, which is part of the US private equity firm Blackstone, the majority of the businesses in the Brixton arches were forced out by rising rents.

Since he bought Brixton market in 2018, McWilliam has rarely been out of the news, with campaigners claiming the tourist-destination image of the market is undermining local businesses and the character of the area. This summer he hit the headlines when the campaign to save Nour Cash & Carry from eviction unexpectedly went global after a protest during an online charity concert featuring a DJ set by McWilliam, in front of an audience of more than 1,000 people.

A much-loved family business, Nour has been saved, but McWilliams is once again the focus of huge local opposition, this time against plans to build a 20-storey tower, designed by the British Ghanaian architect David Adjaye. Council officers have recommended that the tower go ahead on the basis that it will regenerate the area and provide jobs and a new public realm.

Yet prior to the council’s forthcoming decision on Tuesday, more than 1,000 objections had been lodged, including from the local MP, ward councillors and a 7,000 strong petition against the scheme.

McWilliams, with his partying and royal connections, is the perfect target for community anger. But the story of a colourful developer at loggerheads with local activists obscures the bigger picture, which is the effect that global finance, in the shape of hedge funds, private equity and global property development companies, is having on places such as Brixton. Although McWilliams announced that he had bought Brixton market through his company Hondo Enterprises, the legal owners are two special-purpose vehicles backed by the New York hedge fund Angelo Gordon, while the fate of the Brixton arches was determined by US private equity.

Earlier this year, Lambeth council appointed Tom Branton as director of regeneration, giving an indication of its vision for the area. Branton has previously worked for Southwark council, as project manager of the controversial Elephant & Castle regeneration scheme, carried out in partnership with the Australia-based developer Lendlease. He moved on from the council to work for Lendlease, where he was development manager on the same project, Elephant Park. Built on the site of the demolished Heygate estate, Elephant Park includes nearly 3,000 luxury apartments, of which only 82 are social housing. Of the properties built in the first phase, most were sold to foreign investors.

Branton later went with Lendlease to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to work on the Tun Razak Exchange, described as an Asian version of Canary Wharf.

Lendlease and Branton describe themselves as experts in “placemaking”, a process said to bring regeneration, housing and jobs to rundown parts of the city. Critics claim it displaces local people and reconfigures places into bland clusters of luxury apartments, shops, restaurants and perhaps an art gallery or university.

Elephant & Castle, King’s Cross and Greenwich Peninsula in London, and the centres of cities such as Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Bristol include all these elements alongside an increasingly privatised “public” realm, policed by security guards, where access and behaviour are closely monitored and surveilled. This model of development, which is common to the deregulated economies of North America, Australia and the UK, often appears in former industrial or waterfront areas, featuring docks and old warehouses that lend themselves to hip new uses in the creative industries.

In Australia, Lendlease is responsible for Sydney’s giant waterfront Barangaroo project. The type of “placemaking” achieved by global property finance forces out local communities through rising rents and property prices, and airbrushes local culture from existence. Historic England’s objection to McWilliam and Adjaye’s tower is that the development would “markedly detract from the strong sense of place that Brixton already has”.

Despite the gentrification struggles of the last few years, Brixton still has a sense of place and a soul that many areas would love to emulate, and which the local community is desperate to protect. Adjaye has described the scheme as an opportunity to “give back” to the community. Now local ward councillors would like to invite him to come and meet local people to hear their views.

• Anna Minton is the author of Big Capital: Who is London for? and is a reader in architecture at the University of East London

Do you remember Boris Johnson saying that a cabinet ministers salary of £141,000 is not enough to live on?

Now the poor man has his “gifts” taken away. Makes you weep. – Owl

Boris Johnson has had wine, caviar and other luxury items confiscated by the Cabinet Office because they would have broken corruption rules, the government has revealed.  

Adam Forrest www.independent.co.uk 

The prime minister was also given a painting, a sculpture, Scotch whisky and some expensive olive oil – but they were all removed because they all exceeded strict limits on freebies.

The ministerial code, aimed at preventing individuals exerting undue influence over our politicians, means MPs cannot accept any gifts valued over £140.  

Mr Johnson was also gifted a “futuristic” strategy game similar to chess, and a pen and pen holder set, but won’t get the chance to use them.

The wine – a present from the government of Hungary – will remain uncorked after being taken away by Cabinet Office officials for “disposal”.  

The latest Cabinet Office data release also reveals that Mr Johnson held meetings with leading media and philanthropic figures in recent months.

The PM met with Aidan Barclay and Howard Barclay, the owners of The Telegraph Group, on 19 May. Two days later, Mr Johnson met The Daily Telegraph’s editor Chris Evans.

The government stated that he also spoke to Bill and Melinda Gates on 19 May to discuss “global efforts to tackle Covid-19 and the forthcoming Global Vaccine Summit”.  

But there was no information provided on what he talked about with The Telegraph Group’s senior figures.

When asked by The Independent about the reason for the meetings, Downing Street refused to say what specific issues were discussed by Mr Johnson and the newspaper executives.

Mr Johnson had been paid £275,000 a year for his weekly column for the newspaper, but the arrangement came to an end when he entered No 10 last year.

Lockdowns affecting entire populations is a price countries pay for failing to ensure people with coronavirus and their contacts self-isolate, according to an expert from the World Health Organization.

Sarah Boseley www.theguardian.com

The WHO does not recommend that countries enter lockdowns. It has consistently said that the key to controlling epidemics, whether Covid-19, Sars or flu, is to test people, trace their contacts and ensure all those who are positive or who have been close to those infected are quarantined.

While countries like the UK have been massively increasing the numbers of tests carried out, contact tracing has fallen short, and studies have shown that as few as 20% of people in England fully comply with self-isolation.

“For me, the big missing link in what’s going on in many European countries is management of isolation,” said Dr Margaret Harris of the WHO. “That’s not just isolation of people who are sick – it’s isolation of people who have contacts and are first-degree contacts.

“They don’t think they have Covid, because they feel fine, and even if they are told they should stay home, they don’t feel a strong social obligation or they do not necessarily have that reinforced as happens in some countries.

“So for instance, in a place like Hong Kong, you would be called every day, or the police come to your house,” she said.

Across Asia, there is a mixture of economies that have managed the virus well – not just those that may be non-liberal, non-democratic command economies, she added. “Taiwan, for instance, probably has the best management. They are definitely a highly liberal society.”

A lockdown which effectively isolates everyone does work, Harris said, “but it also causes massive dislocation, massive disruption. And unless you’ve worked out how you can possibly put that pause button on and maintain your economic and social lives, the price you pay is very, very high.”

The WHO doesn’t say don’t do it, she said. “We just say, if you’re doing it, you’re paying a very high price, so therefore get some return for what you pay.”

That means getting test and trace to work efficiently “and you could think very hard about how to make self-isolation doable” she said.

“You’ve got to do it at grassroots level, because it’s very different, say, in London from somewhere rural, it’s different in housing estates, you may have people living on the streets, you may have people living in institutions. So, you have to really know your society, and know how you’re going to make it possible for them to self-isolate.

“There will be people who cannot possibly self-isolate, because they live in crowded conditions or on the streets. You may have to think of offering them somewhere else to stay.

“It does require a lot of planning. It requires a lot of a great deal of partnership with community and with local authorities, and really listening to your mayors and your councils and all the people in your local groups or your NGOs who understand how communities really function and ensure that you’re reaching everyone.

“You might have communities who don’t have access to standard English-language channels and all the rest of it, and don’t really know what is being asked of them or whether it’s possible.”

Harris said that some countries, such as Hong Kong, isolate those who have Covid-19 by putting them in hospital with even mild symptoms, which means it is far easier and quicker to spot those who deteriorate and treat them, saving lives. Early medical monitoring helped with getting people the right treatment, she added, and although it’s not yet clear, getting earlier care to people could also save some from the after-effects known as long Covid.

The “rapid turnaround” coronavirus tests the prime minister announced on Saturday are not approved for the public to interpret themselves without an expert’s help and so will not provide results in the promised 15 minutes, the Guardian has learned.

Sarah Boseley www.theguardian.com

Boris Johnson’s briefing about this week’s national lockdown in England included the promise of a mass rollout of “tests that you can use yourself to tell whether or not you are infectious and get the result within 10 to 15 minutes”, which would be made available at universities and across whole cities.

He said the army would be deployed to roll out the “many millions of cheap, reliable and above all rapid turnaround tests” everywhere they were needed.

Three of these rapid antigen tests, called lateral flow tests, have passed an assessment by Porton Down with Oxford University. The government has bought one of them. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the government had signed a deal for 20 million, from the company Innova Tried and Tested, on 19 October.

But the Innova tests are not for people without symptoms, such as university students or people wanting to get on a plane or go to the theatre. They are designed for people who already have Covid symptoms. And the devices, which look like a pregnancy test, are intended to be read by a healthcare professional.

The company is clear about their limitations on the instructions for use, which can be found on its website. The tests analyse throat and nose swabs “from individuals who are suspected of Covid-19 by their healthcare provider, within the first five days of the onset of symptoms”. The test is designed for use by trained lab and healthcare staff, it says.

Johnson hopes the tests will help show the way out of the pandemic. They will be deployed in a wide range of situations, he said, “from helping women to have their partners with them in labour wards when they’re giving birth, to testing whole towns and even whole cities.

“The army has been brought in to work on the logistics and the programme will begin in a matter of days, working with local communities, local government, public health directors and organisations of all kinds to help people discover whether or not they are infectious, and then immediately to get them to self-isolate and to stop the spread.”

Prof Jon Deeks from Birmingham University and a member of a working group of the Royal Statistical Society, which is looking at coronavirus tests, said they were not ready for this type of use.

“At the moment, if you were bought this test, you would not be using it for this purpose,” he told the Guardian.

Lateral flow tests are now being offered to students at two universities – Durham and De Montfort – in a pilot study. Deeks questioned whether those involved had the right information.

“There are real issues in what people are being told in these studies,” he said. There was no transparency around the assessment of the lateral flow tests, he said. The announcement that the three tests had passed did not explain how they were assessed or how well they performed.

While everyone agrees that lateral flow tests, which could use either swab samples from the nose and mouth or saliva, have huge promise, Deeks said the technology at the moment appeared to struggle to register low levels of virus. They may pick up people who are infected and have high virus levels and may have symptoms, but they tend to miss people who are asymptomatic, as many young and fit people are.

A second test approved by Porton Down, from the Korean company SD Biosensor, has been validated by the World Health Organization and a package of support has been agreed to supply low- and middle-income countries that do not have access to PCR lab testing. However, these tests are also to be read by a healthcare professional.

Mass testing was part of the government’s controversial Moonshot plans. Last week the Guardian revealed that local health leaders had been asked to sign up to testing 10% of their populations every week using lateral flow tests, following the announcement of the deal with Innova.

In a leaked letter, Alex Cooper, the director of rapid testing at NHS test and trace, said the ambition was “to make this technology available for local areas to roll out at pace”, adding that the programme would go nationwide “as quickly as possible”.

Labour has called for frontline workers and vulnerable people living in coronavirus hotspots to be tested every week. NHS staff and those working in education, transport, retail and hospitality, as well as at-risk groups in areas with high infections, should be given access to rapid saliva tests, the party said.

It urged ministers to use the November lockdown to expand testing and fix contact tracing, saying that a plan to roll out strategic mass testing would provide a roadmap for containing the virus.

Owl is mortified to find this comment by Tim got lost in 266 items of spam (a couple of week’s worth).

It deserves repeating as a full post.

In reply to A Budleigh Correspondant.

Congratulations to the lady or gentleman who put this account together for it has seldom been an easy task to determine the real facts of a matter under the old Tory regime.

I would like to add a couple of observations, the first already hinted at. Frankly the ducking and diving performed by the old regime, both from various officers and members, in their efforts to hide much of what was going on. It was shameful. I submitted numerous FOI’s including that which confirmed the £50k on the covenant purchase. It was like trying to draw blood from a stone.

I cannot readily find the reference but I am pretty sure that there were £10k legal fees on top of the £50k paid for the covenant, a covenant incidentally that EDDC at one point claimed they didn’t need for the Ocean!

In regard to the retail element, we were promised something exceptional by way of tenants, something that would act as a draw to Exmouth without adversely affecting the town’s businesses. Initially a water-sports business operated in one part but I seem to recall that the rates were excessive and they moved their operation elsewhere.

So what ‘exceptional’ retail did we end up with, a grocery type outlet which popular though it may be, would go bust I suspect if its alcohol licence were removed. The retail element of the Ocean leads me to wonder what sort of retail we shall see at the newer water-sports centre, what amazing year-around draws will rent the brick garage-like structures. So far it looks like more take away cafes. Expect longer queues at the inadequate newest loos!

Cllr Moulding amongst others has held the Ocean up as an example of excellent development.; well the writer of the account above has debunked that well and truly. Cllr Moulding has always failed to provide evidence for his praise of Exmouth developments not least for the fact that EDDC has never carried out the necessary research.

I should like to know more about LED, their involvement, and the cost to the taxpayer- but they are not covered by FOI so that element remains largely hidden from public inspection.

I had not appreciated the involvement of FWS Carter at an early stage: I should have known better.

Notwithstanding all of the above, we are now stuck with the Ocean and must make the best of it. After years of parts of it not being used, I believe that most of it is in use apart from those restrictions due to Covid. I hope that it does get used to the fullest and make some money for the public purse .

Finally, to address the Budleigh commentator’s valid concern over availability of records, the whatdotheyknow.com website, with it’s record of FOI applications (although some refs/links may no longer work) sits alongside EDW as a repository of some of EDDC’s darker planning years .

Bars are closing. Restaurants are seeing bookings cancelled. Retailers are worried about the impact of tightened Covid-19 restrictions on their businesses in the run-up to the crucial period. Everywhere there are signs of an economy rapidly losing momentum after its summer growth spurt.

Larry Elliott www.theguardian.com 

Everywhere apart from the housing market. There demand is booming, with the Bank of England reporting that mortgage approvals in September were the highest since 2007, the year the last crisis started.

Stronger demand for property is feeding through into higher prices. The Nationwide building society said in its monthly report that prices rose at an annual rate of 5.8% in October, the highest house-price inflation in six years.

There are two big questions about what Martin Beck of the consultancy Oxford Economics calls “a very peculiar housing boom”: what is causing it, and how long will it last?

The answer to the first question is that a bunch of factors have come together to boost activity. For a start, the housing market – like much of the rest of the economy – went into deep freeze in the spring, normally the time when house hunters are out in force. When restrictions were lifted, there was plenty of pent-up demand to tap into.

Rishi Sunak did his bit to keep the market hot by announcing a temporary reduction in stamp duty in his July mini budget. Past experience, the pre-announced end to double mortgage relief in 1988, for example, shows that the British public does not need much encouragement to buy property, and a stamp duty exemption for homes worth up to £500,000 is quite an incentive to bring forward purchases.

Beck also makes the point that the property market has been insulated from the wider economy’s troubles because the job losses that have been seen so far have been concentrated among the young, who tend to be renters not owner-occupiers.

The answer to the second question – how long before the market comes back down to Earth? – is simple: not all that long. The Nationwide itself injected a strong note of caution into its statement accompanying news of the latest house price rise, noting that the outlook remained “highly uncertain”.

It warned that activity was likely to slow, perhaps sharply, over the next few quarters if the expected increase in unemployment materialised, especially when the stamp duty holiday comes to an end in March.

Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

What the chancellor’s tax break has done is to bring forward house purchases that would have taken place anyway, leading to a bunching effect. The flipside of that is a drop-off in demand from next spring onwards.

That, in itself would not be enough to lead to a full-blown housing market correction. For that to happen house buyers have to face severe difficulties paying their mortgages, either because interest rates go up sharply or because they are losing their jobs.

With interest rates at rock-bottom levels and certain to stay there, the first of these is not a threat. The second, though, most certainly is.

HOW shocking is it that Unicef, which aids the world’s poorest kids, will hold its first-ever emergency response in the UK to help feed 15,000 children at Christmas?

Jonathan Reilly www.thesun.co.uk

MARCUS Rashford has backed Unicef after it stepped in to feed 15,000 British kids over the Christmas holiday.

The football ace and food poverty campaigner, 23, welcomed the UN children’s charity’s allocation of just under £750,000.

It is Unicef’s “first ever emergency response within the UK”. The money will feed youngsters through local charities, community and support groups over the festive holiday and half term next February.

The England and Manchester United striker has been urging the Government to fund free meals during school holidays.

He told The Sun: “Unicef’s emergency response just reinforces the absolute need to identify a long-term sustainable framework to stabilise the households of our most vulnerable children.

“There’s an evident gap in accessibility to provision for children and this needs to be reviewed as a ­matter of urgency.

“I stand with Unicef and thank them for their support.”

The Sun Says

HOW shocking is it that Unicef, which aids the world’s poorest kids, will hold its first-ever emergency response in the UK to help feed 15,000 children at Christmas?

But the announcement is further vindication of the admirable free school meals campaign fronted by footballer Marcus Rashford, MBE.

Whatever the long-term solution, the pandemic means there is a real crisis, and the Government must up its game.

Unicef — more used to helping the world’s poorest children — has handed out grants to seven charities, with another 21 set to be announced.

Tulip Siddiq, Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, said: “The Government should be ashamed that Unicef has had to step in to feed our country’s hungry children.

“Charities and businesses have done a brilliant job but it should have never come to this.”

Labour’s Tulip Siddiq says the Government ‘should be ashamed’Credit: PA:Press Association

Rio Ferdinand compares Marcus Rashford’s performance to an older kid bullying younger kids and “taking their dinner money”

“Most people we see never thought they would ever be in the position of having to ask for help,” says Stella West-Harling, the founder of the Dartmoor Community Kitchen Hub. “We do ask ‘have you used food bank before?’ Most reply they’ve never even thought about it.”

Patrick Butler www.theguardian.com 

The hub has helped growing numbers of local people in food poverty as a result of Covid, and has witnessed close-up the emerging phenomenon of the “newly hungry” in which previously relatively comfortably off families have been forced to resort to food banks and the benefit system to survive.

Out of 130 people who approached the Devon-based hub for food support between March and September, 110 had never previously needed charity food help. “I’m seeing people dropping into poverty because Covid hit, and they suddenly realise they don’t have any reserves,” says West-Harling.

Many are young families “up to their neck in debt,” she says, people who have taken advantage of easy credit or over-extended to get on the housing ladder. “If you are on the minimum wage and 20% goes [under furlough] you still have bills and debts. Many can’t afford to feed themselves.”

It is not only the young who have suffered. West-Harling originally set up the hub, a not-for-profit company, to provide a nutritious meals-on-wheelsstyle service for isolated older people in the county. Many of them, sometimes living in draughty old houses in lonely “genteel” poverty, have struggled under Covid.

Self-employed people, often running their own businesses, have found themselves in unexpected hardship and feel acute shame about relying on charity, says West-Harling. “I delivered food round to a chap who owned a tool repair business. He was devastated, saying: ‘I should be the one taking food round to people.’”

In one case, they took food to a vulnerable young woman who was stranded alone in rural isolation. She had been too scared to leave her house during the pandemic. “She eventually phoned in terrible distress as she had not eaten in three days and had eked out what little food she had over a period of weeks.”

West-Harling, who founded and runs the Ashburton cookery school, says Covid has highlighted hidden areas of rural deprivation in Devon as well as the fragility of the tourism-farming-hospitality economy. The hub has been supported well by local volunteers and food banks, but needs financial help to keep going.

It is a shame the UK has never eradicated food poverty, she says, though she believes there will always be people who need help. “The way forward is a compassionate society. You cannot deal with poverty, social isolation and loneliness without compassion.”

Data press release 30 October covid.joinzoe.com

According to the ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey figures, the number of daily new COVID-19 cases in the UK are continuing to steadily increase and not surging as other sources have suggested this week.

Key findings from ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey this week: 

• There are currently 43,569 daily new symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average over the two weeks up to 25 October (excluding care homes) 
• This compares to 36,251 daily new symptomatic cases a week ago
• Rates in the North of England are still around four times higher than the South of England although the gap is narrowing
• In Scotland cases are potentially levelling off
• London rates continue to climb in a steady linear fashion (see full table of regional results below)
• The doubling rate for cases is currently 28 days 
• The UK R value is 1.1 
• Regional R values are: England 1.1, Wales 1.2 and Scotland 1.1
• Infections nationally have stopped increasing in children and are still rising fastest in 30-59 year olds with only gradual increases in the over 60s (see graph below)

According to this week’s Tier Prediction Model, Bradford, Leeds and Sunderland are the next regions most likely to be moved into the tighter restrictions of Tier 3.

The ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey figures are based on around a million weekly reporters and the proportion of newly symptomatic users who have positive swab tests. The latest survey figures were based on the data from 12,390 recent swab tests done between 11 October to 25 October. 

Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, comments: 

“While cases are still rising across the UK, we want to reassure people that cases have not spiralled out of control, as has been recently reported from other surveys. We are still seeing a steady rise nationally, doubling every four weeks, with the possible exception of Scotland which may be showing signs of a slow down. With a million people reporting weekly, we have the largest national survey and our estimates are in line with the ONS survey. 

“Data on covid-19 can be confusing for the public and we can’t rely simply on confirmed cases or daily deaths, without putting them into context. Hospital admissions are rising as expected, but deaths are still average for the season. As we become citizen scientists it’s important to look at multiple sources to get a broader view. Trends can be different at the local level and our app allows users to monitor this themselves.” 

A dramatic government climbdown will protect post-Brexit food quality, delighted campaigners say – after fears that chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef would be allowed in.

Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor www.independent.co.uk 

In another U-turn, Liz Truss has bowed to pressure to give teeth to a new watchdog to prevent trade deals, particularly with the US, watering down food and animal welfare standards.

Now the new Trade and Agriculture Commission will be made properly independent, permanent and given the power to scrutinise each deal for its impact on food, welfare and environmental standards.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) hailed “a landmark moment”, saying: “This significant commitment to primary legislation on food standards is exactly what we have been calling for.”

And Neil Parish, a Tory rebel on the issue, said: “It’s been hard work, but I think we’re in a much better place now. We wanted firm guarantees in legislation and that is what we’ve got.”

Anne McIntosh, a Conservative peer and campaigner, said: “All our farmers ever wanted was fair competition and a level playing field and the government has recognised this and addressed these concerns.”

Ms Truss was forced to concede the setting up of the commission in the summer – but it had no budget, an advisory function only and was due to be wound up after six months.

Once permanent and independent, campaigners believe it will not sanction lower standards, achieving the “same objective” as an outright legal ban on acid-washed chicken, for example.

However, the climbdown is a huge blow for Ms Truss’s hopes of striking a quickfire trade deal with Washington, which has insisted access for its agricultural products is a red line.

Ms Truss had urged MPs and worried groups to simply trust the government when it said it would not cut food standards.

But they feared she did not want her hands tied – noting the UK has already proposed allowing in chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef in the US trade talks, albeit with higher tariffs.

Jamie Oliver had stepped up his warning of an influx of cheap food if ministers are able to prevent “proper parliamentary scrutiny”, saying: “I don’t like the smell of it.”

Announcing the U-turn, Ms Truss, along with environment secretary George Eustice, said, in a newspaper article, that an amendment had been tabled to the Agriculture Bill.

“It will place a duty on the government to report to parliament on the impact of trade agreements on the maintenance of food, welfare and environmental standards,” the pair wrote.

“Also, we have the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission, under the chairmanship of the trusted former Food Standards Agency head Tim Smith.

“Thanks to the commission’s excellent work, we are announcing today that it will be made a statutory body which will give independent advice on trade deals as they go through parliament.”

Boris Johnson has announced a four-week lockdown in England, following weeks of pressure from his own scientific advisers and opposition parties to introduce tougher measures to tackle coronavirus. The full details of the restrictions will be published on Tuesday before a vote in parliament, but this is what we know so far.

Jedidajah Otte www.theguardian.com 

When is England going into lockdown?

The measures will come into place at midnight on Thursday after MPs vote on them this coming week. While the lockdown will end on 2 December, it will be replaced with the current tier system and local restrictions will be introduced depending on an area’s infection rate.

Can different households mix indoors?

No, not unless they are part of an “exclusive” support bubble, which allows a single-person household to meet and socialise with another household.

However, people are allowed to meet one other person outside for “recreation” as well as exercise, and parents are allowed to form a childcare bubble with another household for the purposes of informal childcare, where the child is 13 or under.

What can I leave home for?

People can only leave home for the following reasons:

• Education.
• To go to work unless it can be done from home.
• Outdoor exercise either with household members or with one person from another household.
• For all medical reasons and appointments.
• To escape injury or harm.
• To care for the vulnerable or volunteer.
• To shop for food and essentials.
• To see people in your support bubble.
• Children will still be able to move between homes if their parents are separated.

However, people could face fixed penalty notices from police for leaving their home without one of the above excuses.

Can I travel?

Most outbound international travel will be banned.

There is no exemption for staying away from home on holiday. This means people cannot travel internationally or within the UK, unless for work, education or other legally permitted exemptions.

Overnight stays away from primary residences will not be allowed, except for specific exceptions including for work.

Which businesses will close?

Everything except essential shops and education settings, which include nurseries, schools and universities, will close.

Entertainment venues will also have to close. Pubs and restaurants will have to close their doors once more. Takeaway and delivery services will still be allowed, while construction and manufacturing will stay open.

Parents will still be able to access registered childcare and other childcare activities where reasonably necessary to enable parents to work.

Public services, such as job centres, courts, and civil registration offices will remain open.

There is no exemption for communal worship in places of worship (except funerals and individual prayer), for organised team sports, or for children’s activities.

Elite sports will be allowed to continue behind closed doors as currently, including Premier League football matches.

Should some people be shielding?

The prime minister said that the clinically vulnerable or those aged over 60 should be especially careful and minimise contacts, but there would be no return to the shielding programme used in the first lockdown. Johnson said those in this category should work from home.

Will there be a return to the furlough scheme?

The furlough scheme was set to end on Saturday and be replaced by a less generous package of support for employers and businesses. But that was before the announcement of a second lockdown. The PM said on Saturday that the old scheme – which pays 80% of salaries – would now be extended throughout November. No further details were given.

Why has the decision been made?

Confirmed cases are rising steeply, with an estimated 568,100 people in households infected in the week ending 23 October. Scientists on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have warned that deaths could potentially hit 500 a day within weeks and that coronavirus could kill 85,000 people this winter.

The group has been concerned that the number of infections and hospital admissions is “exceeding the reasonable worst-case scenario planning levels at this time” and they first called for a national lockdown on 21 September.

“We’ve got to be humble in the face of nature,” said Johnson on Saturday. “The virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst-case scenario of our scientific advisers.

“Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day – a peak of mortality, alas, bigger than the one we saw in April.”

What difference could a lockdown make?

A lockdown can stem the spread of the virus and thus reduce the reinfection rate.

“The idea of a lockdown is to save lives primarily,” Prof John Edmunds, a member of Sage, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday. “I think the only real way that we have a relatively safe Christmas is to get the incidence right down.”

Johnson warned that “Christmas is going to be different this year” but

added that by taking action now, he hoped that families could be together.

Scientists are calling for ministers to add vitamin D to common foods such as bread and milk to help the fight against Covid-19.

James Tapper www.theguardian.com 

Up to half the UK population has a vitamin D deficiency, and government guidance that people should take supplements is not working, according to a group convened by Dr Gareth Davies, a medical physics researcher.

Low levels of vitamin D, which our bodies produce in response to strong sunlight, may lead to a greater risk of catching the coronavirus or suffering more severe effects of infection, according to some studies. Last week, researchers in Spain found that 82% of coronavirus patients out of 216 admitted to hospital had low vitamin D levels. The picture is mixed, however – some research shows that vitamin D levels have little or no effect on Covid-19, flu and other respiratory diseases.

Vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults – soft bones that lead to deformities – and children with severe vitamin D deficiency are prone to hypocalcaemia – low levels of calcium in the blood – which leads to seizures and heart failure.

However, Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health and Social Care have rejected calls over the past 10 years to fortify foods such as milk, bread and orange juice, which is the practice in Finland, Sweden, Australia and Canada.

“In my opinion, it is clear that vitamin D could not only protect against disease severity but could also protect against infection,” Davies said. “Food fortification would need careful planning to be rolled out effectively, particularly as people are now taking supplements. Picking the right foods to fortify would need to be done carefully.

“But it’s clear that the current policy is not working – at least half the population have a vitamin D deficiency.”

Adrian Martineau, professor of respiratory infection at Queen Mary University in London, who is not part of Davies’s group, is leading a clinical trial to examine whether vitamin D can reduce the risk of Covid-19, or its severity. The Coronavit study, which began last week and is backed by the Barts Charity, the Fischer Family Trust and the AIM Foundation, will follow more than 5,000 people through the winter.

“The government recommends that the whole population takes vitamin D supplements in winter months, and those in high risk groups take it all year round,” Martineau said. “But we know that people just aren’t doing that in any significant numbers. Even I forget to take my supplement sometimes, and I’m living and breathing this subject. Fortification is a really good way of eliminating deficiency.”

Our bodies produce vitamin D in response to strong sunlight. In the UK, that means that from October to March, people need to rely on other sources: oily fish, eggs and food supplements.

Some foods, such as breakfast cereals and mushrooms are fortified with vitamin D, and people in low-income households are entitled to free multivitamins. White flour in the UK is already fortified with vitamins B1 (thiamin) and B3 (niacin), and last year the government began a consultation on adding vitamin B9 (folic acid) to help prevent spina bifida and other birth defects of the brain and spine.

A 2019 study at the University of Birmingham, led by Magda Aguiar, a health economist, showed there would be at least 25% fewer cases of vitamin D deficiency over the next 90 years if flour fortification were adopted, saving about £65m.

In 2017, Professor Louis Levy, PHE’s head of nutrition science, responded to calls for fortification by saying that there was not enough evidence that vitamin D would reduce the risk of respiratory infections.

The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for a comment but failed to respond.

Recruitment to the clinical study trial at Queen Mary University has recently been extended. Observer readers who would like to find out more should email coronavit@qmul.ac.uk

Just six words, Doctor Who said, would be enough to bring down the unprincipled prime minister Harriet Jones. “Don’t you think she looks tired?”

Would it work on a man?………

Catherine Bennett www.theguardian.com 

……. Time to find out. “I have read a lot of nonsense recently, about how my own bout of Covid has somehow robbed me of my mojo,” Boris Johnson said in his party conference speech. Was he thinking of the Daily Telegraph, where he appeared“strangely out of sorts”, or of the protracted lament by a former fan, the Spectator’s Toby Young: “What on earth happened to the freedom-loving, twinkly-eyed, Rabelaisian character I voted for?” Young cited one theory, “that the disease actually damaged his brain in some way”.

Covid-19 damage featured again in a Times report detailing the exhaustion of a miserable and forgetful prime minister, who was also struggling with his latest infant, whose exact age recently escaped him. “Physically, I think Covid has had huge impact, definitely,” a source said.

“Of course,” Johnson told conference, “this is self-evident drivel, the kind of seditious propaganda that you would expect from people who don’t want this government to succeed.” This seems unnecessarily harsh on some recently prized supporters, yet more unkind to the elderly huntsman Sir Humphry Wakefield, father-in-law of Dominic Cummings, who reportedly said that Johnson is so unwell he will step down in months and should not have gone back to work early because you’d never do that with a horse.

Johnson added, presumably for the benefit of the imaginary seditious propagandists to whom, in dreams, he shows scant mercy: “I could refute these critics of my athletic abilities in any way they want: arm-wrestle, leg-wrestle, Cumberland wrestle, sprint-off, you name it.” And if protecting the population in a pandemic ultimately came down to the prime minister’s victory in next summer’s Lakeland Games, while a non-catastrophic Brexit depended upon the physical humbling of Michel Barnier in a series of tap-room challenges, hopefully excluding the more cerebral skittles or darts, that might indeed have been one of Johnson’s more impressive performances since, well, maybe that time he identified as the Incredible Hulk?

Alas, the most convincing rebuttal of unkind post-Covid-19 “Don’t you think Johnson looks tired/sick/thick/dishevelled/shifty/dandruffy/unRabelaisian” commentary is the one line Johnson can’t deploy: what the hell did you think he was like before?

As it is, Johnson’s affirmation of undiminished mojo seems to have been roughly as effective as reports of Donald Trump’s alleged plan to prove his potency by ripping off his shirt to reveal a Superman T-shirt. Like Trump’s accompanying protestations of perfect health and eternal youth, the (unrealised) stunt only added to his critics’ case for invoking the 25th amendment, which allows Congress to rule a president unfit for office. Regular medicals, even if these duly descended into farce under Trump, also mean that, at least in theory, US politics legitimises public interest in a leader’s physical and intellectual fitness for the job.

However idiotic, Johnson’s boasting about Hulk-level athleticism suggests a measure of respect for the above principle and, perhaps, it follows, for the former MP Lord Owen’s proposal, that prospective leaders provide medical reports just as many CEOs are required to do. “I see every case for those who seek the highest political office at least subjecting themselves to a medical prior to nomination,” Owen wrote, years before Johnson’s serious illness indicated need for regular check-ups in order to address the – obviously minute – risk that an ailing leader could put personal ambition before the needs of the country.

Having continually advertised his prowess in everything from tennis to barging child sports opponents to the ground, while denigrating wetness, “malingering”, “languishing”, “girly swots” and, indeed, swotty girls, Johnson is now dismissing as “nonsense” public interest in his stamina. Maybe it’s unwise, in the long run, repeatedly to compare yourself to “a greased panther”? Since the suggestion that competitive virility denotes political prowess – possibly the result of some twisted public school code’s intensification within the legendary rough and tumble of the Johnson household? – must amount to a parallel concession that deficient greasiness will inevitably undermine a panther’s claim to authority. Actually, it’s tantamount to an admission, if it wasn’t obvious, that the peerless humanitarian Marcus Rashford, being also good at football and probably at leg-wrestling, would be a better leader than Johnson.

If unsuspecting US citizens have the right to know if their president becomes unfit, those of us currently at the mercy of Boris Johnson’s shambolic and recently Covid-19-infested cabal can surely be excused for wanting medical confirmation that his faculties are adequate to handle even a few more days of ignoring life-saving scientific advice.

You hardly need a doctor, it’s true, to see that as well as performing serial U-turns, appearing defeated, indecisive, irritable, incoherent and inept to the point of being owned by mayors, footballers and, worse, lefty lawyers, and too weak to dispense with an adviser who has single-handedly destroyed public compliance, Johnson does not even know his own Covid-19 regulations (“Apologies, I misspoke today”). Anyone, even anyone without a classics degree, must also have spotted his rhetoric declining from the showily ornate to “a stitch in time saves nine”, from the faux Churchillian to the full Gavin Williamson “I have had more than enough of this disease”.

But new findings, indicating “significant cognitive deficits” in coronavirus survivors, raise the possibility that the prime minister may more than tired. Researchers identified “pronounced problems”, with patients who had been hospitalised experiencing as much as an 8.5 point drop in IQ.

If only to signal the risks of pointless presenteeism Johnson would surely welcome the chance to confirm, via a thorough medical, that he is not in his current state a national liability; that is, no more so than usual.

• Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist

The closed Budleigh Salterton Shandford care home will be auctioned next week with funds going to a new East Devon charity set up for old people. [Guide price £750,000 – Owl]

About Author Becca Gliddon eastdevonnews.co.uk 

This poignant photo says it all – Owl

A pile of metal walking frames dumped at Shandford. Photo: Helen Tickle.

The Abbeyfield Society, site owners, said proceeds from the Tuesday, November 3 sale of Lot 68 will be given to newly-formed registered charity The Shandford Trust, to support older people in need who live within the area of Budleigh Salterton and the villages of East Budleigh, Otterton, Colaton Raleigh and Bicton.

The charity will be managed by a board of trustees drawn from the local community and one from The Abbeyfield Society.

When the funds become available, a new website will be launched to highlight the charity, its work, who can apply for financial support and how to apply.

A spokeswoman for The Abbeyfield Society said: “When Abbeyfield originally took over the site it was agreed that any funds raised from a potential sale would be used for the benefit of older people in Budleigh Salterton and other local communities, in line with the objectives of the charity which originally ran the Shandford home.

“In accordance with this, The Abbeyfield Society will be applying funds from the sale of Shandford to a new charity, The Shandford Trust.

“Its main purpose will be to support those older people in need who live within the area of Budleigh Salterton and the villages of East Budleigh, Otterton, Colaton Raleigh and Bicton.

“The Trust will be managed by a board of trustees drawn from the local community and one from The Abbeyfield Society.”

She added: “As soon as funds from the site sale are available, a fully structured website will be launched and publicised locally.

“This will give further details of the background and purposes of the Trust and the names of its trustees, together with information on the criteria for qualifying for support, and when and how to apply.”

The detached 26-bedroom former Shandford care home is being sold at auction through agent Savills, with a freehold guide price of £750,000.

Selling details, with photographs of the building and grounds, highlight the site’s vacant possession, off-street parking, rear garden, ground, second and first floors and ‘further potential subject to the usual consents’.

Abbeyfield said a pile of metal walking frames, dumped outside, are due to be cleared this week.

The former care home, in Station Road, fully-closed in March 2020, during the coronavirus lockdown.

The last remaining residents were moved to other care homes because of an earlier decision made by Abbeyfield that Shandford was ‘not a viable option’ to keep open.

At the time, Abbeyfield said the decision to close Shandford was ‘with great regret’ and taken after a lengthy review of the service, which took into consideration the future of the care home.

It said the decision to close was the result of a detailed review of the infrastructure, building condition and financial performance of the home.

A community drive by Budleigh residents to set up a Community Interest Company to run Shandford as a not-for-profit venture, with public volunteers and annual subscriptions, attracted ‘significant support’ but did not progress.

For more information about Registered Charity Number 1192048 The Shandford Trust, email shandfordtrust@gmail.com

The sad closure of Shandford, well recorded on EDW, raises issues. 

Shandford started as care home in 1958 for local people funded by the people of Budleigh Salterton. In 2012, the trustees ceded it to Abbeyfield.

The closure is based on Abbeyfield’s declared aim of “freeing up assets” as it changes its business model to concentrate on larger homes; and County Councillor Christine Channon’s handpicked adviser, Chris Davis, who claims that Shandford was no longer viable. Owl understands Chris Davis’ report has never been made public.

A local community effort to take back control, failed despite the intervention of newly elected Simon Jupp MP.

During this process Owl received plausible arguments that showed that there were grounds to challenge the case for non-viability.

The latest press report mentions the creation of a new charity to manage the funds “released”. This must have been so recently created that Owl has had difficulty tracking it down. However, Owl’s ferrets did find it through the link between trustees declared on the League of Friends of Budleigh Salterton Hospital.

From the list of the trustees for the newly created Shandford Trust Owl note that Chris Davis now Chairs both the Shandford Trust and the League of Friends. Who chose the trustees? Were the people of Budleigh Salterton consulted?

These Charities have distinctly different aims that do share some common elements. From a conflict of interest point of view, should they share the same Chair?

Hot on the heels of Shandford’s closure, Owl posted the sudden closure of Budleigh Salterton Age Concern facilities provided at the health and wellbeing hub because it was “economically unsustainable”. Examination of the last set of accounts posted on the Charity Commission web site shows assets of over £80,000. Where is this money going?

Owl simply draws attention to the lack of transparency over the way that assets donated by the community over many years has been handled in these cases.

This isn’t just any old retrospective application but one in England’s first Natural World Heritage Site!

At the beginning of May, Owl’s attention was drawn to the latest retrospective application the Carters have made, in a catalogue of retrospective applications going back for years, during their development of Ladram Bay.

This is retrospective application 20/0297/FUL for the partial retention at Ladram Bay of a raised viewing platform including balustrade and storage areas.This raised viewing platform appeared without planning permission and was certainly seen by members of the public in the summer of 2018. 

An enforcement notice was issued by EDDC on the 26th June 2019 seeking the removal of the raised platform, in its entirety. The notice took effect on the 01/08/2019 and a subsequent appeal was lodged. 

Interestingly, the current application was lodged before the appeal was determined (a not unusual Carter practice).

The appeal was dismissed on 17 August 2020 and the enforcement notice was upheld for the removal of the platform in its entirety due to its unacceptable visual impact, lack of planning policy support given the location of the site in a designated World Heritage Coast, AONB and Coastal Preservation Area. The structure needs to be removed by the 17th March 2021.

Worth noting that it was within the power of the Inspector to allow the retention of part of the structure if she had found part of it to be acceptable. However, the appeal and Enforcement Notice upheld the removal of the whole structure.

The new application goes before EDDC’s Planning Committee on Wednesday 4 November 10.00 with a recommendation from officers to refuse.

 In Owl’s view the matter is straightforward and one of fundamental principles. You don’t go developing the Jurassic Coast World HeritageSite, without seeking planning permission. Any permission granted would have to pass a very high threshold indeed.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the prominent part the first two played in trying to keep the Tories in power in the “changing of the guard” debates), the local ward councillors: Alan Dent, Tom Wright and “Ingham Indy” Paul Jarvis support the development valuing the economic benefit above the consequential environmental damage.

The most authoritative and persuasive case for refusal and has been made by the World Heritage Site/Jurassic Coast Management Team, including these points [Owl’s emphasis]:

1. As with the previous application regarding the deck, the principle stands that retrospective planning consent is incompatible with the World Heritage Site. Although this new planning proposal has a much reduced impact on the WHS, it is still asking consent for an existing structure.
2. No methodology has been provided for removal of part of the existing structure. This must be done in a way that minimises damage to the cliff face. We recommend that a methodology should be provided and approved before any work is undertaken, including in the case that this application is refused and the related enforcement is upheld.
3. We can accept that the combe leading down to the beach is an area of development, but the buildings currently diminish gradually seawards, providing a ‘soft’ transition from the caravan site out into the natural environment of the beach / coast. The timber structure, within this context, would make that transition abrupt, with a high, imposing structure running alongside the path right down to the shingle. Paragraph 6.3 of the LVIA states that the developments within the Combe are largely obscured when viewed from outside it, but we note that retaining a portion of the timber deck will permanently introduce a visible built structure into that view. It will also interrupt the natural sweep of the cliff line in the bay, compromising the way in which the character of the WHS’s geomorphology is presented. We recommend that advice is sought from relevant landscape officers regarding the level / significance of these impacts.
4. Although this application repeats the assertions from the previous application and appeal that the deck provides valuable access and amenity for disabled persons, there is still no evidence provided that establishes this need, or, more importantly, that alternative approaches to answer that need have been explored and discounted. As stated in previous responses, we would support any desire to improve access to the World Heritage Site, but we question whether this timber deck is the most appropriate way to do that in this location. 
5. Following on from point 4 above, we remain concerned that the position of the deck means that users are being invited to dwell beneath what is a natural cliff face. The Geological Assessment appendix to the Planning Support Statement describes that the geology at Ladram Bay is susceptible to rock falls. The risk posed to users of the deck is obvious. Risk management is the responsibility of the landowner, and not within our remit. Our particular concern here is that any future rock fall above the deck could trigger a desire to stabilise the rock face in order to mitigate the risk to users. Such stabilisation would run counter to various different natural environment management policies at this site. 

In his latest column, East Devon leader discusses how his usual autumn tradition has had to change, as has the district council’s constitution

Paul Arnott www.midweekherald.co.uk 

Autumn in Devon is my favourite time of year. Soon, the trees will have shed their golden leaves and make stark silhouettes on a Halloween morning. It’s a time of change – in many ways.

But this year, my Autumn will be missing its finest celebration, the Tar Barrels of Ottery St Mary. I first attended in 1980 and although not a big drinker if ever there is a time and a place to have a pint rooted to the spot as a man with a barrel on fire runs within a few feet of your head, this is it.

Over the last twenty years it has became important to my children too. Years ago, we’d drive them over and hold the hands of two children each as they were thrilled and terrified by the blaze appearing to come out of the back of some plucky Otteryman’s neck.

Cut forward ten years, when they or their friends could drive, and they’d disappear off into the seemingly infinite number of pubs with their mates, leaving my wife and I to get home exhausted in time for the ten ‘o clock news. They’d do whatever it was that teenagers do before returning at midnight. No Polos were strong enough to conceal their cider breath as they plonked themselves on the sofa and I’d look at them, a sentimental old fool, thinking: well, this is the life.

Ottery Tar Barrels 2019. Picture: Alex Walton Photography

This autumn, three of our four children, plus a girlfriend, have been back with us again, like a Groundhog Day of what happened in March. They decided to escape the city before it went into a higher tier and are now all working from home here in East Devon.

We would have all loved to have gone together to the Tar Barrels again but it is not to be this year. And this time they might not have scarpered with their pals into the mischievous night, but would have probably actually have bought us a drink.

Yes, all middle age parents mark that day well, when a child buys you a pint, or even a meal, instead of the other way round. Of course, if you live to be about a hundred and fifty you might recoup the cost of all the drinks and meals you have bought for them.

Instead this year our kitchen surfaces are covered with local blackberries and apples cooked and then frozen to keep us until next year. We’ve had amazing homemade quince jelly with roast pork (my department), and astonishing blackberry jam on freshly baked scones. It might be a horrible year but a generation seems to have learned to cook.

My other reason for wanting to go with them to Ottery this year would have been to introduce a remarkable local person, Vicky Johns. Vicky is a district councillor who is part of the administration with me at East Devon – but she has also recently become the first ever female mayor of Ottery St Mary.

We had a great debate at East Devon last week to make sure our constitution was changed to be respectful of both men and women. This addresses issues of maternity rights for councillors too. And in future we won’t address women running our meetings with such archaic terms as ‘Madam Chairman’ or ‘Councillor Mrs Smith’. It’s the kind of thing you might have thought was done and dusted in about 1970.

There was much talk from some of the more cobwebbed members about how they would now find it difficult to address someone as ‘Chair’. I made the point that if MPs had tried saying Madam Mrs Prime Minister to either Margaret Thatcher of Theresa May they’d have got short shrift. But it’s in the constitution now and in the end if you want to secure change and not allow things to slip back, that’s what you have to do.

Boris Johnson is on a collision course with the Tory party faithful. 

Ministers including Priti Patel and Gavin Williamson helped to scupper plans for hundreds of homes in their constituencies despite a government drive to increase housebuilding.

George Grylls www.thetimes.co.uk

In summer the government announced radical reforms to the planning system and Boris Johnson appeared to blame a culture of nimbyism for low rates of construction, describing “newt-counting delays” as “a massive drag on the prosperity of this country”. An algorithm will determine where 300,000 homes a year are built.

However within weeks of the white paper on planning being released, ministers were objecting to developments in their own constituencies.

In August Ms Patel, the home secretary, said that the “right decision” had been made after a scheme for 255 homes in her Essex seat of Witham was rejected. She had lobbied against the plans and told her local paper that the village of Tiptree had already experienced “substantial housing growth”.

Later that month, Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, wrote to Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, asking him to intervene in a plan to build 83 homes on a cricket field in Preston. A decision on the application is yet to be made.

Last year Mr Wallace tried to prevent planning permission for 127 homes in Goosnargh, in Lancashire.

The government white paper argues that the planning system benefits people who are “older, better off and white”. Downing Street wants to streamline public consultations so that locals cannot raise so many objections to applications. But Christopher Pincher, the housing minister who is leading the reforms, expressed concern about plans for 800 homes in his Midlands constituency this year.

He wrote to his district council in January, saying that without community support and investment in infrastructure, it would be “unsustainable and inappropriate” to build more houses in Fazeley in his Tamworth constituency. In 2018 he objected — in vain — to a scheme to build on fields at Arkall Farm with 1,000 homes.

One Conservative MP said: “Ministers are in a bind. They — understandably — have collective leadership and so can’t speak out against individual policies, yet I suspect many are becoming concerned that the housing algorithm and related plans will prove, divisive, unpopular and damaging.”

The formula that allocates where homes will be built will concentrate development on London as well as swathes of the countryside. Meanwhile cities including Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool will all see their housebuilding shrink.

One rural constituency that will escape much of the construction boom is South Staffordshire, the seat of Gavin Williamson, the education secretary. In November last year he celebrated the withdrawal of an application for 50 homes with a further outline for up to 200 homes on fields in his constituency. He said that the homes were “neither wanted nor needed” by the villages of Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay.

Last week it emerged that Michael Gove had attended an online residents’ meeting that was objecting to the construction of 44 homes in his constituency of Surrey Heath. According to The Sunday Times, Mr Gove wrote to Mr Jenrick, saying that the proposal would “alter the village character of Bagshot for the worse”.

One senior Tory backbencher told The Times that ministers were using rights to object that they wanted to remove from millions of people. “Their own actions show the government needs to go back to the drawing board on planning reform,” they said.

A government spokesman said: “Members of parliament who are ministers rightly represent and champion their constituents’ views. It will always be the case that issues like the environment and the effect on local amenity should be taken into account alongside the need for more homes.

“Our proposals to overhaul the planning system include placing more effective community engagement at the beginning of the process, so that local people have more say over development in their area, not less.”

Boris Johnson is on a collision course with the Tory party faithful. His manifesto commitment to build 300,000 homes a year has demanded a radical shake-up to the planning system (George Grylls writes).

While some of the more modest reforms have won his party’s support, there remains widespread fury about two proposals: the reduction in residents’ ability to object to planning applications and, most of all, a nationally set algorithm that determines where homes will be built.

The algorithm was introduced at the height of the A-level debacle. Backbenchers were initially slow to realise the consequences but they are up to speed now. Diggers and cement lorries will descend on London and the Tory shires. Northern cities with their predominantly Labour MPs are spared.

Excluding the capital, Conservative seats will have to accommodate an additional 54,000 homes each year, while Labour constituencies beyond the capital will be asked to build 3,000 fewer.

Ministers reason that they need to build houses where people want to live.

By increasing the supply in desirable areas, prices will fall and the dream of home ownership will be extended to a younger generation currently locked out of the market.

There is significant opposition, though. A Whatsapp group entitled “Housing Algorithm Concerns” has about 80 members. Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt are among those who have already spoken out against the reforms.

Some blame the algorithm on Dominic Cummings and Jack Airey, his housing policy chief. MPs mutter that neither are card-carrying members of the party.

No 10 cannot afford to leave the impression that there is one rule for ministers and another rule for MPs. If Mr Johnson is to succeed, he will need to manage his party carefully. Goodwill is in increasingly short supply after a summer of U-turns and with a winter of Covid restrictions on the horizon.

The government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme drove up Covid-19 infections while offering only short-lived economic benefits, a study suggests.

Rhys Blakely, Science Correspondent www.thetimes.co.uk 

The research concludes that the £500 million scheme, championed by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, led to a significant rise in new cases in August and early September, contributing to the pandemic’s second wave.

The scheme “may have indirect economic and public health costs that vastly outstrip its short-term economic benefits”, a paper from the economics department of Warwick University says.

The Eat Out to Help Out initiative was designed to boost the economy after the national lockdown. It allowed pubs and restaurants to offer heavily discounted meals on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August.

The research found that areas with higher take-up of the scheme saw an increase in new virus infection clusters within a week of it starting. There was a deceleration in new infections within a fortnight of it ending.

Between 8 per cent and 17 per cent of new infection clusters that emerged in August and early September could be attributed to Eat Out to Help Out, Dr Thiemo Fetzer, of the University of Warwick, the paper’s lead author, calculated.

As the scheme ended, visits to restaurants declined, indicating, Dr Fetzer said, that its positive economic impact was short-lived. “Eat Out to Help Out may in the end have been a false economy: one that subsidised the spread of the pandemic into autumn and contributed to the start of the second wave,” he said.

He added: “Epidemiologists have long shown that restaurants are high-risk places for infections to take place. Here’s a scheme that encouraged a lot of people to visit restaurants in very concentrated periods of time. Some restaurants were seeing 100 per cent more business compared to usual on these days.”

Epidemiologists and economists had cautioned against the initiative in the summer, he said. “They warned that it would subsidise infections . . . Obviously, there will be deaths linked to the scheme as well — this was perfectly predictable.”

He added: “Alternative policy measures, such as extending the furlough scheme, increasing statutory sick pay and supporting low-income households through expanding free school meals may well prove to be far more cost-effective than demand-stimulating measures that encourage economic activities which actively cause Covid-19 to spread.”

To demonstrate a causal connection between Eat Out to Help Out and increased infections Dr Fetzer looked at data on rainfall and people’s movements.

He found that higher rainfall around lunch and dinner time during the scheme’s period of operation led to both a drop in visits to restaurants and subsequently lower new infection rates, compared to areas that had good weather.

Rainfall during lunch and dinner hours did not drastically affect time spent in other locations. Dr Fetzer said: “This strongly suggests that the link between Eat Out to Help Out and new Covid-19 infections is causal: when people were not dining out as part of the scheme there were fewer new cases of the virus.”

A Treasury spokesman told Sky News: “We do not recognise these figures . . . Many other European counterparts have experienced an uptick in cases — irrespective of whether similar measures for the hospitality industry have been introduced.”

The total value of meals for which the discount was claimed was about £1 billion. Boris Johnson admitted earlier this month that Eat Out to Help Out may have contributed to a rise in Covid cases. “In so far as that scheme may have helped to spread the virus then obviously we need to counteract that with the discipline and the measures that we’re proposing,” he told the BBC.

Soldiers will be deployed to carry out a mass coronavirus testing programme in six northern towns as part of Boris Johnson’s “moonshot” to avoid a second national lockdown.

[Could the political pressure be on to reach headline targets by arbitrary deadlines? And where have all the consultants gone? – Owl]

Steven Swinford, Deputy Politcal Editor www.thetimes.co.uk 

The saliva-based tests will be offered to people whether they have Covid-19 symptoms or not. They will receive the results in half an hour.

Mr Johnson is understood to want to hit the target of a million coronavirus tests a day by the end of the year. Ministers are believed to be on target to meet a promise to reach capacity of 500,000 tests a day by tomorrow, but that could be doubled within two months.

The government’s determination to move forward with its mass-testing plan could mean more than five million people a week in England being sent a 30-minute saliva test. The kits are designed to detect active infection, where people have virus particles in their system.

One of the first pilots will be in Redcar, where 36,000 people will be offered tests. Jacob Young, the local Conservative MP, said on Facebook that the army “wouldn’t be knocking on people’s doors”.

He said: “This is a voluntary scheme that will better identify who has Covid-19 in our community, help them to self-isolate, and therefore reduce the spread. Mass testing is the quickest way we will see restrictions reduced and so I think it is a good thing for Redcar.”

Several versions of the test appear to have passed government standards, although experts warned yesterday that they were likely to fall short of the sensitivity of the standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that have formed the backbone of the test-and-trace system.

“The biggest issue is the sensitivity,” Lawrence Young, professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School, said. “For people in the acute phase of infection, who are symptomatic, they seem to be adequate. But there’s a big question mark over whether these tests would actually detect asymptomatic infection. And we all believe that that’s a major source of the spread.”

Testing data suggests that the saliva tests can identify up to 96 per cent of positive results.