Month: March 2023
Apply NOW for your Voter ID … or you may not be able to vote in May
My latest column in the local press (somehow missed out of the print edition of the Midweek Herald):
https://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/23355818.apply-voter-id-now-mays-local-elections/
Town Council ‘declines to support’ Green Wedge development plan
Seaton Town Council last night ‘declined to support’ the scheme to build 130 houses in the Green Wedge between the town and Colyford. In a confusing meeting, councillors rowed back from the in-principle support given to the plan by a poorly attended meeting of their planning committee, citing flooding problems and the ‘dangerous’ Colyford Road.
50 objectors attended the meeting along with representatives of the developers. When I was cut off in mid-sentence by the chair (Cllr Amrik Singh), Julian Thompson, Mayor of Colyford, intervened to take over my speech, at which the chair was persuaded to allow me to finish.
Cllr Marcus Hartnell, who abstained, continues to believe that Highways may solve the problems of Colyford Road, but I was categorically assured when I was County Councillor, by the Neighbourhood Highways Officer, that there was not room to install pavements on the section which is missing them.
A Bakers Estates representative told the meeting that they would enter a legally binding agreement with EDDC for the proposed affordable housing. What the meeting was not told is that a financial viability assessment is a legal means for them to get out of their agreement, as many developers do all the time and as happened with the Tesco site.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 