“Scientists have warned that Britain’s coastal areas and infrastructure are under threat from tsunamis.
New research has revealed how the British Isles have been hit by giant waves at a much higher and intense frequency that previously believed.
One tsunami reached more than 60ft in height, with warnings that the waves could devastate coastal installations such as power stations and shipping ports.”
The illustrative map shows the vulnerable areas include the Hinkley nuclear plants.
Thursday 8th December 2016, 2.15 pm, County Hall
Discussion and vote on whether to halt the “Sustainability and Transformation ” process in order to investigate fair funding for the Devon rural area.
Email your DCC councillors with your views:
http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?bcr=1
and remind them to attend and to vote in favour of motions to suspend the process.
Agenda here:
http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=132&MId=195
The live webcast of the meeting will be here:
http://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/244711
Recall that, when last discussed at the DCC Health Scrutiny Committee, a similar motion proposed by independent councillor Claire Wright was defeated with DCC Councillor and EDDC Leader Paul Diviani voting AGAINST her motion.
Seaton
Friday 16 December 2016
Town Hall, 09.30 – 11.30
Sidmouth
Friday 16 December 2016
Kennaway House, 14.30 – 16.30
Exmouth
Monday 19 December 2016
All Saints Church Hall, 09.30 – 11.30
Woodbury
Wednesday 21 December 2016,
Village Hall, 09.30 – 11.30
Budleigh Salterton
Wednesday 21 December 2016
Public Hall, 13.30 – 15.30
Honiton
Thursday 22 December
The Beehive, 14.00 – 16.00
Axminster
Friday 23 December 2016
Guildhall, 13.30 – 15.30
Wonder why pro-Remain farmer Neil Parish supported Andrea Leadsom (pro- Brexit, now Minister of Agriculture) for PM?
“Prominent Brexit campaigners and big landowners could pocket millions in farm subsidies if Tory minister Andrea Leadsom gets her way, an investigation has found.
The Vote Leave campaign said the gross amount of money we sent to the EU, £350 million a week, could go to the NHS. But they also quietly made a series of other promises about spending that money, leaving far less for the NHS.
A Greenpeace investigation has found that prominent Brexiter said she would guaranteed the controversial single farm payment to continue at current levels, if she were elected leader. She clearly didn’t win, but she is now the new environment secretary, and in a position to guarantee millions of pounds in farm subsidies post-Brexit.
This means that supporters and donors of Vote Leave, including Lord Bamford and Sir James Dyson, could get large taxpayer-funded subsidies. Others currently benefitting from the scheme include farming minister George Eustice and vice-president of Conservatives for Britain, Viscount Ridley. Iain Duncan Smith does not benefit directly but resides on the grounds of Swanbourne Estate, owned by his parents-in-law, who received £134,309 in farm subsidies last year.
The subsidy, which forms part of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), has been heavily criticised in the past for transferring wealth from the general public to rich landowners, including the aristocracy and billionaires from Denmark and Dubai.
The EU subsidies were meant to support family farming across the UK, but the money largely goes to large landowners. Many of them are Tory donors. Last year £2.3 billion was doled out as part of these payments. Prominent Brexit campaigners received over £4 million in EU farm subsidies in 2015, Greenpeace found.
That would mean more broken promises on the NHS – what a surprise.”
The agenda for the December 6th DMC meeting makes an interesting read. Two very contentious applications are being considered.
First: The Pegasus Life, Sidmouth scheme is, to quote a planning officer-
“A DEPARTURE FROM THE LOCAL PLAN, providing apartments with extra care in excess of the allocation or requirements of the plan, it therefore makes a meaningful contribution to housing delivery on a largely brownfield site.”
Second: The Syon House, Frogmore Road, East Budleigh scheme is, to quote again-
“The application represents A DEPARTURE FROM ADOPTED POLICY as the proposal does not fully accord with Strategy 35 in that a lower than 66% affordable housing provision is proposed.”
It makes Owl think that council tax payers should wonder why East Devon District Council spent a lot of time, money, tears and effort to finally get a local plan adopted just to DEPART from it less than a year from adoption.
A press release of 30 November press claims this regeneration of the old Cottage Hospital, and one time specialist stroke unit, is aimed at providing a population of 50,000 with:
“Bringing health, social care and well-being services together, as they will be at the Budleigh Hub, is a vision of the future and what can be achieved through partnership and focusing on the needs of the local community.
It will be a centre for a wide range of services in one place and it will provide a range of social and clinical services with the focus on prevention, rehabilitation and wellbeing.
Services will include NHS outpatient clinics, day centre, gym, café alongside health and wellbeing services such as diabetes and weight management support, dementia support, exercise classes, carers support, family groups, arts and craft and music. …”
Owl thinks that how you view this might depend on whether you interpret the provision of “spinning and other classes” alongside “jigsaws, knitting and crafts” as meaning something to do with spinning yarn, spinning words or exercise bicycles.
Whichever is correct it doesn’t seem directed at relieving the acute problem of bed blocking.
“The Ipsos Mori 2016 Veracity Index, launched in 1983, annually assesses which roles are most trusted by the public. Included in the index for the first time, nurses are the new champions, trusted even more than doctors.
Government ministers, estate agents and journalists remain at the bottom of the league, joined in the wake of the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory by the pollsters who didn’t see either coming. Politicians are trusted by just 15% of respondents – a precipitous 6% drop even on the level of trust they enjoyed this time last year.
People were asked to rate 24 job roles in terms of the trustworthiness of those who performed them.
Trust in the police, which dropped to a 33-year low of 58% in 2005 – the year of the London bombings and the police shooting of student Jean Charles de Menezes – has climbed to 71%.
Journalists were trusted by only 24% of people. Given growing levels of secularisation and a number of high-profile sexual abuse cases, the steep drop over the past three decades of trust in clergy and priests – from 85% in 1983 to 69% today – is perhaps unsurprising. Hairdressers (68%) score higher than lawyers, television newsreaders and charity chief executives. Since the 2008 financial crisis, economists and central bankers have had an image problem, but the 2016 index shows that they are trusted by 48% of people.
The stellar 93% rating for nurses was warmly welcomed by Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nurses. “Nurses are some of the most caring, hardworking staff in the UK and it is very encouraging to see their efforts reflected in the eyes of the public,” she said.
“A trusting relationship is absolutely essential in healthcare. As pressures on the health service rise, it’s particularly positive that the public have maintained their faith in the frontline staff working tirelessly for them throughout these difficult times. These results highlight the critical role nurses play in the lives of people in the UK. …”
East Devon Alliance:
Spotted in the crowd (not an exhaustive list as crowd too large): East Devon Alliance councillors Marianne Rixon and Cathy Gardner (also on Spotlight and Radio Devon), Sidmouth campaigners Di Fuller and Robert Crick along with town councillor Martin Shaw of Seaton and Independent Councillor Roger Giles of Ottery St Mary.
Many people attended from Exeter, Okehampton and North Devon.
No East Devon Tory Councillors or MPs sighted at all. Nor Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw.
“Protesters were seen marching in red lines from every direction along Sidwell Street, Fore Street, Queen Street, North Street, South Street, and Paris Street.
Protesters then gathered in Bedford Square where the speeches began.”
It included a rousing speech by DCC councillor Claire Wright:
“Police and crime commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez has told officials to find millions in cash to boost neighbourhood policing with dozens of new officers.
The Tory crime tsar won the May election with a pledge to keep open police stations and deploy more “bobbies” in communities that felt “abandoned”.
… Now Ms Hernandez has instructed her office to find all the spare money she can to fund new officers – including raising council tax and digging into cash reserves.
The operation – which could generate an extra £4million, funding as many as 80 new officers – comes as the results of a huge public consultation in Devon and Cornwall, generating 1,400 responses, are revealed.
Ms Hernandez will attend the police and crime panel in Plymouth, which oversees the PCC, to formally present her plans next Friday.
Andrew White, chief executive at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, said every potential source of fresh money would be tapped.
“I have been going through the budget to find all the money I can to turnover as much money as possible into frontline policing,” he told the Echo. …
… The plan is not explicit about the future shape of the force but promises to “retain a broad footprint for the police estate”.
“Police stations and offices are not the primary means by which the public engage with the police although they can play a part in connecting the community to the police,” it states.
The report also says “keeping underutilised or unnecessary physical buildings will tie up capital and revenue funds which we can spend in other ways”. “Going forward when a police station is vacated we will seek to provide an alternative base within that locality.
“In addition the PCC and the Chief Constable will look at ways to widen the police footprint in local areas to improve community liaison and connectivity – including through the Citizens in Policing Programme, colocation with partners and community access points and will pilot options in the second half of 2017.”
Panel member and Plymouth City Councillor Philippa Davey said: “it is a good plan which contains lots of fantastic things but does not set out exactly how we will achieve them. “It will be interesting to hear from Alison Hernandez and the chief constable at the meeting. “The bottom line is going to be a reduction in workforce, officers and money.
“The PCC and the chief constable will be spending their time making savings rather than doing their job – keeping our communities safe from harm.”
“The company building the UK’s first new nuclear power station for decades is facing questions over the health of its fleet of French nuclear plants after an investigation which has left the country with the lowest level of nuclear power for 10 years and the prospect of power cuts during a cold snap.
Thirteen of Électricité de France’s (EDF) 58 atomic plants are offline, some due to planned maintenance, but most for safety checks ordered by the regulator over anomalies discovered in reactor parts.
The outages have prompted warnings of potential planned power cuts and pushed up wholesale power prices, boosting coal and gas operators but squeezing small energy suppliers. Carbon emissions will possibly rise too as France, which last year forged a historic climate change deal in Paris, has to import more fossil fuel power.
The problems stem from a fault identified last year by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) in the as-yet-unfinished reactor at north-western France’s Flamanville plant – the same design approved for Hinkley Point C in the UK.
Pierre-Franck Chevet, president of the ASN, told Le Figaro the situation was “very worrying” and the discovery had led to “unprecedented” checks at all the country’s nuclear plants, which provide 75% of France’s electricity and normally help it export power to other countries. The issue is higher than expected carbon concentrations in steel reactor components, which could make them vulnerable to cracking.”
Iceland’s president has asked the anti-establishment Pirate Party to try to form a government, after two rounds of coalition talks failed.
The Pirates are one of Europe’s most radical political parties and came third in Iceland’s election on October 29.
None of Iceland’s major parties won an outright majority, and President Gudni Johannesson asked the first-placed Independence Party and the second-placed Left-Greens to assemble a coalition.
The party was founded in November 2012 by Birgitta Jónsdóttir and several prominent internet activists and hackers. It has 10 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat Parliament. Members seek direct democracy, digital freedom, greater government transparency, a new national constitution and asylum for US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015, the Pirate Party began a campaign to repeal the country’s blasphemy laws. They were successfully repealed in early July 2015. Members have stated Iceland must never become a member of the European Union unless the membership agreement is put to a referendum.
Should Iceland join the EU, the party believe the country shall be a single constituency in elections to the European Parliament.”
“My film Half Way documents my family’s experiences when we were made homeless. I hope it goes some way towards changing the way we look at housing …
… Ultimately, we need many thousands of homes – affordable and council. We need to make the rental market affordable again, and we need to change policy so that it stops benefiting those that have multiple houses and punishing those that have nowhere to call their home. If the government can afford to renovate Buckingham Palace, do up the Houses of Parliament or support the Garden Bridge project in London, all to make Britain look like one of the greatest places in the world, don’t we have a duty to make sure everyone in the country has a decent home? Wouldn’t that be something to be truly proud of?”
Daisy-May Hudson, producer, age 24
Interesting that Councillor Skinner feels he can bully his way into an SES meeting but does not allow anyone to attend (and listen) at an Exmouth Regeneration Board meeting! One law for him one law for others, it seems.
“An unexpected and uninvited band of Conservative councillors descended on the Harbour View cafe last night for the meeting of the Save Exmouth Seafront (SES) campaign group.
Councillor Philip Skinner, Chair of the Exmouth Regeneration Board was flanked by two Conservative Exmouth Town councillors, Fred Caygill and Richard Scott, when they arrived to the meeting of the campaign group. SES aims to push for independent consultation on the future of the seafront before any further work, including the submissions of additional planning applications. This is in sharp contrast to the Exmouth Regeneration Board who appear determined to press ahead with their development vision without consultation.
Councillor Skinner said he’d come to listen. People at the meeting were stunned but used the opportunity to question him. Laura Freeman, an SES member explained “I attended the meeting to help with SES’s campaign for independent consultation and the support of the existing seafront businesses. I was shocked to see Councillor Skinner, but like others, I tried to use the opportunity to ask him questions. However he rudely laughed at me as I tried to ask a question, which he then avoided answering. His presence at the meeting seemed to be more about disrupting SES than listening to what any of us had to say”.
SES spokesperson Louise MacAllister has been trying for some time to organise a public Q&A session with Councillor Skinner, and despite the negative feeling surrounding Councillor Skinner’s unexpected arrival at an SES meeting, hopes that this is a sign he is willing to engage with the wider public and ensure a Q&A session is organised as soon as possible. SES are not against meeting with external stakeholders but would rather they did not gate-crash their meetings. SES are now seeking an arranged meeting with Dr Mark Dixon the benefactor of the Watersport’s Centre.
—ENDS—
Unsurprisingly, planning officers have recommended the PegasusLife planning application for luxury flats at the Knowle.
Well, be honest, would you go against the wishes of your CEO, deputy CEO and all the Tory councillors?
Yet a very similar (almost identical) planning application in Bath has just been turned down – but that isn’t being built on council land and part- financing a new HQ.
Funny that.
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/knowle_demolition_wins_officer_support_1_4800636
“Lympstone residents have accused Devon County Council (DCC) of ignoring the village during the Dinan Way extension consultation process.
Council officers were subjected to scrutiny by the public at an open meeting in the village over a proposed £12million extension, which will link Dinan Way to the A376.
Mary Truell, who has lived in the area for 88 years and currently resides in Wotton Lane, Lymsptone, said the council had taken no notice of where the road was due to be built.
She said: “I would like to know who put in the application for the road because it is erroneous.
“All the time it talks about Exmouth and Exmouth benefits, but the whole thing is in Lympstone.”
DCC’s chief engineer for highways, Rob Richard, responded by admitting it was a project for Exmouth.
He said: “I am not going to stand here and say this is a scheme for Lympstone because it clearly isn’t. I am not pretending it is something it isn’t.
“It was quite clear the strength of feeling about the south route. It was very much the preference, not only from residents and the community of Lympstone, but also Exmouth as well.
“Unfortunately, consultation for us goes wider than the community and residents and, unfortunately, it is not us that dictates the importance of listed buildings, it’s government policy.
“We don’t get on with the National Trust and English Heritage any better than you guys do.”
Mr Richards added: “Hopefully, the road will provide a long, feasible structure that is going to help move traffic in and around Exmouth.”
DCC has voted through a compromise third route for Dinan Way after two proposed routes – a ‘south’ route and ‘valley’ route – were rejected after consultation. Despite being more popular with the public, the south route, which passed near A la Ronde in Summer Lane, was opposed by the National Trust.
Lympstone district and parish councillor Rob Longhurst accused the county council of letting everyone down with the road extension.
He said: “We are talking about loss of homes, financial hardship and social trauma.
“I am afraid I consider Devon County Council has failed us on these consultations.
“I think £12million is a ridiculous amount. It ignores the views of the consultations, raises the prospects of flooding in Lympstone and puts transient traffic problems over and above the effects on residents here.”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/villagers_hit_out_at_dinan_way_extension_1_4800155
PRESS RELEASE
Have Councillors been misled?
East Devon District Council’s Cabinet “rubber stamped” the go ahead for a “full planning permission” on the redevelopment at Queen’s Drive, Exmouth which they were told needs to be submitted by the end of the year.
This is part of what the Cabinet recommended on the 9th November:
“To note that under delegated powers and an exemption to standing orders, officers have engaged planning and design services to take forward a reserved matters application for the continuance of the current planning approval of Queen’s Drive.”
This means that contrary to normal procedures officers engaged the planning and design services of a company to design and submit a full planning application proposal for the remainder of the Queen’s Drive Development.
Within the submitted papers presented to the Cabinet it explains officers drew up a proposal to hire consultants in September 2016 and gave details of the costs which are estimated at £65,000.
The document states it is “necessary to submit the application by the end of 2016.” It also claims to be a “technical exercise” simply to “sustain a planning application”.
Local Independent District Councillors believe that the advice given to the Cabinet members was misleading. Rather than a “technical exercise” the proposal to submit a “reserved matters application” would provide full planning permission which in theory would allow contractors to start development as soon as it is approved. The ‘reserved matters’ application does not need to be submitted until 24th January, when the current outline application expires.
Megan Armstrong, District Councillor for Exmouth said “Independent colleagues and I cannot understand why the Council has now decided to appoint a designer to submit a full planning application at vast expense when all that is required is to submit a further outline planning application to replace the present one.
The cost of a new outline application would be far less than the ‘reserved matters’ proposal.”
Councillor Armstrong added “If this goes ahead, it contradicts the recommendation that “the Council will give Exmouth people another opportunity to have their say on what happens on that site. The Council will bring in external expertise to carry out a review. This will involve full consultation that is neither developer nor Council led.”
“I believe the District Council should put in a fresh outline planning application for phases two & three, which could be done before the current one expires. Then we can have the full consultation, rather than setting out the ‘reserved matters’ details first, which seems to be putting the cart before the horse. We understand that these Cabinet decisions will be discussed further at the next Full Council meeting on 21st December.”
— ENDS —
