So why does East Devon District Council airbrush it out of their targets?
Soon, with our concreted countryside we will have nothing for tourists to visit us for.
But we will have plenty of industrial sheds and (non-affordable) houses made of ticky-tacky.
And can anyone track down anything meaningful (or indeed anything meaningful at all on any subject) by our “tourism champion” Mrs Kerridge?
The election poster, featuring a road through the British countryside, is just like George Osborne’s economic boasts – a fraud.
Party officials yesterday admitted the picture was Photoshopped together from THREE different images.
To add to their embarrassment, one advertising expert said: “The irony is, when you look a bit closer, the scene looks a bit French.
“It’s very unusual to have a road that wide with no lines down the middle and stretching so far with no lampposts.”
And Labour MP Chris Bryant said it was a “bit troubling when the first Tory campaign poster has a fib”.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tories-new-election-ad-featuring-4914897
Councillor Claire Wright was invited to explain why she is standing as an Independent in the May 2015 election. Her response makes very interesting reading, and includes her excellent Parliamentary Campaign Launch speech (June 2014). Here’s the link:
http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/why_would_anyone_run_for_parliament_as_an_independent
EDA has been sent this spoof version of the new Conservative Party poster (rumoured to be a photo taken in Germany), with added accompanying features of the Government’s vision for growth. 
Let your friends know the important choice facing Britain this year…More green fields cut through by tarmac and disappearing under sprawling cloned housing estates? Or new voices at Parliament and around the country, who will bring changes to the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework…the so-called ‘developers’ charter’)? More info at Community Voice on Planning at http://covop.org/
Could there be another, very different, route to long-term prosperity more suited to Britain’s natural assets, particularly in East Devon…..?
All is not quite as it seems in the (02/01/2015) Sidmouth Herald photo of MP Hugo Swire with three of the Sidmouth District Councillors!
See http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.3902104!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/image.jpg
Conservative Cllrs Drew, Newth and Sullivan voted AGAINST putting the Knowle relocation project on hold (proposed by Independent Cllr Claire Wright), just a few days before Mr Swire’s press release followed Cllr Wright’s lead. (Mrs Wright is of course standing against Hugo Swire in this year’s May election, as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for East Devon).
The same three councillors were present at the public open meeting organised by the Sid Vale Association in advance of the Full Council vote on Knowle (Dec 17th 2014). But the straightjacket of party politics seemed to restrict their perspective on Knowle. Cllr Frances Newth (appears by Hugo’s right shoulder in the picture), former EDDC Environment champion, did not utter a word about the environmental impact of relocation; Cllr Christine Drew (pictured on Hugo’s left) appeared blissfully unaware of the knock-on effect of the loss of the major Sid Valley employment site, and the ‘need’ for a large business park planned alongside a minor country road between Sidford and her beloved Sidbury; and Cllr Peter Sullivan responsible for Health and Wellbeing, made no comparison of the benefits of a workplace set in parkland with that of an industrial estate (as now proposed at Honiton).
As 2015 unrolls, will they all just keep smiling for the camera …?
Will the Councillors stay loyal to Leader Paul Diviani, or to their local MP?
A tricky call!!
..and they should know! Some telling comments (already referred to on our own website) are put into context in the comprehensive summary of how the plan to move from Knowle has proceeded, on today’s blogpost at http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/knowle-relocation-project-if-knowle-is.html
The Ministry of Justice has put out a press release saying what an important job the Freedom of Information Act is doing.
We think East Devon Diatrict Council might disagree!
“FOI is not only about the high-profile, headline-making releases of information but about the right of the individual to find out about the issues that matter to them. It is a fundamental right of all citizens to be able to hold their Government to account and that is why transparency is vital.”
Isn’t it interesting that in 2011 EDDC was planning to move to Heathpark and Exmouth Town Hall (anticipating the move of Devon County Council that took place only recently):
Click to access relocation_reports_july2011tosept2012.pdf
Then suddenly Skypark appeared … and dusappeared … and here we are back where it all (very secretly) began.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/opportunities_for_service_provis
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/full_access_to_the_alder_king_re
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_the_accommodation_ques
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_the_full_report_to_the
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_statistical_justificat
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/full_access_to_kensington_taylor
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/access_to_contracts_for_alder_ki
Fed up with West Dorset District Council the resident is now promoting a unitary Dorset as the solution – his frustrations sound familiar!
Watch this space: some surprising changes in store!
We are metamorphosing ….
n. pl. met·a·mor·pho·ses (-sēz′)
1. A transformation, as by magic or sorcery.
From The Guardian editorial on Mrs Thatcher’s disastrous decision to go along with Dorset MP Oliver Letwin’s idea of poll tax, in spite of more sensible advice from Tory “wets”:
“A few years before Lady Thatcher and Mr Letwin became obsessed with the poll tax, the American historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book about the march of follies in human affairs, from the Trojan to the Vietnamese war. [She] argued that a folly’s success was marked by the determination of its supporters to pursue a foolish and failed policy in the face of clear arguments in favour of an alternative course. The poll tax was Mrs Thatcher’s folly. But her supporters and her party have not yet learned the lessons of her act of hubris.”
Readers will be aware that only 2 “public consultation” events have ever neen organised regarding Knowle relocation – a very brief and rather uninformative event in Sidmouth and a highly stage-managed “stakeholders meeting” at Exeter Airport.
However, it seems that EDDC believes that highly stage-managed press releases with only good news and a highly stage-managed Frequently Asked Questions page on their website where they choose all the questions is all the public consultation required.
Why are we not surprised?
The “major supermarket” which pulled out of the Honiton Heathpark site would surely have had to contribute to changes at the Turk’s Head jubpnction – already heavily congested and about to get worse with the construction of the Premier Inn on the site of the old motel.
An EDDC building will add even more to the severe congestion. S106 payments are meant to compensate a local community for such changes. Their car park will not be much smaller than that which would have been built by the supermarket.
Will EDDC be contributing to changes? If not, why not? And if so, how much will changes cost? And are they included in current costs?
Torbay Council has been landed with a massive bill because they underpaid care homes by hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In a judgment that should send shivers down the spines of EDDC councillors, a judge said:
“Accountants commissioned to report on the council’s workings agreed with TQCF’s claim that the authority had made “illogical mathematical errors” and TQCF won a judicial review at the High Court in London.
The judge agreed that the calculation it used was “fundamentally flawed”.”
That’s what can happen if you don’t get your sums right …
Here are the “15 ailments of the Curia” that the pope recently identified.
How many apply to EDDC?
1) Feeling immortal, immune or indispensable. “A Curia that doesn’t criticise itself, that doesn’t update itself, that doesn’t seek to improve itself is a sick body.”
EDDC Translation: impotent Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
2) Working too hard. “Rest for those who have done their work is necessary, good and should be taken seriously.”
EDDC: No comment! Try getting some people on a Friday!
3) Becoming spiritually and mentally hardened. “It’s dangerous to lose that human sensibility that lets you cry with those who are crying, and celebrate those who are joyful.”
EDDC: Cry WITH us – no way!
4) Planning too much. “Preparing things well is necessary, but don’t fall into the temptation of trying to close or direct the freedom of the Holy Spirit, which is bigger and more generous than any human plan.”
EDDC: Freedom of speech at committees!
5) Working without coordination, like an orchestra that produces noise. “When the foot tells the hand, ‘I don’t need you’ or the hand tells the head ‘I’m in charge.’”
EDDC: Today Skypark, tomorrow Honiton …
6) Having “spiritual Alzheimer’s”. “We see it in the people who have forgotten their encounter with the Lord … in those who depend completely on their here and now, on their passions, whims and manias, in those who build walls around themselves and become enslaved to the idols that they have built with their own hands.”
EDDC: Vanity projects! Secrecy!
7) Being rivals or boastful. “When one’s appearance, the colour of one’s vestments or honorific titles become the primary objective of life.”
EDDC: Putting party politics before people.
8) Suffering from “existential schizophrenia”. “It’s the sickness of those who live a double life, fruit of hypocrisy that is typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that academic degrees cannot fill. It’s a sickness that often affects those who, abandoning pastoral service, limit themselves to bureaucratic work, losing contact with reality and concrete people.”
EDDC: Couldn’t put it better! Information Commissioner v EDDC.
9) Committing the “terrorism of gossip”. “It’s the sickness of cowardly people who, not having the courage to speak directly, talk behind people’s backs.”
EDDC: Private and secret meetings behind closed doors for the privileged few.
10) Glorifying one’s bosses. “It’s the sickness of those who court their superiors, hoping for their benevolence. They are victims of careerism and opportunism, they honour people who aren’t God.”
EDDC: Williams, Cohen and Diviani
11) Being indifferent to others. “When, out of jealousy or cunning, one finds joy in seeing another fall rather than helping him up and encouraging him.”
EDDC: hatred of common sense from those with different political views.
12) Having a “funereal face”. “In reality, theatrical severity and sterile pessimism are often symptoms of fear and insecurity. The apostle must be polite, serene, enthusiastic and happy and transmit joy wherever he goes.”
EDDC: Joy is limited to the Press Office otherwise fear and insecurity rules!
13) Wanting more. “When the apostle tries to fill an existential emptiness in his heart by accumulating material goods, not because he needs them but because he’ll feel more secure.”
More, bigger, new offices NOW.
14) Forming closed circles that seek to be stronger than the whole. “This sickness always starts with good intentions but as time goes by, it enslaves its members by becoming a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body and causes so much bad scandals especially to our younger brothers.”
EDDC: The Executive Committee, the private groups behind closed doors.
15) Seeking worldly profit and showing off. “It’s the sickness of those who insatiably try to multiply their powers and to do so are capable of calumny, defamation and discrediting others, even in newspapers and magazines, naturally to show themselves as being more capable than others.”
EDDC: trashing those of other parties and trying to destroy their reputations.
…” …overwhelmingly male, clerical bureaucrats are a ” sick body” … Among their sins [is] an addiction to power: “It’s the sickness of those who insatiably try to multiply their powers and to do so are capable of calumny, defamation and discrediting others, even in newspapers and magazines, naturally to show themselves as being more capable than others”.
Sound like East Devon District Council? Sort of – Pope Francis on the problems he faces at the Vatican!
