Uncategorized
Your daily dump – Salcombe Regis had 366 sewage discharges in a year
“Of the 10 most frequently used overflows, five were in Devon. Another was in neighbouring Cornwall, meaning six were in the region served by South West Water (SWW).” How Devon’s beaches and rivers became the centre of the sewage crisis Sewage was spilt in one village in Devon 366 times in 2024, as the county…
— Read on eastdevonwatch.org/2025/03/29/devons-natural-beauty-is-being-destroyed-as-it-becomes-national-blackspot-for-sewage-spills/
Tory councillor who blocked attempt to save our Hospital stands down
Sara Randall-Johnson, Conservative chair of the Devon Health Scrutiny Committee for the last eight years, has given a farewell interview to the Midweek Herald in which she regrets that ‘more wasn’t done to improve health outcomes’ during her tenure. She puts NHS waiting lists down to the Covid lockdowns, forgetting that they had already ballooned due to her government’s cuts. In Seaton, she will always be remembered for making things worse – when Seaton Hospital’s beds were threatened in 2017, it was she who used her position as chair to block the referral of the proposal to the Secretary of State, sealing the fate of our campaign and laying the Hospital open to new threats like the one we’ve been fighting for the last 18 months.
https://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/25034553.devon-efforts-improve-health-social-care-not-enough/
Paul is our man in the County elections
In the County Council election on 1st May, Paul Arnott will be standing for the Liberal Democrats. Having represented Seaton & Colyton myself until 2021, I believe that he is best placed to speak up for the area. Paul has lived here for over a quarter of a century and has been involved in many local campaigns:
- He has fought to protect the Green Wedge for over a decade and played a key role in resolving the recent fiasco on the Planning Committee over the new application.
- He has campaigned hard for Seaton Hospital since the first threat to the beds in 2017, and recently ensured the EDDC made the Hospital a listed community asset, protecting it from demolition.
- As leader of EDDC, he brokered the deal for the Tramway to take over Seaton Jurassic.
I’ve known Paul for a decade and it is difficult to think of a more conscientious person we could have as our councillor. Both Conservative and Reform parties have announced candidates – but neither of them even lives in the area, and if either of them won we would be essentially unrepresented.
If you’d like help Paul leaflet or put up a placard, email paularnott@aol.com, phone 07850 038722, or contact me.
Seaton Hospital’s plight featured in The Guardian
As the steering committee elected in November 2023 still waits for a response to its proposals for the use of the threatened wing of Seaton Hospital – submitted to NHS Property Services and the Integrated Care Board in June 2024 – I’ve written a letter which is published in tomorrow’s Guardian.
www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/18/the-human-cost-of-yet-another-nhs-reorganisation
My comments to councillors about the Green Wedge site
I’ve written to councillors on the Planning Committee as follows:
Dear members of the Planning Committee,
I am unable to attend your meeting, but as Seaton’s former county councillor and having chaired a meeting of 150 residents on this issue in 2023, I wish to remind you of the strongly held objections of many residents to this scheme. As the report notes, the proposal conflicts with key policies of the local plan (development outside the BUAB, eroding the Green Wedge) and would have harmful landscape effects – these include on the environment near the Wetlands, the centre of EDDC’s tourist strategy for Seaton.
In addition, the site is not a genuinely sustainable location from a travel point of view, Colyford Road is not suitable for a large addition of traffic, and Seaton’s facilities are under severe strain from the substantial growth in population over the last few years which has not been matched by improved health or educational facilities – on the contrary, there have been sustained attempts to close parts of our hospital which have still not been resolved.
The report notes the real shortage of affordable housing, but Seaton has much experience of the unreliability of this kind of offer in outline applications. In 2013, the Tesco site was supposed to have 40 per cent affordable housing, then 25 per cent, before it became zero. Twelve years later, I don’t think EDDC has even received an overage payment from that huge project. The housing Seaton needs is not yet another large development made up mainly of retirement homes, but a specific proposal for actual social housing.
Previous applications of this kind for the same site have previously been rejected, including by an inspector, for many of the above reasons, as some members of the Committee will recall from their own roles in opposing them. I appreciate the difficult situation the Council has been put in, but I ask you not to approve this development.
Regards,
Martin Shaw
Local Plan – last chance to comment before it goes to Inspector
Local Plan Regulation 19 consultation – Thursday 13 February
— Read on content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKEDDC/bulletins/3cd0c37
Museum announces talk on Seaton Down Hoard
Tickets are available from Paperchain or online by clicking this Paypal link.
Tickets are available from Paperchain or online by clicking this Paypal link.
How to support your local bookshop
My New Year’s resolution is to support our local bookshop, the Owl and Pyramid in Fore Street, Seaton. Not just by popping in there from time to time – also by ordering my books online from the Owl and Pyramid page on Bookshops.org. You have to sign up and choose their page to order through (you can find it with the name or the EX12 postcode).
Bookshops.org has discounts like other online booksellers and postage is free if you spend £25. Your books arrive quickly in the post, but the Owl and Pyramid gets a hefty chunk of the price, helping to keep our local bookshop and town centre thriving.
Also this way, my money is not going to Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos has just given $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration!
EDDC makes proposal for dividing Devon into two unitary authorities
As the government pushes ahead with its plans for replacing the county & district councils by unitary authorities, EDDC and its leader Paul Arnott have made a proposal for how thus could be done, with two councils each covering a large area, one based in Exeter and the other in Plymouth. If this has to happen, thus seems a sensible proposal, at least from an East Devon point of view.
The key thing in my view is that this should be properly discussed and put to the electorate, not steamrollered through by an unholy alliance of the Labour and Conservative parties. This needs time and in the meantime the Devon county election should go ahead, so that those who make these decisions are reflecting the current views of the electorate.
, www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/24848437.east-devon-merged-exeter-unitary-authority/
Library move needs proper public discussion
It has been announced that in a cost-cutting exercise, Seaton Library will move from its present site to the Town Council’s Marshlands building. This will mean a serious contraction of the service which is valued by many members of the local community, young and old.
The move is another sorry consequence of 15 years of Conservative austerity, during which the library service has constantly been run down. Seaton Town Council has apparently agreed to this behind closed doors, because they will gain income from the move.
However, Library users and the community deserve their say – this cannot be yet another decision railroaded through regardless of local people’s views.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 