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I’ve asked Colyton Grammar School and LED to find a way to continue much-valued daytime dance and fitness classes
I have been approached by many users of Leisure East Devon dance and fitness classes held at Colyton Leisure Centre, who are angry about proposals under discussion by Colyton Grammar School (of which the centre is part) to end LED’s use of it on two mornings each week, which enables these classes to take place.EDDC response to new Government planning targets could threaten Green Wedge between Seaton and Colyford
A new EDDC strategy document, Principles For Accommodating The Future Growth Needs Of East Devon, does not propose the Seaton area as an area of large-scale growth, but still raises the spectre of developing the Green Wedge between Seaton and Colyford and bringing the reserve site near the Wetlands (removed from the Local Plan) back into play for housing:
8.11 Seaton – The town is constrained by topography particularly to the east and west but there is some limited scope for growth to the north of the town. The capacity to the north of the town would depend on the extent to which developing in the existing green wedge separating the town from Colyford would be accepted. The local plan had included a reserve site which still has potential while the allocated site for employment and community purposes has not come forward and may need looking at again. Clearly there are sensitivities to the north of the town in terms of the landscape given that it is rising land but also with the green wedge designation between Seaton and Colyford.
Background The Government is setting targets for each district which in East Devon will mean around 844 extra homes per year. The document also says that to ‘also achieve Members aspiration to deliver one job per home we will also need to deliver enough employment space to accommodate at least 844 jobs per year.’
EDDC welcomes this growth as a way of offsetting the effects of austerity; ‘The continued growth of the district and the future incentives form a vital element in the mitigation of the future financial pressures anticipated from 2020/21 as detailed in the financial plan.’ It even claims that ‘Continued growth is required to finance the councils Habitat Mitigation Strategy as well as other local infrastructure investment.’ (Growth is required to mitigate the effects of growth!)
Problems Neither this paper nor the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan consultation document included in the same papers (which EDDC was unhappy with and is now being revisited) faces up to the fact that – except close to Exeter where they believe new estates should be concentrated – demand for housing is mainly from incoming retirees. This is why the projected need for employment land could be exaggerated.
In recent years, East Devon has had the highest rate of net domestic migration, well over 1 per cent p.a., of any district in England. Demand also includes a sizeable proportion of second homes: this may help explain why the report says, ‘East Devon is one of the few places in the south west where housing delivery has exceeded population growth by more than 0.5%’.
Certainly little of the housing is for local young people, not surprising as ‘the ratio between average earnings and average house prices is in the region of 11.42’.
Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty The report says: ‘As custodians of these areas it is considered inappropriate to put significant growth in these areas although some authorities are doing this due to a lack of alternatives. That is not to say that there should be a moratorium on growth in the AONB’s. Any growth in AONB’sunder our own policies and government policies must conserve or enhance the landscape character of the area and major development should only be accommodated where it cannot be accommodated elsewhere.’ However we know from the recent Woodbury decision that this still means significant intrusion.
Poor infrastructure One of the reasons our area isn’t proposed for growth is probably that, as the report recognises, ‘Smaller towns and villages are losing services and facilities due to austerity measures and economic change and residents are becoming increasingly dependent on travelling to larger service centres and are often doing this by car due to poor access to public transport, convenience etc.’
Poll shows South West voters swinging away from Brexit as ‘no deal’ disaster looms
Voters in the South West are demanding a People’s Vote by a clear margin, a YouGov poll on behalf of the People’s Vote campaign, revealed on August 9th. It is the first significant test of public opinion in the region since the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Some key findings from the poll of over 1,000 people living in the South West include:
- Voters wanting a say on any final Brexit deal negotiated by the government by a clear margin of 42% to 35%.
- If talks break down and the choice is between staying in the EU or no deal, that margin widens to 47% to 27%.
- Having voted to Leave in 2016, the South West now backs staying in the EU by 51% to 49%.
- 76% of Labour voters in the region now want to stay in the EU, versus just 24% who still want to leave.
- Young people in the South West overwhelmingly want to stay in the EU, by a margin of 86% to 14%.
Claire Wright sets up support group for people who are struggling with the Department of Work and Pensions, such as those on working tax credits or who are trying to claim PIP or carers allowance
Claire Wright, my Independent colleague on the County Council, says:
“Hi, I have set up a support group for people who are struggling with the Department of Work and Pensions, such as those on working tax credits or who are trying to claim PIP or carers allowance, for example.
The first meeting is on Tuesday 21 August at 7pm, in the Institute, Yonder Street, Ottery. The meeting is primarily for people living in my council ward, however, I won’t turn anyone away.
Please help get the message out there by liking and sharing this post. Many thanks:
Claire Wright
Devon County Councillor
Otter Valley Ward”
Any demand for this kind of group in Seaton and Colyton?
I’ve signed a petition by councillors against the Government’s move to allow fracking exploration under permitted development rules
Here’s the text:
Dear Claire Perry MP (CC James Brokenshire MP, Greg Clarke MP),
The UK government has proposed changes to planning rules that would allow exploratory drilling for shale gas to be considered “permitted development”, removing the need for fracking companies to apply for planning permission.
The current planning framework for shale gas provides an important regulatory process for the industry, offering necessary checks and balances by local authorities who best understand the circumstances in their areas. Crucially, it also allows communities directly affected a say in how, and whether, shale gas exploration proceeds in their neighbourhoods.
We believe that applying permitted development to exploratory shale gas drilling represents a distortion of its intention and is a misuse of the planning system. Permitted Development was originally intended to be used to speed up planning decisions on small developments – like garden sheds or erecting a fence – not drilling for shale gas.
As elected representatives of our communities, we the undersigned call for the withdrawal of this proposal, and respect for the right of communities to make decisions on shale gas activities in their areas through the local planning system.
Devon looking for volunteers to help refugee children settle as quickly and easily into their new lives as possible
The county of Devon is providing a chance to start life afresh free from fear for children who have arrived on their own in the UK having fled conflict in their native countries.
Devon has welcomed unaccompanied children seeking asylum since 2015 when under a Home Office programme up to 70 children, displaced from refugee camps outside Calais, were transferred to Devon.
Most moved quickly through the county to be reunited with relatives across the UK. A few remained and have since settled well to life in Devon.
Since then a further 41 children have arrived as part of the Government’s National Transfer Scheme, and as referrals from Immigration, Police or by other local authorities.
Devon County Council is part of the response in helping such children settle as quickly and easily into new lives.
It’s just commissioned Space*, which used to be the Devon Youth Service, and Young Devon, to support the children in their local communities, helping them integrate into new home lives, schools and becoming active members of society.
It’s now looking for members of the public to join a team of skilled volunteers and mentors to enable children and young people to do that; to be better connected with their local communities, and to make use of Devon’s support networks, facilities and activities.
It’s a pilot that will initially run for a year. Details HERE.
‘THE RUINOUS PLANNING POLICY MPS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT’- The Times on the new National Planning Policy Framework, rushed out by the Government before they went on holiday
From The Times via East Devon Watch:
“To save you the eye strain, or possibly to sublimate some Freudian desire for self-flagellation, I have waded through all 73 pages of the government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Slipped out last week under cover of Brexit, the document that will shape the look of England for years to come was duly awarded minimal coverage by the press.
I partly blame its clunky title. If the NPPF were called “Why a ghastly housing estate will soon be built just outside your favourite village” it would get a lot more attention. Still, at least the name of the minister responsible for it — the housing and communities secretary, James Brokenshire — has an ominous ring.
The trouble with having a “national plan” for anything, as Russia found in the 1930s, is that what seem like good ideas to centralised bureaucrats tend to collide with overlooked local realities to produce unforeseen catastrophes. I fear that’s the case with the NPPF, particularly since it covers everything from new housing and the future of town centres to protecting the environment, dealing with floods, promoting sustainable transport, rolling out broadband and preserving historic buildings.
Take its emphasis on “good design”. On paper, that’s admirable. Theoretically it gives local councils the power to reject those soulless estates of identical, boxy homes beloved of the big developers. The aim is to ensure that all new developments excite the eye, please their residents and enhance their environments as much as, say, Ralph Erskine’s celebrated Byker Wall in Newcastle. That would be a fine aspiration if local councils had the experts, time, resources and money to match what any big housing developer can deploy in a planning battle.
Unfortunately, thanks to central government’s ruinous cuts to their budgets, they don’t. Some, such as almost bankrupt Northamptonshire, can hardly run their bin collections let alone turn themselves into architectural watchdogs. For every Byker Wall built in the future, there are still likely to be a hundred soulless “off-the-peg” estates nodded through by councillors too helpless to resist.
And there’s a new threat. From November local authorities will have to comply with a “housing delivery test”. It will penalise those that fail to conjure up an agreed number of new homes in their area. Again the intentions are good: to bridge the enormous gap between the number of new homes given planning permission by councils and the number actually built by the developers. Councils will have to police much more thoroughly the progress of approved building applications — another strain on their scant resources.
The real worry, though, is that councils will panic because they aren’t meeting the set targets and will nod through schemes of scant architectural and social merit, repeating the appalling mistakes made in the 1950s and 1960s. No wonder that the Campaign to Protect Rural England has called the combined effect of the new planning rulebook and the housing delivery test “a speculative developers’ charter” that will result in councils and communities having “little control over the location and type of developments that take place”.
On town centres too, the NPPF seems to be living in a bygone age. The big problem in the next ten years won’t be banning ugly shopfronts or propping up small independent butchers and bookshops, or even halting the march of out-of-town shopping malls. It will be ensuring that there are any shops left, as the relentless shift to online retail gathers pace. As town centres fast become boarded-up wastelands, local authorities need the power (and the money) to make much more imaginative interventions. Yet the NPPF has nothing to say about this.
I find its paragraphs about protecting England’s green belts a bit weaselly too. These sacrosanct meadows are apparently safe from development except where local authorities have “exhausted all other reasonable options”. OK, but who decides what “exhausted” and “reasonable” mean? And there’s another glaring loophole. When it comes to brownfield sites inside green belt areas, it’s apparently a free-for-all.
There’s much that is sensible in the NPPF, of course. If I were an ancient woodland, for instance, I would feel better protected from rape by chainsaw. Nevertheless, my overall impression is that the bureaucrats who penned this well-meaning document imagine that England is still a country of communities safeguarded by strong, efficient local authorities. The sad truth is that government ministers have spent the past eight years paying lip service to “localism” while running down the democratic institutions that preserve it. Brokenshire’s legacy could well be broken shires.”
Local Economic Partnership massages local businesses’ anxieties about Brexit: just 1 business out of 29 surveyed thought it would have a ‘positive’ impact, 9 said negative, many were worried – but that is just a ‘quite varied’ assessment according to the LEP!
The Heart of the South West Local Economic Partnership (LEP) has belatedly published a report (dated May 2018) on local businesses’ views of Brexit.Don’t know (6)
The LEP summarises this table as ‘Businesses’ assessment of the overall impact of Brexit at this stage is quite varied.‘
VARIED? ONE BUSINESS OUT OF 29 THINKS ITS IMPACT WILL BE POSITIVE, COMPARED TO 9 WHO THINK NEGATIVE, AND THAT IS VARIED?
Other findings:
- two-thirds of businesses have done no formal planning for Brexit
- uncertainty is a big concern
- the biggest specific concerns are about are changes to regulatory alignment [i.e. departure from the Single Market] and the speed of customs arrangements [i.e. departure from the Customs Union]
- only 1 out of 29 expects it to be positive for their sector; 9 out of 29 expect it to be negative (the rest expect it to be ‘neutral’ or ‘mixed’, or don’t know)
This report (How firms across HotSW are preparing for Brexit, Report to HotSW LEP, Devon County Council and Partners) was prepared in March and April 2018, drawing on interviews conducted in February and March 2018, so it is already seriously out of date.
In the spring, businesses could reasonably have hoped for a deal:
- What do businesses think now that May’s government has caved in to Rees-Mogg and ditched plans for a customs union with the EU?
- What do they think of the ‘no deal’ scenario?
- How are they going to cope if they still haven’t done the formal planning?
It isn’t difficult to guess. And why has this report been so delayed? Why wasn’t it reported earlier to DCC?
Vehicle activated sign finally installed at the entrance to Colyford – I almost missed it as I was doing under 30!
The Vehicle Activated Sign (VAS) on the A3052 near Gully Shoot – which I funded by my Locality Budget with support from the Colyford Burgesses – has finally been installed. At least it will be working through the rest of the summer.
This is the first of several long-awaited traffic-calming measures. A second VAS is planned for the other end of the village, which Colyton Parish Council and Colyford village organisations are expected to fund, and Devon County Council is currently doing design work for a zebra crossing near the Memorial Fund, due within this financial year.
Claire Wright warns on dangers of No Deal and backs a People’s Vote before the looming Brexit deadline – do we really want to leave when it will do all this damage, and there are no real benefits?
Claire’s post: Leaving the EU with no deal now looks like the most likely scenario … here’s what you can do…
