Owl loves the description of Swire!
“The plain fact is that the Brexiteers and the DUP are unbiddable, unshakeable and unpersuadeable. The usual tricks of last minute concessions just aren’t working. Last night was a case in point, as the new amendment to give Stormont and MPs a say over the customs ‘backstop’ was tabled by state-sanctioned dissidents Hugo Swire, Richard Graham and Bob Neill. …”
Source: WUgh Zone, Huffington Post
Owl says: what a dreadful thing to make this issue an area for political point-scoring and petty feuds!
“Fighting for the future of Ottery Hospital should be ‘top priority’ says residents as they called for more support and transparency from town councillors.
The council chamber was filled to capacity for an extraordinary meeting re-examining a decision by the town council to support or rescind a motion to set up a hospital working group.
The proposal was passed at the start of the month, with many councillors abstaining as they said they did not have enough information.
Residents speaking at the meeting last Thursday said they felt there was lack of support from the council and were baffled to revisit the decision due to the weight and transparency a working group could show.
Stewart Lucas told members the council contributed hugely to the community but needed to listen to concerns as the town’s population continued to grow.
He said: “I for one believe the protection and the support of our local community hospital is an issue that should be right at the very top of the priorities of the council, and I feel the people of this town deserve to know that is a priority and that their feelings and opinions are valued and taken into consideration and that there is full transparency.”
Last week, health ministers gave firm reassurances the hospital has a ‘sustainable future’ but resident Ian Dowler said there needed to be more than a ‘glimmer of hope’.
Mr Dowler said: “Ottery does need to retain, not just the hospital services that it has at the moment but it needs to expand and utilise the space that’s there.
“With people living longer, Coleridge (Medical Centre) is bursting at the seams. Surely common sense would dictate that an overspill surgery be created at the hospital among other health departments, which would take some of the pressure off the RD&E?
“We need to take affirmative and positive action and no longer rely or applaud these sad and pathetic reasonings that all shall be well. It’s not acceptable.”
Councillors voted to defer making a decision until February to allow organisations involved in saving the hospital to meet and gather information.
Cllr Glyn Dobson said: “We all want to save the hospital, perhaps we want to do it in different ways. The health and care forum is doing a good job, there are five councillors on there and the results have come out this week in the Houses of Parliament that Ottery St Mary Hospital has a good chance of staying open.”
Owl says: prediction – watch all these motions get watered down or struck out by block+voting Tories!
“Pressure to provide more help to struggling families, affected by benefit changes and low wages, is mounting on council bosses.
A motion calling for action will be put forward to East Devon District Council (EDDC) at a meeting on Wednesday (December 12).
The move looks to bring two reports before the authority, from the UK Equalities and Human Rights Commission and the UN Special Rapporteur, which put a spotlight on the impact of benefits changes and spending cuts on people in the UK.
The motion has been proposed by Councillor Cathy Gardner, of East Devon Alliance.
She said EDDC was due to receive a report on the potential impact on residents in East Devon and the need for further support, helping those affected by the roll-out of Universal Credit (UC) and supporting homelessness prevention and food banks.
Cllr Gardner added: “Residents in East Devon are not immune from these effects and in fact the rollout of Universal Credit is already having an effect.
“We have seen two homeless people die since 2015, both in Sidmouth.
“An increasing number of people, some with children are relying on foodbanks in all our towns, including Sidmouth, Honiton, Axminster, Seaton Ottery and Exmouth.”
The news comes in the same week that organisers of the Sid Valley Food Bank said that more people were needing help every week. And the numbers of people needing help were higher than they had ever been.
Co-ordinator Andie Milne said the top five reasons were:
• Delays in benefit changing transferring to UC, which could be up to 5 weeks. • Repayment of loan provided in the case of delayed UC payment. • Low wages and difficulties paying private rent over the housing benefit cap. • Zero hour contracts – reduction in hours/sickness. • Low wage unable to have contingency funds for unexpected expenditure – very noticeable with families needing to but school uniform, coping with school holidays, car repairs, winter bills and household repairs.
Cllr Garnder said: “I’m calling for the council to review whether more support is needed by people in East Devon and whether it can be provided.
“If the council does not have sufficient resources, then we must call on Government to review funding and make changes to Universal Credit. EDDC have statutory obligations, especially for housing, and it’s likely that increased demand will not be met.
“There is an urgent need to provide more social housing as well as support families who are at risk of homelessness.”
Cllr Gardner said there currently were five verified rough sleepers in East Devon – including the gentleman on Sidmouth seafront.
She added there were 27 households in temporary accommodation via EDDC – made up of 16 singles and 11 families, eight single people and two families in supported accommodation in Honiton, eight singles and two families in B and B accommodation, one family in a private sector lease property and six families in the council’s own housing stock that is being used as temporary accommodation.
Cllr Gardner said EDDC was required to help families and individuals in need of housing and was doing so, but Government cuts would likely mean it would not able to provide all the support it does or would want to in the coming years.
An EDDC spokesperson said: “This is one of three motions that are on the council agenda and officers of the council will take any necessary action arising from the council’s consideration of the motions and the decisions that are taken.”
https://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/calls-for-help-for-struggling-families-1-5809034
Owl says: Actually the government just wants him to lie for their next manifesto – and then, when it all comes tumbling down, they will then probably fire him – for lying.
“The head of the NHS and the government are at loggerheads over how much the health service can be improved for the £20.5bn extra Theresa May has pledged to give it, the Guardian can reveal.
Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has been having major disagreements behind the scenes in recent weeks with Downing Street, the Treasury and Department of Health and Social Care about how much the forthcoming NHS long-term plan can promise to boost care.
“Tension” and “difficulties” have emerged during detailed horsetrading between the two sides amid sharp differences of opinion over the extent of the document’s ambitions, well-placed NHS and Whitehall sources have told the Guardian.
Negotiations have left ministers “fed up” and “deeply irritated” that Stevens is refusing to include explicit guarantees they believe will reassure voters that the service will improve dramatically over the next five years thanks to the extra money.
The plan, which will set out how the extra money will be spent, had been due to come out earlier this week but was delayed and is likely to finally appear in the week after next, subject to events at Westminster and further discussions between Stevens and ministers about its contents.
Ministers have told NHS England the plan should include specific annual improvements it will promise to make every year between 2019-20 and 2023-24 in its most challenging areas.
They want milestones written into it spelling out how close in percentage terms the NHS will get every year to once again meeting key waiting time targets covering A&E care, cancer treatment and planned operations, and also by how much the service’s dire finances will be turned round.
However, Stevens has left ministers frustrated by telling them privately that their ambitions are not realistic. Allies say he believes the £20.5bn more by 2023-24 is not enough for hospitals to get waiting times back on track after years of struggling to meet them and simultaneously honour headline-grabbing promises May and Philip Hammond have made recently, ahead of the plan being published, to expand and improve cancer and mental health care. They also want the money to pay for care to be transformed, with a major expansion of out-of-hospital services.
NHS England set up 14 different “workstreams” in the summer to draw up detailed proposals for how key areas of care needed to change to improve the nation’s health and keep the NHS sustainable, given the pressures of the ageing and growing population.
Stevens’s realism about the limits of the plan’s ambition has been reinforced by that process identifying improvements that would between them cost £80bn a year extra, four times the £20.5bn May has pledged. That has forced him to order a drastic culling of those proposals that are too costly to include in the plan.
Stevens has also warned them that the NHS’s chronic lack of staff – it is short of 103,000 doctors, nurses and other personnel – will also make it hard to drive the measurable progress they are seeking. Gaping holes in the NHS workforce are “dreadful and getting worse”, one senior figure said.
“Simon wants one thing and the politicians want another. The Treasury want to pin him to the floor over the action he will take to get all the waiting time targets back on track over the next few years, and he is resisting that. He wants flexibility,” said one source close to the discussions.
The Treasury is particularly exasperated by Stevens’s stance. But allies of the NHS chief say that he does not want to have his hands tied, sign up to timescales for progress that are likely to prove impossible to meet and to open himself up to criticism in the future for not delivering them.
One ally said: “The Treasury are the ones who are especially looking for high-profile and concrete improvements in care that the government can sell to the public in return for the £20bn. There is a lot of anxiety [among NHS leaders] because everyone knows the extra money is barely enough to maintain current standards, let alone transform services.”
Stevens is understood to feel unable to make public his reservations about how much progress ministers should expect for the £20.5bn given that he welcomed the money – which May gave to mark the NHS’s 70th birthday in July – at the time as “a change of gear, a step up” after eight years of tiny 1% annual increases. Its budget will rise from £115bn now to £135bn in April 2023.
Another NHS leader said: “Ministers want all the key targets back to where they used to be, the £1bn annual deficit down to zero and a host of new commitments delivered, all within the 3.4% annual budget rises over the next five years that the £20bn involves. But the numbers, and the whole thing, just don’t add up. You simply can’t get all those improvements on those timescales on 3.4%. It isn’t deliverable. But that’s what the government wants.”
NHS Improvement, the service’s financial regulator, is helping to draw up the plan. It warned last week that hospitals had already overspent by £1.23bn by the end of September, halfway through the service’s financial year, and that it may take five years to restore waiting time performance.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across the healthcare sector, urged ministers and the public to be realistic.
“The NHS long-term plan is a vital opportunity to improve patient care and change the way we deliver services to the public. But we should not underestimate how difficult it will be to recover performance on waiting times and to move NHS trusts and other organisations back into the black.
“We must be realistic about what is possible within the extra £20bn – the last thing we need is to set local services up to fail. And, above all, we will need a plan for securing the staff we need to respond to changing healthcare needs.”
NHS England denied a rift, saying: “The NHS, patient groups, clinicians and government are working closely together to finalise the NHS long term plan ready for publication before Christmas.” The Department of Health and Social Care also said there was no dispute, and they were “working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to develop an ambitious long term plan for our health service.”
“The collapse of the construction giant Carillion has hit the headlines again as auditing failures among the Big Four accountants have come to light. For many, the real impacts (and horrors) of the collapse are only now emerging.
Oxfordshire county council has spent £1.7 million on an audit of the council’s ten-year services contract with the company. It reveals shocking levels of oversight — missing building certificates, fire safety issues, unmet planning conditions — and the scale of the damage done, in health and safety and in financial terms, is breath-taking, especially when you consider the council spent a total of £123 million with Carillion on 602 municipal projects.
We are still to find out exactly what happened behind the scenes, and the results of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) criminal investigation is hotly anticipated.
The news of the collapse in January was reported alongside photos of the directors’ properties, and details their extravagant pay deals. In June this year the FCA said it was “looking into” allegations of insider trading. Perhaps this was a result of a complaint made in February, by people who say they have been the victims of the directors’ crimes. Increasingly the police are failing to investigate financial crimes, through sheer lack of resources. Will the FCA be able to do any better?
The long story short goes like this: Carillion’s directors had a stack of duties and obligations because they ran a PLC. The huge pay deals are supposed to be there for a reason. One of their many obligations was to keep the market informed of the company’s financial situation. Dishonestly failing to do that is a crime called “misleading statements”. Making misleading statements is related to the crime of insider trading. The point of both crimes is the same: to keep the markets fair. The victims, or at least the people making a complaint against Carillion, are the bosses of a firm called Kiltearn Partners. Kiltearn is an institutional investor: a business which invests large sums in stocks and shares on behalf of lots of smaller investors, such as people putting money into a pension.
In January 2017 Kiltearn owned 10 per cent of Carillion’s shares on behalf of their clients. In March that year Carillion published its 2016 accounts, and everything was painted in rosy colours. Kiltearn staff had no reason to think they should be selling its shares in Carillion. Not until a couple of months later anyway. Because on July 10, 2017, Carillion told the market about a massive problem — there was an £845 million hole in its cash flow. It said it needed to make provision for this, and basically wrote it off. Unsurprisingly the share price tumbled, and Kiltearn was left with the feeling it had been had. Bosses called for an investigation into whether Carillion’s management knew, or should have known, about the cash flow issue — with this statement Kiltearn was reporting a crime.
If there turns out to be solid evidence that the Carillion directors have committed market crimes, it looks likely to follow there will also be evidence that they have committed fraud. It could even be a first prominent outing for “fraud by failing to disclose information”, a section of the Fraud Act 2006.
It will be interesting to see if the FCA has the skill and determination — and ultimately the evidence — to bring the directors to book. In the meantime, it is likely we will continue to see other victims of Carillion’s collapse emerge.”
The author is a barrister at 23 Essex Street
Source: The Times
Owl says: WHAT! The government WASN’T checking the accounts and investments of these people to begin with? Well, who would have guessed!
“The government will suspend golden ticket investment visas, which allow non-EU nationals to stay in the UK if they invest £2m, amid a crackdown on organised crime.
Just buying into UK companies, or buying government bonds, will no longer be enough for Russian oligarchs, Middle Eastern oil barons and other super rich investors to stay in the UK.
The tier 1 investor visas, which gave investors permission to stay in Britain for up to three years, are being scrapped at midnight tomorrow.
The changes will force applicants who want to come to the UK to hire British auditors to comb through their accounts and prove they control the investments.
Around 1,000 people applied for the visas in the past year. …
“I have been clear that we will not tolerate people who do not play by the rules and seek to abuse the system,” immigration minister Caroline Nokes said.
She added: “That is why I am bringing forward these new measures which will make sure that only genuine investors, who intend to support UK businesses, can benefit from our immigration system.” …
http://www.cityam.com/270279/visas-super-rich-investors-scrapped-amid-crackdown-money
“Luxembourg is set to become the first country in the world to make all its public transport free.
Fares on trains, trams and buses will be lifted next summer under the plans of the re-elected coalition government led by Xavier Bettel, who was sworn in for a second term as prime minister on Wednesday.
Bettel, whose Democratic party will form a government with the leftwing Socialist Workers’ party and the Greens, had vowed to prioritise the environment during the recent election campaign.
On top of the transport pledge, the new government is also considering legalising cannabis, and introducing two new public holidays.
Luxembourg City, the capital of the small Grand Duchy, suffers from some of the worst traffic congestion in the world.
It is home to about 110,000 people, but a further 400,000 commute into the city to work. A study suggested that drivers in the capital spent an average of 33 hours in traffic jams in 2016.
While the country as a whole has 600,000 inhabitants, nearly 200,000 people living in France, Belgium and Germany cross the border every day to work in Luxembourg.
Luxembourg has increasingly shown a progressive attitude to transport. This summer, the government brought in free transport for every child and young person under the age of 20. Secondary school students can use free shuttles between their institution and their home. Commuters need only pay €2 (£1.78) for up to two hours of travel, which in a country of just 999 sq miles (2,590 sq km) covers almost all journeys.
Now, from the start of 2020 all tickets will be abolished, saving on the collection of fares and the policing of ticket purchases. …”
“Unless this Government changes tune, elderly people will be lonelier, disabled people will get sicker, vulnerable children will fall through the net.
Despite unprecedented pressure and growing warnings, Councils are bracing themselves for the biggest cuts they’ve had to face since 2010. That is the prospect of the Tories’ local government settlement set to be announced.
The past eight years have seen councils forced to make cuts – but they’ve reached the end of the line, with so-called “non-essential services” being cut to the bone, leading to even deeper reductions to the services that we all rely on like street cleaning, libraries, and children’s centres, and to many of the preventative services that previously reduced the pressure on the NHS and police.
So severe and urgent is the crisis facing our councils, that the UN’s special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights mentioned it in the opening paragraph of his recent report, saying that local authorities had been “gutted by a series of government policies”.
Despite all the warnings, the Government will announce a further 36 per cent cut to local government funding, the largest annual deduction in almost a decade.
Councils of all parties are facing a funding crisis with devastating effects on key public services – children at risk, disabled adults and vulnerable older people – and the services we all rely on, like clean streets, libraries, and children’s centres.
In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, this is an unacceptable position to be in. It is a national scandal that 1.4 million older people are now not getting the necessary help to carry out essential tasks such as washing themselves and dressing – up 20% over the last two years. The deterioration of social care alone will fundamentally damage the fabric of society as we know it. Huge amounts of money have been taken out of the system, despite obvious rising demand.
This is a crisis of the Tories’ creation, but as ever they are pushing the blame on to councils, communities, carers and families. Our councils were the first target when the coalition government came into power, losing 60p out of every £1 that the last Labour Government was spending on local government in 2010.
As a result of these cuts, the Tory-led Local Government Association is predicting that next year, councils will be facing a funding gap of £3.9 billion just to maintain current services, including £1.5 billion gap in adult social care funding.
Instead of showing the leadership that is needed in this crisis, the Government continues to put sticking plaster after sticking plaster, on what is now, an open wound.
Previous local government settlements under this Tory government have been unacceptable, unfair and unhelpful. Unless this Government changes tune, elderly people will be lonelier, disabled people will get sicker, vulnerable children will fall through the net, and our communities will become more unpleasant, unsafe and unattractive places to live. All councils are now reaching breaking point and short term sticking plasters will not keep the wolves from the door for much longer.
Andrew Gwynne is the Shadow Secretary of State, Communities & Local Government and Labour MP for Denton & Reddish”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/local-council-cuts_uk_5c07d022e4b0a6e4ebda854a
“Austerity-hit schools could be facing an eye-watering £4.8bn cuts bombshell if the government doesn’t fund a planned pension contributions hike.
Headteachers will be left with no choice but to slash spending on “the absolute basics” if Chancellor Philip Hammond does not plug the four-year shortfall at next year’s spending review, Labour has said.
The new figures, from the House of Commons Library, will pile pressure on ministers to act in the wake of a mass protest at Westminster by headteachers in September.
The Department for Education (DfE), however, said that the changes make teachers’ pension schemes “sustainable in the long-term”. …
In 2016, ministers admitted the pensions shortfall would amount to a sizeable £2bn, but that figure was revised up at the November budget and there is only enough cash set aside to cover costs for 2019/20.
It comes after respected think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that per-pupil funding had fallen by 8% since 2010.
Labour MP Stephanie Peacock, who is a former teacher, said the government should match the commitment it gave to the NHS, which has seen its extra pensions contributions fully covered.
“Hundreds of new properties have been built using weak mortar that does not meet recommended industry standards, the Victoria Derbyshire show has found.
There are reports of homes with the fault on at least 13 estates in the UK.
The full extent of the industry-wide problem is hard to measure as some homeowners have been asked to sign gagging orders to claim compensation.
The industry says mortar performance is a complex issue and can be affected by a number of factors.
One of those homes was owned by Vincent Fascione, 70. He says he was watching football on TV one evening in 2016 when he heard a loud cracking noise from the external walls of his house.
The next morning, he found a sand-like substance all over his front path and driveway. Photographs and video from the time appear to show growing cracks in the mortar holding his bricks together.
Mr Fascione, from Coatbridge outside Glasgow, bought his semi-detached property in 2012 for £112,500.
He complained to the homebuilder, Taylor Wimpey, and to the NHBC, the industry body that signs off and provides the warranty for most new-build houses.
‘Disastrous’
Under NHBC guidelines, mortar in most areas of the UK should be made of one part cement to 5.5 parts sand.
In severe weather areas such as Coatbridge, there should be even more cement in the mix to make it stronger and more durable.
Laboratory tests on samples taken from parts of Mr Fascione’s home showed the amount of sand was almost three times higher than recommended.
“I’m the guy who retired and decided to buy a new-build house,” he said. “I’ll never buy a new-build house again – never. It’s just been disastrous for me.”
After 18 months of complaints, the NHBC bought back Mr Fascione’s home at the market rate and he is living in alternative accommodation.
The organisation said it had done so because the performance of the company it had employed to repair the property had not been good enough and “in consideration of Mr Fascione’s personal circumstances”, not because of the original issue with the mortar.
‘Widespread and serious’
The Victoria Derbyshire Programme has heard about new build properties in at least 13 estates from Scotland to Sussex, built by different companies, with what appears to be a similar problem.
In one single estate in the Scottish borders, it is thought Taylor Wimpey has agreed to replace the mortar in more than 90 separate properties. The homebuilder says an assessment by engineers found “no structural issues” with the homes.
“This is both widespread and serious,” says Phil Waller, a retired construction manager who has blogged about the problem.
“It cannot be explained away by the industry as a few isolated cases.”
Exactly why the weaker building material may have been used is unclear.
In some cases, the housebuilder may have simply used the wrong type of mortar. In other cases, errors may have been made mixing and laying the material on site.
Some construction experts also blame the switch to a new type of factory-mixed mortar, which might pass a different strength test in the laboratory but not always be strong enough in the real world.
Non-disclosure agreements
Faced with what could be an expensive repair bill, many homeowners have been told by their own solicitors not to go public until the issue is resolved.
In some cases, customers have ultimately had their houses bought back by either the homebuilder or the NHBC.
In others, it appears repairs have been made and compensation paid as part of a deal that involves the signing of a non-disclosure agreement or gagging clause.
One homeowner in the north-west of England told the programme: “The only comment I can make is no comment. I’d like to speak out but at the end of the day I have to protect my investment.”
A gagging clause may stop the property owner talking not only to the media but also to neighbours in the estate who may be facing similar problems.
“It’s going on, it’s just not being talked about,” says Mr Waller.
“Non-disclosure agreements should be banned full stop. If it’s all covered up, more victims are likely to be drawn into the net and make the same mistakes.”
An NHBC spokesman said it included a confidentiality clause in a “small number of rare circumstances” but declined to disclose the number.
He added: “We work with builders to help them improve the construction quality of the homes they build. However, it is the builder who is ultimately responsible for the quality of the new homes they build.”
Taylor Wimpey apologised to Mr Fascione for the issues experienced with his home.
A spokesman said: “We are committed to delivering excellent quality homes and achieving high levels of customer satisfaction. On those occasions where issues do arise, we endeavour to resolve those issues as soon as practically possible.”
“People with disabilities are to be offered thousands of pounds to help them run for elected office in next year’s council elections as part of an effort to tackle under-representation in town halls.
Grants averaging £4,000 will be made available to some to cover costs of campaign expenses including specialist transport, screen reader software, sign language interpretation and braille transcription.
Only 10% of councillors have a disability, compared with about 20% of the UK population. The government is offering £250,000, which is expected to fund around 60 candidates. [The Guardian]
The Access to Elected Office fund provided such grants since its launch as a pilot in 2012 under the Coalition government, but after the 2015 general election the Conservatives put it into limbo.”
https://www.markpack.org.uk/156796/access-to-elected-office-fund-returns/
“Lord Michael Heseltine has warned MPs against voting to “make this country poorer” in the looming House of Commons vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
In a rousing speech on Wednesday afternoon, the Tory former deputy prime minister told the House of Lords that if it votes for slower economic growth, lower tax revenues and lower public spending “those who will suffer most are those least able to bear the strain”.
“I tell you there are no solutions that help the fortunes of the least privileged in the most stressful circumstances,” said the famously pro-Europe politician.
“When the election comes, it will have been a Tory that led the referendum campaign,” Heseltine continued.
“It will have been a Tory government that perpetuated the frozen living standards.
“It will be a Tory government that is blamed for what we are talking about today.”
“I will have no part of it,” he added. …”
Councillor Geoff Jung Independent Councillor for Raleigh Ward and member of the Development Management Committee made the following statement at Tuesdays 4th of December meeting prior to 2 planning applications which were about to be discussed.
“Having taken legal advice, I feel I need to declare that I have a personal interest in the 2 planning applications regarding Hogsbrook Farm which are in the ownership of FWS Carter and Sons that we are about to debate.
There are two declarations and I must stress are totally unrelated.
Firstly, I need to declare that I am member of the Woodbury Salterton Residents Association because the Association have sent a response to these applications.
Secondly, I need to declare that I have been sent a letter from the applicant FWS Carter and Sons` Solicitor informing me that as:
… “I entered onto their property without the licence or consent of their client and took a number of photographs”.
They kindly sent me copies of the photographs which they claim is the evidence of my trespass.
The letter further informs me that unless I sign a written undertaking, court proceedings may prove necessary and they may seek significant legal costs to me personally.
I have totally denied this allegation and East Devon District Council officers have stated that the photographs were not from myself.
I have no knowledge of who took the photographs or who sent them to the Planning Team at East Devon District Council.”
However, I come to this meeting to discuss the applications with a totally open mind.”
Once the debate started a representative from FWS Carter and Sons who was the registered speaker was asked a question by Councillor Jung about a landfill site, which was the subject of the photographs, but the Chair told the meeting that it was not relevant.
Councillor Jung explained that the landfill site formed part of the planning application, but the Chair insisted, and Councillor Jung then said he had no other questions.
The two planning applications in question were for two Agricultural Buildings at Hogsbrook Farm near to Greendale Business Park at Woodbury Salterton 17/2430/MFUL and 18/0920/FUL which is proposed to be built on a raised landfill site.
These two planning applications had been originally approved at the October meeting at East Devon, but the Applicant had requested that they should be re-considered without a Legal Clause called a non-alienation clause, preventing the sale or letting to another party and requiring the buildings to remain in agricultural use.
This clause had been suggested at the previous meeting because of the applicant’s previous history of building agricultural units and then changing them to industrial, claiming the agricultural units were redundant, and then building more agricultural units.
The two planning applications were approved after a short debate with Councillor Jung abstaining from the vote.
After the meeting Councillor Jung said he was unable to provide further comment.
What is Trespass? A search on the internet:
“Unlawful physical entry to land or buildings can result in an injunction by the civil courts to prevent further trespass or damages. In terms of photographers or those filming video footage, taking photographs or footage from property where the person in question has the right to be is not considered trespassing.”
“Farmland is privately owned, and although you are free to walk through farmers’ fields without being a trespasser, farmers reserve the right to remove anyone from their land who they believe to be disruptive or otherwise a threat to their land or crops.”
Councillor Geoff Jung in his statement states he did not trespass and it seems that East Devon District Council have confirmed that the photographs did not come from him.
What the photographs show and who took the photographs remains a mystery but it’s clear the owners of Greendale are not very happy!
A comment on the original post:
“Let’s make sure that everyone is clear what this was all about and why Swire’s & Parish’s votes were fundamentally important.
The issues that these votes related to were as follows:
1. Should the government keep the Attorney General’s legal advice secret so that MPs debate and vote about Brexit could not be an informed vote, but instead would be based on a political interpretation of this legal advice by the Government, in other words an interpretation by government politicians with all the bias towards the outcome they want to see rather than an independent assessment? [Swire and Parish voted to keep the advice secret]
2. Should the Government be allowed to ignore a decision by Parliament that the legal advice should be published in full? In other words, is Government the servant of our MPs or the other way around? Remember, that the only group able to hold the Government to account between general elections is Parliament i.e. MPs – and if Government doesn’t need to be accountable to them, then they are effectively an absolute autocracy, without needing to be accountable to anyone. Scared yet? [Yes, said Swire and Parish – it should ignore the vote]
3. Should the Government – and specifically Mrs May – be allowed to control the Brexit debate in order to give MPs only two choices – a very bad one or an even worse one, and not allow them to debate or vote on the other legally available choices? And to do this to the detriment not only of Parliament but also the people of the UK who have to live with the consequences for at a minimum several decades? [Yes, they voted: only Mrs May and her cabinet of cronies should be allowed to decide what happens next]
In other words, these three votes were not about some minor technicality relating to publication of a specific letter from the Attorney General to the Prime Minister – instead they were about THE FUNDAMENTAL FOUNDATIONS OF DEMOCRACY – that the Government should be able to be held accountable by MPs, and that in the end it is our MPs who take the decisions on behalf of us. [Remember “sovereignty”!]
And that is why both Neil Parish and Hugo Swire’s votes against these motions are so important and so wrong. By now we are all pretty used to Swire and Parish putting Party before People – just look at the awful laws they have voted for which have it the poorest and most vulnerable in our society the hardest. Is it any wonder that the Conservative Party is called “The Nasty Party” by a large proportion of the population?
But these votes were different – they were about putting Party before Democracy itself. Swire and Parish effectively voted for the Government to be unaccountable, and for an absolute autocracy where the Government can do absolutely what they like, regardless of whether MPs agree with it or not. These votes were simply anti-democracy. PERIOD.
Remember, power corrupts – absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So I ask you – yes you, the person reading this comment – do you really want your MP to be voting to give Government ministers absolute power, because that is the first step towards a tyrannical government? Or do you think that above all else, your MP should be voting to preserve democracy? In other words, which is more important to you in the long run – today’s vote or having a genuine democracy? I certainly know my own priority on this.”
“An annual report published by schools watchdog Ofsted showed, as of August 31 2018, 87 per cent of primary schools in Devon were judged as good or outstanding – a drop of four per cent compared to August 31 2017.
Seventy-six per cent of secondary schools in Devon were judged good or outstanding, a drop of six per cent.
The report said: “By the end of August 2018, 83 per cent of schools in the South West were judged good or outstanding at their most recent inspection, compared with 86 per cent nationally.
“This was a four percentage points decline for the region compared with August 2017.
“For primary schools, 84 per cent in the region were judged to be good or outstanding, a four percentage points decline compared with August 2017 figures. For secondary schools, 73 per cent were judged to be good or outstanding – below the national figure and a six percentage points decline compared with August 2017.” …
“More than 130,000 homeless children will be living in temporary accommodation over the festive period in Britain, the equivalent of five youngsters in every school, according to estimates by the homelessness charity Shelter.
Nearly 10,000 of those will wake up on Christmas Day in bed and breakfasts, hotels or hostels where in many cases their family will have been put up in a single room, sharing bathrooms and kitchens with other residents.
Overall, 50,000 more children in England, Wales and Scotland are homeless compared with five years ago, a rise of 59%, Shelter says. There have been particularly sharp increases in some affluent, high housing cost Tory heartlands in south-east England. …”
Swire and Parish:
Voted that May was NOT in contempt of Parliament to refuse to publish full Brexit legal advice.
Voted AGAINST allowing full publication instead referring the matter to a committee.
And voted AGAINST allowing Parliament a say if May’s deal falls through.
Moral of this story: use your vote wisely next time these men stand for Parliament.
Schools: 7,000 privatised:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/05/private-takeover-schools-forced-academisation-waltham-holy-cross
Private firms are making big money out of children’s social services:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/05/private-firms-making-big-money-childrens-social-services
“Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – HMRC and the Department for work and Pensions – DWP released their estimates of benefit fraud and payments made in error for the 2016/17 financial year.
The figures on benefit fraud AND their errors are somewhat smaller than we are usually led to believe.
HMRC said the total “level of error and fraud favouring the claimant” was £1.32bn which although this sounds high it is in-fact just 4.9% of the total tax credits bill.
More is lost because of their incompetence than fraud
Look at the figures in detail and they debunk the benefit scrounger claim even more.
Errors favouring the claimant was £1.05bn; 3.9% of the total tax credits bill.
Fraud favouring the claimant was £280m; 1% of the total tax credits bill. …”
