Exeter has been named as the UK city where police are “toughest” on crime. New figures show that it has the highest percentage of reported crimes resulting in a charge.

Mary Stenson www.devonlive.com

Analysis of crimes reported in cities across the UK has shown police in Exeter to have had the highest percentage of suspects charged from June 2022 to June 2023. Out of 1,423 incidents reported to the police in that time frame, 20.1 per cent resulted in someone being charged.

The South West dominated the top spots, with Devon’s other city Plymouth coming in second place having a charge rate of 16.85 per cent out of 3,063 reports, while Bristol came in third and had a rate of of 15.56 per cent out of 26,746 reports. The rest of the top ten consists of cities in the North of England, as well as Wrexham in Wales.

Both cities in Devon had a significantly lower number of reported crimes than most other cities. However, all of the top ten cities were way above the national average for suspects being charged, which sits at 6.37 per cent.

In the data, analysed by Lawhive, police reports in each city were also broken down by crime category. Exeter was in the top three in the majority of crimes listed and ranked at number one for the percentage of charges relating to criminal damage and arson.

A number of other outcomes were listed for reported crimes, with the most common being “unable to prosecute suspect” which represented 510 cases. In 6 incidents formal action was “not in the public interest”, in 462 investigations no suspect was identified, a local resolution was found in 66 cases and an offender was given a caution in 93 cases. In the remaining 286 cases, a suspect was charged.

It comes just weeks after Devon & Cornwall Police was named the safest force area in the country by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). There had been concerns that previous issues with the force having been placed into special measures and a lack of crime figures in 2022 due to issues with installing a new crime recording system. ONS was able to confirm to PlymouthLive that all these factors had been taken into account and Devon & Cornwall Police had still come out on top.

While crime figures for Devon and Cornwall are now back in the public domain, there is still a lag with restoring hyper-local figures to police.uk. Earlier this month a Freedom of Information request by DevonLive revealed a snapshot of the figures that are missing from public record, showing that 849 crimes had been recorded in the city in August this year. Devon & Cornwall Police say they are having to carry out thorough checks on locations before they can fill in the backlog on police.uk’s crime maps.

Celebrity chef Mitch Tonks has delayed putting his Sidmouth Rockfish restaurant proposals in front of planners, writes local democracy reporter Bradley Gerrard.

eastdevonnews.co.uk

The Rockfish restaurant chain owner has been asked by the Environment Agency to provide more detailed flood risk assessments before his plan for the town’s Drill Hall goes to East Devon District Council’s (EDDC) planning committee.

The proposed build, at the former headquarters of the Sidmouth Territorial Army branch, was set to be debated by Councillors on Tuesday (November 21), but will now be considered at a future date.

The Environment Agency has asked Mr Tonks for a flood evacuation plan before the committee considers the scheme.

East Devon District Council, which owns the land, said it is committed, alongside Rockfish, to “achieve the redevelopment of the seafront site”, and that Mr Tonks would work hard to get the application in front of planners soon.

Mr Tonks originally hoped the restaurant would open to the public in the autumn of 2020.

Rockfish owner Mitch Tonks says he is looking forward to opening an eatery in Sidmouth.

The scheme, which would involve replacing existing public toilets with fewer cubicles, had split opinion.

A total of 15 out of 24 public comments were objections, which cited the negative impact on views to Port Royal, the loss of recreation land, and loss of existing shelters and seating next to the building.

However, those in support acknowledged that redevelopment was “much needed” and recognised the potential for new jobs.

They also welcomed the removal of the shelters, stating that this could help decrease anti-social behaviour there.

Sidmouth Town Council supported the application, but highlighted a “missed opportunity to provide an exceptional building which would take full advantage of the views of the World Heritage Site and be a credit to Sidmouth”.

The town council added that it did not feel that two unisex toilets were sufficient to replace the current public conveniences.

This is the impact on Local Authorities.

Will Devon now go bust? – Owl

www.localgov.co.uk

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal outlook published today says ‘it is mainly due to the Chancellor’s decision to leave departmental spending broadly unchanged’ that borrowing is reduced by £27bn in 2027/28 compared to its March forecast.

The OBR estimates that day-to-day spending in departments which are not protected like health and care, education, defence and international development would need to fall by 2.3% a year in real terms from 2025/6 after the end of the current Spending Review to meet current forecasts. The OBR says this would ‘present challenges’ and mentions the 11 s114 notices issued by councils as an example of ‘signs of strain.’

It adds that use by councils of current reserves for current spending increased by £2.3bn in 2022/23 for the first time since 2019-20 and predicts that ‘there will be further drawdowns during the current Spending Review period, of £1.5bn in 2023/24 and £0.8bn in 2024/25 ‘compared to an assumption of no drawdown in both years in our March forecast.’

The OBR says that ‘delivering these spending plans while maintaining or improving public services would require significant improvements in public sector productivity.’

The Autumn Statement says that ‘the government has therefore driven even greater efficiencies than those assumed at Spending Review 2021 to manage down these pressures and ensure departments can live within their settlements and deliver the service outcomes the public expect.’

Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton, Chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA) said: ‘With a 1% rise in spending on public services set for the coming years, unprotected departments like local government will face another round of damaging austerity, following the decade of cuts since 2010.’

As the Chancellor seeks to recoup £5bn in unpaid taxes.

“We will ensure that over time the growth in public spending is lower than the growth in the economy whilst always protecting the services the public value. I will also provide HMRC with the resources they need to ensure everyone pays the tax they owe, raising an additionFromal £5 billion across the forecast period.”

From: Autumn Statement

See:

HMRC examines if David Cameron failed to fully disclose Greensill private flights as taxable perks

We’re not in a good place. – Owl

Expanded version below:

Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, has just issued his early analysis of the autumn statement.

Johnson starts by “getting a few things straight”:

The public finances haven’t meaningfully improved. The growth outlook has weakened. Inflation is expected to stay higher for longer. Higher inflation pushes up tax receipts by more than it pushes up spending on debt interest or social security benefits.

But rather than use the proceeds to ease the ongoing ‘fiscal drag’ effects of threshold freezes, or to compensate public services for higher costs, the Chancellor opted to cut other taxes – most notably National Insurance and corporation tax.

These tax cuts won’t be enough to prevent this from being the biggest tax raising parliament in modern times.

Johnson then warns that announcing immediate and certain tax cuts in response to highly uncertain changes in assumptions about the UK’s medium-term economic prospects is “not a recipe for good management of the public finances”.

One reason the Chancellor feels he has space for tax cuts is that the forecasts have rolled forward, giving him another year to get debt falling under his fiscal rules, buying him an extra £5 billion to play with – but this hardly represents an underlying improvement in the state of things.

Spending the entirety of such a windfall, but allowing borrowing to rise when bad news comes along, is not the route to fiscal sustainability.

Johnson says the “prudent thing” would have been to build in a larger buffer into his plans, rather than only aim to meet the government’s “poorly designed, and loose” fiscal target by a tiny margin.

That’s especially true when one considers the possibility that things move against the Chancellor in the spring. But instead we got tax cuts, which will limit the room for manoeuvre for whoever is Chancellor after the next general election. That might make for good politics. It does not make for good policymaking.

Having said all that, Johnson concludes, Hunt has chosen a “pretty sensible set of taxes to cut”.

Making full expensing permanent rather than temporary is welcome, though it’s a shame there was no hint of an appetite for more structural reform. Cutting National Insurance is a good way to boost employment.

But these tax cuts have been ‘paid for’, in effect, by a bigger squeeze on the real-terms value of public service budgets and an even bigger squeeze on public investment, which is frozen in cash terms. There’s a material risk that those plans prove undeliverable and today’s tax cuts will not prove to be sustainable.”

Oooops! – Owl

Tax officials are understood to be examining whether David Cameron failed to fully disclose taxable perks such as flights on private planes when he worked for the collapsed lender Greensill Capital, the Guardian can reveal.

Anna Isaac www.theguardian.com [Extract]

In particular, officials are said to be looking at a number of flights that took off or landed near his house in Oxfordshire and also in Cornwall, where the foreign secretary has a holiday home. They are also examining an offshore trust that it is understood was created by Greensill to pay him extra benefits.

It comes amid wider concerns that the process for appointing the former prime minister to the House of Lords, and other background checks for his cabinet appointment, were rushed through in a bid to keep the details of Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle secret…..

Where is the PPS to the Transport Secretary when you need him, following his boss’s line that trains are becoming redundant perhaps? – Owl

“It’s 6am on Monday at Tiverton station, still dark and dank, but platform two is heaving. We have just been told — yet again — that the first London train has been cancelled: inclement weather or staff shortages, it’s not clear. We must wait 50 minutes for the next arrival. Many trundle disconsolately back to the freezing waiting room and queue for the coffee machine.”

Alice Thomson www.thetimes.co.uk [Extract]

Then a second announcement confirms that the next train is delayed by 38 minutes due to overrunning engineering works. It had given up on Cornwall altogether and had started in Exeter. By the time the headlights emerge from the gloom, it is clear work interviews and hospital appointments will be missed. Teenagers are running late for lessons in Taunton and a woman is in tears.

A noticeboard reminds passengers that there will be a series of strikes in the run-up to Christmas. Attendance at office parties and carol services will have to be cancelled. Roads will be jammed as families struggle with travel arrangements. A year ago, few would have cared. After the pandemic the station and car park were almost empty on Mondays. Now there is an air of quiet desperation.

If the prime minister and chancellor want to encourage people back to work they need to sort out public transport. Mark Harper is the latest Tory transport secretary to imply that trains are becoming redundant when he said passenger numbers had plummeted 50 per cent in the past three years. But the figures show he’s wrong.

Commuters and recreational train travellers are making a comeback. On some routes passenger numbers are higher than pre-pandemic. Meanwhile, the new Elizabeth Line is crammed at 8am and 6pm as workers abandon their Zoom calls and head into London offices from Slough and Brentwood.

Young adults rely on public transport. Only one in four under-21s and fewer than two thirds of under-30s have a driving licence, saying they are priced out by the cost of lessons, owning a car and insurance, according to the National Travel Survey. On top of that, rent increases and house prices have forced many young employees further out of towns and cities, too far to walk or bike to work. They need reliable journeys that don’t make them look flaky to bosses.

Trains are environmentally justifiable and save on inner-city parking space; they should provide time to read and relax and entice older people out of their cars. Yet new rolling stock isn’t made for comfort: the seats are hard, the carriages heaving. Train travel has become an ordeal……

Will any of the “giveaways” be a genuine “cut”? – Owl

“Lawyers acting for the campaigners believe the ruling could force the government to strengthen its entire water plans including its much derided “plan for water”, which was announced earlier this year.”

Helena Horton www.theguardian.com 

The government and environment agency failed in their duty to restore and protect waterways from pollution, the high court has ruled in a significant case that could force an overhaul of the government’s plans.

Fish Legal and Pickering Fishery Association took the government to judicial review over its river basin management plan for the Costa Beck river in the Humber district, which had a reputation as one of the best fly fishing spots in the UK until a few years ago.

The lawyers presented the court with evidence that the Costa Beck is failing for fish under the Water Framework Directive regulations. One of the reasons for that, they argued, is sewage pollution – Yorkshire Water’s “storm” sewage overflow at Pickering treatment works discharged into the Costa Beck more than 250 times in 2020 and more than 400 times in 2019.

They argued that the Environment Agency had failed to follow through with its proposed action against polluters.

The high court ruled that the government and the Environment Agency had failed in their mandatory legal duties to review, update and put in place measures to restore rivers and other water bodies under the Water Framework Directive regulations. The judge concluded there was no evidence the programme of measures could be expected to achieve the stated environmental objectives.

The judge accepted discharges were contributing to the poor condition of the river and said that, under the regulations, discharges for specific rivers such as the Costa Beck need to be regulated more tightly, if their condition is to improve.

The judge characterised the approach of the secretary of state for the environment as one of “smoke and mirrors”. The angling club, which won the court case, said the secretary of state was planning to fail.

Lawyers believe the ruling means the basis for the government’s plans to protect waterways from pollution – which have been criticised as weak – could be unlawful, and ministers could be forced to strengthen their measures.

This has potentially created a mess for the new environment secretary, Steve Barclay, who may have to overhaul the plans of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

It could open the door for other groups to bring similar challenges for the other river basin plans across the country, as the court found that the fundamental requirement to assess and identify specific measures to achieve the legally mandatory targets for each water body – such as tightened environmental permits for controlling sewage pollution – had unlawfully not been done.

Andrew Kelton, a solicitor at Fish Legal, said: “This case goes to the heart of why government has failed to make progress towards improving the health of rivers and lakes in England. Only 16% of water bodies – 14% of rivers – are currently achieving ‘good ecological status’, with no improvement for at least a decade, which comes as no surprise to us having seen how the Environment Agency at first proposed, but then for some reason failed to follow through with the tough action needed against polluters in this case.

“The Upper Costa Beck is just one of 4,929 water bodies, but it is a case study in regulatory inaction in the face of evidence of declining river health.”

He added: “The Environment Agency and the government have taken a high-level, generic – and effectively non-committal – approach to achieving targets when what was needed was a water-body-by-water-body plan of real action to stop ongoing damage.

“We hope this ruling will lead to actual environmental improvements, not only on the Costa Beck but on every other ‘failing’ river and lake across the country.”

Lawyers acting for the campaigners believe the ruling could force the government to strengthen its entire water plans including its much derided “plan for water”, which was announced earlier this year.

Penelope Gane, head of practice at Fish Legal, said: “The environmental objectives and information in river basin management plans underpin all sorts of long-term statutory plans and other strategic planning, including the government’s plan for water, water company business plans, water resources regional plans and the chalk stream restoration strategy. This legal action exposes that all of those policies and plans are effectively built on foundations of sand.”

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water previously said: “The EA has undertaken water framework directive assessments at Costa Beck. These indicate that neither the water industry nor sewage are either confirmed or even probable causes of the watercourse failing to achieve good ecological status.

“Yorkshire Water is not party to this ongoing case. Nevertheless, we continue to work in partnership with the local angling association on this issue.”

The shadow secretary of state for the environment, Steve Reed, said: “The water industry is broken after 13 years of Conservative failure, with stinking, toxic sewage swilling through our rivers, lakes, and seas. This Conservative government’s plan is so weak it’s now been declared unlawful. They have been happy to stand by and let the sewage flow due to their sheer incompetence.

“Only Labour will take tough action to end this scandal by putting the water industry under special measures. We will ban water bosses’ bonuses, and introduce severe, automatic fines until the water companies clean up their filth.”

A Defra spokesperson said: “We are carefully considering the outcome of this judgment and next steps.

“The government has an ambitious plan for water, which is delivering more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement needed to clean up our waterways. This includes reforming river basin management plans and delivering tailored long-term catchment action plans for local groups to improve all water bodies in England.”

How do you know?

Basic literacy and numeracy are essential life skills, how come so many in government seem to lack the latter? How do they pass the selection process? – Owl

Boris Johnson was “bamboozled” by the science during the pandemic and had to have details explained to him “repeatedly”, the Covid inquiry has heard.

Archie Mitchell www.independent.co.uk (Extract)

Sir Patrick Vallance’s bombshell diary entries revealed in excruciating detail how the former prime minister struggled to understand graphs and “just could not get” some scientific concepts.

The former chief scientific adviser – one of the government’s most senior advisers during the pandemic – told the inquiry about how he kept daily notes as a “brain dump” to help him “decompress” — and never intended them to “see the light of day”.

But the diary extracts have already proved humiliating for Mr Johnson, with the inquiry hearing how Mr Johnson sometimes struggled to retain scientific information, was “clutching at straws” and at one point queried whether Covid was spreading “because of the great libertarian nation we are”.

In one entry following a meeting with Mr Johnson in May 2020 about schools, Sir Patrick wrote: “Late afternoon meeting with the PM on schools. My God, this is complicated. Models will not provide the answer. PM is clearly bamboozled.”

Another entry, also written in May 2020, said: “PM still confused on different types of test. He holds it in his head for a session and then it goes.”

In another humiliating passage for Mr Johnson, Sir Patrick wrote: “Watching the PM get his head around stats is awful. He finds relative and absolute risk almost impossible to understand.”

Later, in September 2020, Mr Johnson is talked through some graphs, after which Sir Patrick wrote: “It is difficult, he asks questions like ‘which line is the dark red line?’ – is he colourblind? Then ‘so you think positivity has gone up overnight?’ then ‘oh god bloody hell’. But it is all the same stuff he was shown six hours ago.”

Asked about the extracts, Sir Patrick said Mr Johnson “would be the first to admit it wasn’t his forte, and that he did struggle with some of the concepts and we did need to repeat them often”.

But Sir Patrick added that scientific advises from across Europe all recalled their leaders having problems understanding some concepts.

Earlier in the day this is what Rishi Sunak told an audience in Enfield:

“The first time most of you saw me was during COVID. When I stood up at a press conference to announce the furlough scheme. From that moment until today, whether you like me or not, I hope you know that when it comes to the economy, when it comes to your job, your family, your incomes, I’ll always make the right decisions for our country.……

“So now you can trust me when I say we can now start to responsibly cut taxes.….

“You can trust me to take long-term decisions and that’s how we’ll build a brighter future for all our children.“

[Full speech here; quote from concluding remarks at 20:40]

On Eat Out to Help Out, see below, could it be that our “techbro” PM couldn’t grasp scientific arguments about infection transmission? Or did the “beancounter” place the health of the hospitality sector economy above the health of the population?

Not a sound basis for gaining our trust either way.- Owl

Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme almost certainly drove a second wave of Covid cases in the UK, the former government chief scientific adviser has told the inquiry into the pandemic.

Jane Merrick inews.co.uk 

Sir Patrick Vallance said it is “very difficult to see how it [the scheme] wouldn’t have had an effect on transmission”.

While the half-price discount offer in August 2020, devised by the then chancellor, has previously been linked to a second wave by independent scientists and critics of the policy, Sir Patrick’s evidence is the first time a senior figure from government at the time has confirmed it was a driver of transmission.

The former scientific adviser said Rishi Sunak should have known the effect Eat Out To Help Out would have had on transmission because he was in all the relevant meetings at the time.

The evidence from Sir Patrick will put pressure on the current Prime Minister’s handling of the response to the pandemic. Mr Sunak is giving his own evidence early next month.

The inquiry has previously heard how Mr Sunak was referred to as “Dr Death the chancellor” by Dame Angela McLean, who is Sir Patrick’s successor, in reference to the controversial Eat Out To Help Out policy.

Neither Sir Patrick nor Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was informed of the scheme before it was announced by the Treasury in July 2020.

Sir Patrick said their advice “would have been very clear”, adding that the public health message up until that point was “interaction between different households and people that you weren’t living with in an enclosed environment with many others is a high-risk activity”.

He said: “That policy completely reversed it to saying: ‘We will pay you to go into an environment with people from other households and mix in an indoor environment for periods extended over a couple of hours or more.’

“And that is a completely opposite public health message.

“As a result of that, it’s quite likely that had an effect on transmission. In fact it’s very difficult to see how it wouldn’t have had an effect on transmission and that would have been the advice that was given, had we been asked beforehand.”

Asked whether Mr Sunak would have been aware of the risks, Sir Patrick said it had been discussed at Cabinet “our concern that people were piling on more and more things” that would drive up cases.

“So I think it would have been very obvious to anyone that this was likely to cause an issue that inevitably would cause an increase in transmission risk.

“And I think that would have been known by ministers, and if he was in the meetings, I can’t recall which meetings he was in, but I’d be very surprised if any minister didn’t understand that these openings carried risk.”

Mr Sunak also wanted the scientists to be “handled” in the run-up to his Eat Out To Help Out policy, the inquiry heard.

On 2 July 2020, Sir Patrick wrote in his diaries: “In economics meeting earlier in the day they didn’t realise CMO [Prof Whitty] was there and CX [Mr Sunak] said, ‘It is all about handling the scientists, not handling the virus’.

“They then got flustered when CMO chipped in later and they realised he had been there all along. PM [Mr Johnson] blustered and waffled for 5 mins to cover his embarrassment.”

Sir Patrick was scathing about the “pure dogma” that emerged from Mr Sunak’s Treasury during the pandemic.

In his diaries he wrote on 26 October 2021, when the government was discussing whether to impose a Plan B of some restrictions stopping short of lockdown as cases were rising again: “Economic predictions! HMT saying economy nearly back to normal + Plan B would cost £18bn. No evidence. No transparency. Pure dogma + wrong throughout.”

Sir Patrick told the inquiry: “I did think that there was a lack of transparency.

“And it was difficult to know exactly what modelling had been done and what input they’d been to various assertions and comments made, and that made it very difficult and of course, it wasn’t publicly available either.

“And that created, I think, an imbalance where the science advice was there for everybody to see.”

It was not only the Treasury but Downing Street who were pushing for a full relaxation of measures after lockdown, the inquiry heard.

Sir Patrick wrote in his diaries that No10 wanted the “science altered” in the run-up to restrictions being lifted in summer 2020. On 19 June he wrote: “No10 pushing hard on releasing measures – including clubs and bars.

“They are pushing very hard and want the science altered. We need to hold on to our hats. There will likely be a second peak.”

• Certificate of Lawful Development for a garage conversion and alterations.126 Sidford Road Sidmouth Devon EX10 9PARef. No: 23/2417/CPL | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Prior approval application to convert existing farm building to a residential dwelling with associated development Higher Berry Farm Clyst St Lawrence Cullompton EX15 2NWRef. No: 23/2418/PDQ | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Floodlighting to existing skate park Phear Park Withycombe Road Exmouth Devon EX8 1TJRef. No: 23/2407/FUL | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single storey pitched roof side extension 10 Langdon Way Clyst St Mary Exeter EX5 1FPRef. No: 23/2412/FUL | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1, Oak : reduction of lateral limbs on southern side and partially east and west side; limbs will be reduced by up to 1.5 metres with cut diameters up to 50mm. Luddesdown Higher Brook Meadow Sidford Devon EX10 9SSRef. No: 23/2419/TRE | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Erection of a single storey rear extension which would extend beyond the rear wall of the original house by 4.8m, for which the maximum height would be 3.3m and for which the height of the eaves would be 2.9m. 47 Partridge Road Exmouth Devon EX8 4PHRef. No: 23/2401/GPD | Validated: Thu 09 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• G2, x2 Beech : fell. Woodland Adjacent To Head Weir Ottery St Mary EX11 1QSRef. No: 23/2395/TCA | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1, Sycamore – fell. Land At Paternoster Row Ottery St MaryRef. No: 23/2387/TCA | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• (T1) – Monterey Cypress – expose the roots causing damage to driveway and prune off, removing the roots to then reinstate the driveway with appropriate sub-base and tarmac. Approximate diameter of the roots are up to 50-60mm. Longest root length from driveway edge is 4.8m. (Distance from driveway edge to the tree approximately 2m). Yoxall Barline Beer Devon EX12 3LWRef. No: 23/2389/TRE | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T1: Box Elder reduce crown hieght from 7m to 5.5m and crown spread from 6m to 4m (at its widest). Lyndhurst Manor Road Seaton EX12 2AQRef. No: 23/2392/TCA | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• G1 – Birch: remove north-westernmost stem. Remove first two lowest branches on western stem. Reduce all stems in group to previous pruning points, maximum diameter of cuts 25mm. T2 – Birch: tip reduce height by approximately 1.5-2 metres, MDC 25mm. Langley House Town Lane Woodbury EX5 1NHRef. No: 23/2390/TCA | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Certificate of Proposed Lawful Development for a side extension to form new entrance, existing hips to gables to the main roof and existing dormer size increased.9 Apple Close Exmouth Devon EX8 4QNRef. No: 23/2377/CPL | Validated: Tue 07 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Screening opinion for proposed residential development Land West Of Whimple Road Broadclyst Exeter EX5 3BXRef. No: 23/0014/EIA | Validated: Tue 07 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed single storey extension on north/east elevation and French doors to existing bay window. Toad Hall Toadpit Lane West Hill EX11 1TRRef. No: 23/2357/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Lean-to outbuilding for 1-10 Golesworthy Meadow residents’ storage. Golesworthy Meadow Clapper Lane Honiton EX14 1FARef. No: 23/2371/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Japanese Maple (tree no. 273) – fell. Site Of Milton Lodge Brampford Speke EX5 5HGRef. No: 23/2356/TCA | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Corkscrew Willow – crown reduction by less than 1m (see annotated photo). 27 Tigers Way Axminster EX13 5TGRef. No: 23/2370/TRE | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T11, Oak tree: removal. Lovering House Hulham Road Exmouth EX8 5BBRef. No: 23/2369/TRE | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of all buildings located on the siteSeaton Heights Harepath Hill Seaton Devon EX12 2TFRef. No: 23/2368/DEM | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Prior approval for the erection of roof over existing silage clamps Ashe Farm Musbury Devon EX13 8ADRef. No: 23/2366/AGR | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Replacement & extension of existing outbuilding roofs to provide car port. Keates Farm Broom Lane Tytherleigh Axminster Devon EX13 7AZRef. No: 23/2361/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Two storey rear extension, and alterations to the front including a porch entrance canopy 15 Elm Close Broadclyst EX5 3LTRef. No: 23/2354/FUL | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Conversion of existing garage with front and rear single storey extensions 10 Perrys Gardens West Hill Devon EX11 1XARef. No: 23/2367/FUL | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• New orangery style restaurant extension to the rear of the property in lieu of an existing external covered area which is currently redundant The Blue Ball Sandygate Exeter Devon EX2 7JLRef. No: 23/2348/FUL | Validated: Thu 09 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Certificate of existing lawful use for annex as a single dwelling. Annexe Longlands Upton Pyne Exeter EX5 5HZRef. No: 23/2352/CPE | Validated: Thu 09 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• T5, Wellingtonia : fell to ground level. T11, Cypress : removal of two stems to north of main trunk back to main trunk junction, and removal of south-western stem to a height of 1-2m (leaning towards garage). Bramble Hill Seaton Down Hill Seaton EX12 2JDRef. No: 23/2337/TRE | Validated: Thu 09 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Application for approval of reserved matters (layout, scale, appearance, access and landscaping) pursuant to outline permission 20/1559/OUT “Creation of 2no dwellings (outline consent sought with all matters reserved).” Garages Coombe Lane Axminster EX13 5ASRef. No: 23/2331/RES | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Installation of 7 CCTV Cameras located externally around all four elevations of the Minster Church, and an aerial fitted to the parapet on the south side, with associated works St Marys Church West Street Axminster EX13 5NURef. No: 23/2315/FUL | Validated: Fri 10 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Removal of conservatory and replacement with rear extension and raised decking. 15 Woodhill View Honiton EX14 2GQRef. No: 23/2319/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Demolition of existing ground floor rear extension and replacing with two-storey rear extension. Radio House West Street Axminster EX13 5NURef. No: 23/2289/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed two-storey dwelling with associated amenity and facilities Land At 16 Raddenstile Lane ExmouthRef. No: 23/2273/FUL | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Erection of new agricultural storage building Land Lying To The North Back Lane Newton PopplefordRef. No: 23/2279/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Conversion of redundant agricultural building to form one unit of holiday accommodation. Bucknole Farm Northleigh Devon EX24 6BPRef. No: 23/2270/FUL | Validated: Tue 07 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Single storey porch extension The Wood House Longmeadow Road Lympstone EX8 5LFRef. No: 23/2252/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Construction of two storey rear and side extensions. The Oaks Aylesbeare Devon EX5 2DERef. No: 23/2232/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Proposed installation of 210 solar panels on the roof Complete Meats Weycroft Avenue Millwey Rise Industrial Estate Axminster EX13 5HURef. No: 23/2217/FUL | Validated: Tue 07 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Erection of detached steel portal framed building for use of storage (class B8), offices (class E(g)(i) and industrial processes (class E(g)(iii) Mantracourt Electronics Ltd The Drive Farringdon EX5 2JBRef. No: 23/2216/FUL | Validated: Tue 07 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Conversion of workshop building to form 2 no. live/work units, comprising business use (Class E(g)) at ground floor and dwelling (Class C3) at first floor, and formation of associated parking area. 1 Old Steam Laundry Laundry Lane Sidford Sidmouth EX10 9QRRef. No: 23/2117/FUL | Validated: Mon 06 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision
• Change of use of former nursing home (Use Class C2 residential institutions) to form house of multiple occupation (Sui Generis). Seaswift House Sea Hill Seaton Devon EX12 2QTRef. No: 23/1968/FUL | Validated: Wed 08 Nov 2023 | Status: Awaiting decision

Might be an interesting day ahead in the Covid inquiry – Owl

“Every spare pound should be consecrated not to tax cuts but to raising public investment – a key trigger for increased private sector investment and, ultimately, a better future.”

Will Hutton www.theguardian.com 

It is time “to focus on growth”, intoned the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, on Friday. The economy, he seems to think, has turned a corner. Before Wednesday’s autumn statement – the biggest set-piece economic event of the year – anticipation on Tory backbenches and in the rightwing media is beginning to run high, as estimates about his potential largesse balloon. A focus on growth in their eyes can have only one meaning: buying back popularity with tax cuts.

It is breathtakingly wrong. Tax cuts, especially the widely mooted deep cuts to inheritance tax that Hunt is said to be considering, will do little for growth – instead choking off a much-needed source of revenue and inflating inequality. That they should be framed as crucial supports to aspiration, enterprise and growth is tribute to the huge rightwing bias in our national conversation, with the reasons for the prolonged stagnation facing us going largely unacknowledged. Britain is suffering from an intensifying four-decade-long investment drought in the public and private sectors – the root cause of the crisis in stagnating productivity and living standards that shapes our politics and daily lives. Every spare pound should be consecrated not to tax cuts but to raising public investment – a key trigger for increased private sector investment and, ultimately, a better future.

The IMF has calculated that the combination of selling off so many public assets cheaply, refusing for decades to invest in those that remain – hospitals, schools, transport – along with commitments to pay pensions without creating accompanying pension funds to discharge the liability, mean that public sector liabilities represent an astonishing 96% of GDP. If Britain’s public sector had a balance sheet like a private company, identifying both public assets and liabilities, its net worth would be in the red by more than £2tn.

The extent and speed of the deterioration in the public sector’s net worth since 2000 is stunning – comfortably the fastest in the G7, on the IMF’s definition. It should be no surprise. In an ideological universe in which all wealth is imagined to be created by private enterprise, public investment is a permanent Cinderella. Margaret Thatcher’s election marked the moment when British priorities were disastrously upended. Until 1980, public investment had averaged 4.5% of GDP; between 1980 and 2023 it has averaged 1.5% of GDP – a short interlude of rising public investment under New Labour, immediately reversed by the coalition and then the Tory governments of the 2010s. It now runs at half of what it needs to be, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research; it should be doubled.

One obvious crisis area is our national infrastructure, the foundation on which growth is built. Britain, as the National Infrastructure Commission said forcibly last month, must lift its spending on infrastructure to at least £70bn a year and keep it there for decades if it is to have any hope of matching the transport, digital, housing, water, waste disposal and energy infrastructure enjoyed by other advanced countries – let alone to overtake them. The NIC says that £30bn of those funds can only come from government. Seven years after we lost the annual £6bn that the European Investment Bank used to lend, the UK Infrastructure Bank, if it does well, will succeed in lending half that annually by 2030. In addition, there is abject investment in research and development. Nero was said to have fiddled while Rome burned; we have a legion of rightwing commentators, thinktanks and Tory MPs babbling about tax cuts while Britain burns.

Pre-budget opacity and secrecy abounds; in a grownup country a column like this could be written in the light of the projected spending, tax and borrowing figures. No chance. Instead we rely on informed guesses. We do know that tax revenues have been buoyed by far higher inflation and pay settlements than when thresholds were frozen for six years. Some City estimates suggest that, far from the tiny margins that the chancellor thought he was operating within last spring, the Office for Budget Responsibility will have told him (congruent with meeting his target for shrinking national debt in five years’ time) he might have up to £26bn to “give away”.

How to spend it? A serious chancellor in a serious government would take a rounded picture – the living standards of the people, especially the poorest, the state of public services, the wider needs of the economy, the sustainability of debt service, the weaknesses of the public sector balance sheet, our infrastructure and public investment needs. This is what a growing economic consensus, including the IMF, now urges. Focusing on debt and deficits alone without connecting them to investment or the wider public balance sheet, and trusting in tax cuts rather than public investment to stimulate “enterprise and aspiration” may be Tory economic policy – but it is fossilised, redundant economic thinking.

Yet even if his party allowed him to be a serious chancellor, Hunt has shown no interest in developing a public sector balance sheet; if he did, it would remove the case for tax cuts completely. Yet within this second-best world, two floated measures will be steps in the right direction. Expect companies to be allowed fully to offset investment against corporation tax for at least another year – or even permanently. This is the only “tax cut” that has ever been proven to raise investment. And Hunt will begin the vital consolidation of our absurd pension fund structure – myriads of small pension funds producing low returns but not investing in Britain.

Besides the challenges we face, there is no urgency or concerted effort to do everything possible to turn our economic trajectory around. The story should be investment, investment, investment – not bungs for the rich via inheritance tax cuts or worsening the already hard-pressed living standards of those at the bottom by shaving the proper indexation of welfare benefits – another floated measure. Since Brexit, inward investment, so important to an open economy like Britain’s, has shrunk alarmingly: no longer do we have full, unfettered access to crucial EU markets, and foreign companies are voting with their feet. Yet there is zero effort to correct this self-inflicted harm.

Our infrastructure is lamentable. Our public balance sheet is ruinously weak. Business investment is far below what is needed. We are going nowhere as a country. The autumn statement will scarcely shift the dial.

What sort of strings are attached to this “devolution” deal if Plymouth can’t accept them? – Owl

As the government pledged £16m funding to pave the path to a devolution deal for Torbay and Devon, Plymouth City Council announced its withdrawal from negotiations.

By Charlotte Cox www.bbc.co.uk

The government is “committed” to ongoing talks for a deal to transfer powers and funding from Whitehall to local government, Torbay Council said.

This includes investment in training and jobs.

Plymouth’s council leader branded the deal “unreasonable and unrealistic”.

Councillor Tudor Evans said to continue on with the process would have meant “less power and control” over transport in the city, no commitment to increased funding – and a “backward step” for the area.

Although he supported the principle of devolution, there was “no choice but to withdraw”, he added because of government insistence they “surrender our powers and funding regarding transport”.

Wishing luck to Devon and Torbay leaders, Mr Evans added: “It is massively disappointing given all the work that has taken place and we hope the government will realise the final deal it offered was unreasonable and unrealistic and that it will reconsider in the future.”

Levelling Up Minister Jacob Young said the government was “committed” to continuing negotiations to conclude a deal with Devon and Torbay Councils.

In a letter to leaders in Devon and Torbay, Mr Young offered £16m of “new capital funding” for the green economy including environmental science and technologies.

With a focus on new “green jobs, homes, skills, and business growth”, the funding would also be aimed at attracting private sector investment, he said.

A wider package of “devolved powers and funding” were in “advanced negotiations”.

Meanwhile, councils were seeking “greater local control” and resources for affordable housing and improved public transport, Torbay Council said.

‘Real momentum’

The devolution model would create a Combined County Authority (CCA) for the area, as opposed to a mayor for Devon, it added.

John Hart, leader of Devon County Council, said coming close to finalising a deal was “hugely significant”, giving Devon and Torbay a “stronger voice” in Whitehall.

Councillor David Thomas, Leader of Torbay Council said the funding announcement showed “real momentum” for the devolution deal.

Both leaders said they respected Plymouth City Council’s decision and would work with them, while Councillor Evans said Plymouth was also committed to co-operation.

Subject to an agreement in principle on the deal, a public consultation would be launched on the setting up of a proposed CCA, with a final decision coming before the respective councils in March 2024.

From a correspondent:

(To be sung to the tune of Let it Snow! Let It Snow! Let it Snow!)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
The flood damage is truly spiteful
The sewage has nowhere to go
Let It Flow! Let It Flow! Let It Flow!

It doesn’t show signs of stopping
And all the manhole covers are popping
South West Water’s spent all of our dough
Let It Flow! Let It Flow! Let It Flow!

Portaloos are required day and night
How I hate going out in the storm
A ‘poonami’ is a regular sight
Infrastructure clearly needs to transform

Warnings forecast continuous raining
So we must fix our outdated draining
Full-length Waders are a definite ‘NO’
Let it Flow! Let It Flow! Let It Flow!

Have we honestly come to this?
Where we drown in our own noxious faeces
Regulators have been so remiss
It’s a wake-up for our human species!

The crux is, of course, who’ll be paying
For pumping stations and extra pipe laying?
The answer . . . . . we already know!
Let It Flow! Let it Flow! Let it Flow!

“London’s exceptionalism” versus a “South West lag”, will “levelling up” ever start? – Owl 

New analysis showing how the South West is a higher education “cold spot” means a unique approach to offering support to teenagers may be needed in the region, experts have warned. Numbers going on to university-level courses and levels of social mobility are among the lowest in England.

Lewis Clarke www.devonlive.com

Higher levels of deprivation in seaside towns and cities combined with a lack of local provision for many mean children growing up there are less likely to go to university than those living in other urban areas.

Researchers have identified “London’s exceptionalism” in higher education ambitions and a “South West lag”. Young people in the South West were the least likely to expect to go to university, to progress to university, or to have attended university. At age 17, 36 per cent of young people in the South West of England stated that they were very likely to go to university, compared to 63 per cent in London.

The study says these gaps cannot fully be explained by deprivation levels or the challenges of living in coastal and rural areas.

The research, by Chris Playford, Anna Mountford-Zimdars and Simon Benham-Clarke from the University of Exeter, is published in the journal Social Sciences . They used data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, which has information about personal background, attainment, and aspirations, to model their chances of going to university.

Dr Playford said: “Our research shows policymakers should consider the role that regional dynamics may have in influencing the choices and constraints faced by young people. The South West is a special case for those wishing to increase educational opportunities and progression. It might be that outreach work trialled in other areas, for example ethnically diverse cities with a wide range of local higher education opportunities, simply cannot be translated into the context of the region.

“The peripheral location of the South West and the particular labour market opportunities, as well as the pattern of higher education availability, requires a bespoke approach to supporting teenagers to continue their education. For some young people, it is possible that not leaving their communities in pursuit of education and social mobility might be the best life choice.”

There are different barriers to accessing higher education for young people growing up in rural or coastal areas compared to similar young people in towns and cities inland. These include lack of public transport and reliable internet connection. But the study says this does not explain why children in the South West have lower aspirations and progression than their peers elsewhere in the country.

At age 18 a third of young people in the South West had applied for a university course. This was lower than for any other region of England and compares to 55 per cent in London.

By age 25, 42 per cent of young people in the South West had attended university, compared to 61 per cent in London. Those who had grown up in urban coastal areas were notably less likely to have ever attended university (40 per cent), compared to those who lived in inland urban areas (50 per cent) and rural coastal areas (53 per cent).

A lower proportion of parents in urban coastal areas had attained a university degree (15 per cent) than in urban inland areas (19 per cent), rural inland areas (24 per cent), and rural coastal areas (24 per cent). In urban coastal areas, a slightly higher proportion of parents (17 per cent) did not want their children to continue in education at the end of compulsory schooling, compared to 12 per cent in urban inland areas, 16 per cent in rural inland areas, and 13 per cent in rural coastal areas.

Relax planning restrictions by an inch and developers, with their immense lobbying power, will take a mile. – Owl 

Building on the green belt should be part of the UK’s answer to the housing crisis, provided more effort is also put into improving the quality of urban green space, England’s nature chief says.

Fiona Harvey www.theguardian.com 

New housing and better protection for green spaces, wildlife and nature should not be seen as opposites, according to Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England. The “oppositional mindset” that sees the two as “binary choices” does not reflect reality, and is hindering local communities from finding ways to provide enough homes for people, while restoring the UK’s dwindling species.

“What we need to be doing is thinking more about how we can accommodate high quality nature within and around residential developments, not only in order to meet nature targets, but also in order to promote social wellbeing,” he says in an interview with the Guardian. “Because we now know, from a vast body of evidence, that access to green spaces and areas with water is very, very good for people’s wellbeing.”

The green belt should not be sacrosanct, he says. England could end up with less green belt than it has currently, but “better quality greenbelt – that might have more houses in it. If you look at many green belts around England, quite a lot of them are pretty bereft of wildlife. They’re not very accessible. Some of them are not producing much food either.”

Instead of a blanket defence of green belt land, government and local communities should take “a more joined-up view” that could see some new building but better conservation, and more green space where people need it.

“If you look at the economic benefits we get from access to good quality, wildlife-rich green space, the economic value of that goes up in proportion to the amount of people who can reach it,” he says. “Putting woodlands in remote areas is going to have much less social benefit than putting woodlands in areas next to where people live.”

Juniper’s stance is in contrast to that of many campaigners for whom the green belt is a totemic issue, and who resist encroachment on it. But his pragmatic attitude has been honed from years spent arguing the scientific case for nature to often sceptical ministers and civil servants, finding ways to push for bold action within straitening officialdom.

A zoologist and conservationist by training, whose first area of study was parrots, he has long experience of straddling what others may regard as starkly different roles. Before taking the Natural England chair in 2019, Juniper had combined heading the campaigning charity Friends of the Earth – usually regarded as one of the deepest green of activist groups, more radical in outlook than Greenpeace – with advising King Charles when he was Prince of Wales.

Natural England is charged with ensuring green targets, such as protecting 30% of the UK’s land by 2030, are met. But though these targets are still in place, government policy has changed in ways that many think will make the targets more difficult to meet – or even impossible. Rishi Sunak has taken a publicly anti-green stance, with U-turns on several aspects of climate policy.

Nature policy has also been a battlefield – the government announced in August it would roll back policies on nutrients that required housebuilders to make provision for sewage. The nutrient regulations were designed to prevent further pollution of rivers, which are already under severe threat from water companies’ cavalier attitude to sewage overflows from new housing.

After a bitter row blew up over the proposals, the government backed down, but it is not clear what attitude the new environment secretary, Steve Barclay, who replaced Thérèse Coffey in this week’s reshuffle, will take.

Juniper, speaking before Barclay’s appointment but while Coffey was widely rumoured to be replaced, said the nutrient neutrality scheme that Natural England had been piloting for about 18 months was working well.

“Frustrations are expressed in different places and we get criticised for holding up development. But I fully reject that on the grounds that we’re putting a great deal of effort to enable development, at the same time as enabling government and the country to meet their very stretching targets for nature recovery,” he says.

Juniper is not afraid to take on environmental shibboleths. As well as the nutrient scheme, he supports the biodiversity net gain regulations, and local nature recovery strategies, that will allow for new developments of housing, industrialisation and urbanisation, as long as there are compensatory projects elsewhere. Take newts, he offers. Great crested newts are protected species, and have had “iconic status” among builders because for many years, if populations were found then development had to cease.

Today, builders can use the modified rules to carry on building if they also agree to protect populations of the species in other areas. Rather than being a cop-out, this is an improvement, according to Juniper.

“Trying to protect a remnant population of these amphibians in an isolated pond is one thing, it may not have very much long-term ecological benefit. However, if you can say we are going to sacrifice that pond, but we’re going to build 10 others, and we’re going to put those 10 others in places where we know we’ll get maximum benefit for the connectivity of the new population, then this is leading to better outcomes for nature,” he says.

Though Juniper is carefully neutral, seeing it as his current job to provide scientific advice on the UK’s nature to the government of the day, it is not hard to imagine how difficult that must be with a government whose rhetoric, and many recent actions, have been about attacking green experts and taking on the “Guardian reading, tofu-eating wokerati”, as the recently departed home secretary Suella Braverman put it.

More policy action is certainly needed, Juniper says. “There is a lot of really big chunky targets that government is seeking to reach. And you won’t reach them by doing nothing.” Is the government serious about those targets? “I hope so.” Is the policy situation, for instance with the restoration of the nutrient rules, stable? “I don’t know.”

His outlook at times may seem overoptimistic. The River Wye is dying under the load of chicken manure dumped in it from surrounding poultry farms. Juniper says: “Places like the River Wye remind us that we still have work to do in terms of being able to find ways of accommodating these parallel objectives for nature and food production.” Most environmentalists would regard that as quite an understatement.

He owns it was disappointing that species reintroduction was downgraded to “not a priority” under Coffey. The UK could benefit from more beavers, he says. But of the government’s actions overall, he will not be drawn. “Am I disappointed? I don’t think I’m in a position to be disappointed, I’m a public servant and I have to get on with it.” And if he were not a public servant? “I might be disappointed in my spare time.”