Town Council asks for comments by Monday – the Green Wedge Group’s views are below
The Save the Green Wedge Group has sent me these comments about the Seaton-Colyton Green Wedge – they ask people to send in their views to the Town Council before its planning meeting on Monday (17th) and to EDDC by the 27th:
“Retention of the Green Wedge between Seaton and Colyford. The current Local Plan states “Seaton’s outstanding natural environment is its most precious and defining asset, and policies for the conservation, enhancement and sensitive management of the landscape, heritage and wildlife of the area will be prominent.” Seaton is the only East Devon town with such a designation, identity and protection through the Local Plan. This Green Wedge is vital in preserving this unique natural environment and any reduction in its size to enable any house building on it would have a hugely detrimental effect on:
1. the exceptional local natural environment;
2. the town’s tourism offer and future economy;
3. its role of preserving the identity of the settlements of Seaton and Colyford which ensures that there is no coalescence of the two communities;
4. would increase the likelihood of urban sprawl;
5. would, particularly importantly, irreparably destroy the current foraging and commuting habitats for a number of European Protected bat species, the grey long-eared being one of the rarest mammals in the UK and the rarest bat. The preservation of this habitat is essential in maintaining the conservation status of this colony. Natural England states, in response to a proposal to build within the Seaton/Colyford Green Wedge, that it is not possible to ascertain that such a proposal would not result in adverse effects on site integrity.
6. loss of biodiversity and rare wild life
7. loss of prime agricultural land
8. result in further flooding to surrounding housing and to the Wetlands which recently had to close because it became impassable to visitors.
9. impact on the ecology of the Wetlands, marshes and sea from increased discharge of sewage
10. would be unsustainable because there is no access to the town centre from this site that can cope with increased traffic, and the site is beyond the accepted 800m norm for residents to access services.
As the land designated LSE2 has not been developed for over 25 years, it should be returned to Green Wedge.”
Housing
- Reinstatement in the emerging Plan of EDDC’s commitment to restrict any further significant housing developments beyond the existing Built-up Area boundary by locating the majority of the required 150 houses within the existing town. The pressure to exchange Green Wedge space for housing should be resisted; this land can never be replaced.
- Seaton has already delivered or received planning approval for in excess of 779 dwellings against its requirement in the current Local Plan to 2026 of 638 dwellings. The town has therefore already contributed enormously to East Devon’s housing requirement and should not have to sacrifice its natural environment and therefore its identity and future tourist economy for yet further housing outside its built up area boundary.
3. Reinstatement in the emerging Plan of EDDC’s acknowledgement that community facilities in Seaton – school, health, social and cultural – are seen as borderline or inadequate with no capacity to serve additional residents. Such infrastructure has declined even further over the last few years with more housing but loss of hospital facilities, reduced bus services and fewer NHS dentists.
Town Centre
To reinstate the commitment as stated in the adopted Plan that the priority for the town will be the enhancement of the environment and business opportunities within the town centre.
Voting Liberal Democrat is not just a tactical decision
I was a Labour member for a long time – and even a general election candidate back in 1987 – but I have never voted blindly for the party. In 2010, when I lived in Brighton, I helped elect Britain’s first Green MP, the great Caroline Lucas. I have been part of East Devon’s Independent movement, being Seaton and Colyton’s only non-Conservative county councillor in recent years, and supported Claire Wright in her bids for Parliament. But now I am backing the Liberal Democrats.
This is partly a tactical decision – it is essential to defeat the Tories, and the Lib Dems are best placed to win in both the Honiton & Sidmouth and Exmouth & Exeter East constituencies. It helps hugely that Richard Foord and Paul Arnott are both excellent candidates – doughty, dedicated and experienced campaigners and genuinely decent human beings to boot (now you can’t say that about all of the candidates on the anti-Tory side).
But there are also political reasons. Labour is tacking to the right, not prepared even to end the terrible two-child child benefit rule, and showing its authoritarian face in brutally removing some excellent candidates. The Lib Dems actually have some better policies, for example on social care, Europe and Palestine.
Perhaps most important, electing a large number of Lib Dems in this election could make them the official opposition in place of the Conservatives. We would then have a constructive opposition, helping push the Labour government to better places on some issues, and consigning the far-right Tory party to history. And East Devon could be part of this, not part of a discredited and irrelevant Conservative rump. What’s not to like?
Sarah Wollaston’s resignation is a stark comment on the state of Devon’s NHS after 14 years of Tory rule
I am sad to see that Dr Sarah Wollaston, the Chair of Devon NHS who I met several times during our campaign for Seaton Hospital, has felt compelled to resign, saying she felt unable “to sign off on a further cut” with the “elastic already stretched too far”.
Sarah seemed genuinely concerned at the threat to Seaton Hospital, although she had signed off on the proposal and many other cuts. She seemed to be the person pushing the NHS to help us come up with a plan to mitigate the effects – which we are still doing, although progress is on hold because of the election.
That Sarah felt compelled to go is a stark comment on the state of Devon’s NHS after 14 years of Conservative rule. Tory underfunding has produced the threats to Seaton and the other community hospitals over the last ten years, the Tory decision to hand them to a property company made them vulnerable in the first place, and Tory MPs and councillors have sabotaged them.
No one who cares about the NHS or our community hospitals should vote Conservative – in Honiton & Sidmouth and in Exmouth & East Exeter, vote Liberal Democrat; in Exeter and in Plymouth vote Labour. Let’s make July 4th Devon’s day of independence from Tory domination.
Tory cuts to school funding cost Seaton Primary £47k pa
That’s £128 per pupil each year. In the Honiton and Sidmouth constituency as a whole, the cuts amount to £638,000 a year.
Details:
Find out about Government funding cuts to your school. #schoolcuts
— Read on schoolcuts.org.uk/
StoptheTories.vote withdraws its tactical Labour recommendation for Exmouth
StoptheVote.org, a major tactical voting site, has TAKEN DOWN its recommendation of a Labour vote in Exmouth & East Exeter. It now says its tactical advice is ‘COMING SOON: We’re waiting until more polling is released to confirm our advice here.’
It explains: ‘We’ve manually set advice for this constituency because as an Independent was in second place last time, it is not yet clear where those supporters will go’. In other words, the old advice was based on automatically applying national trends without proper local data.
Meanwhile Electoral Calculus, the site which takes into account local information, estimates that the race is incredibly close between the Tory (32.6%), Paul Arnott for the Lib Dems (29.8) and Labour (21.4). It has reduced the chance of the Tory winning to 54%, increased the Lib Dems’ to 34%, and puts Labour’s chance on 10%.
Some facts on this constituency:
- 78 per cent of the old East Devon seat is in it – but some extra Exeter wards have been added.
- In the old East Devon seat, the Lib Dems were always second until 2010 – Labour were never in contention.
- Claire Wright (Independent) took over as the main challenger in 2015, 2017 and 2019, squeezing the Lib Dem, Labour and Green votes down to a very small level.
- In 2019, Claire got 40.4%, Labour 4.5%, Lib Dems 2.8%, Greens 1.1%. Claire is supporting Paul Arnott.
- In local elections in the new constituency in 2023-4, Lib Dems have gained 39.5% of the votes, Labour 13%, Greens 6% – while Tories got 37.5% – confirming that this is a tight Tory:Lib Dem race.
- Labour have just confirmed that the constituency is NOT a battleground seat for them – their members are advised to canvass in the nearest battleground seat in Plymouth.
- Labour’s 2019 candidate has left the party and is standing as an Independent, so their vote will be further split.
Labour confirms neither East Devon seat is ‘battleground’– activists are asked to campaign elsewhere
Although the Labour Party has added eleven more seats to its ‘battleground’ areas, these do NOT include either Exmouth & Exeter East or Honiton & Sidmouth. Members continue to be encouraged to campaign in the nearest battleground-in our case, this is Plymouth MoorView.
Revealed: The 250 seats Labour calls ‘battlegrounds’– full list and map – LabourList
— Read on labourlist.org/2024/06/labour-battleground-areas-full-list-general-election-2024/
Tactical voting: a pollster explains why their models could be getting Exmouth wrong
As a politics academic myself, I have been in touch with a number of pollsters about some perverse-looking projections for the seats in East Devon. Survation even has Labour to win Honiton & Sidmouth – although they got only 3.7 per cent in the by-election and are not even campaigning now! However, most now seem have to recognised that it’s a fight between Richard Foord and the Tory.
The problem is, one pollster admits to me, they are using “national level data for small area estimation”, telling me: “You are certainly correct that there are some surprising estimates in the MRP model, particularly when it comes to idiosyncratic seats.”
The most idiosyncratic seat of all is probably EXMOUTH & EXETER EAST, because most non-Tory voters in the old East Devon seat (which is three quarters of the new one) backed Claire Wright in 2019. She got 41 per cent, while Labour got only 4.5 per cent and the Lib Dems 2.8 per cent – but some pollsters have used these tiny and out-of-date figures to estimate that Labour could be leading the Lib Dems in 2024!
Recognising the problem, Survation tells me that they, YouGov and Electoral Calculus have now agreed to poll more people in both Exmouth & Exeter East and Honiton & Sidmouth, to try to get a more accurate picture.
In the meanwhile, Electoral Calculus are the only pollster to have tried to take into account the unique circumstances of Exmouth & Exeter East – they have the Tories on 33, Lib Dems 29.7 and Labour 23.
New YouGov poll projection has Richard winning by just 1 per cent
Lib Dems 34, Conservatives 33 – too close to call. It just underlines how essential it is that everyone votes for Richard, not Labour or Green. Do we really want another Tory MP? It could be decided by a handful of votes.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 