Trump’s man wants my vote – but can’t tell me who his candidate is
Donald Trump’s representative in the UK, Nigel Farage, has sent me a leaflet asking me to vote for a reform UK – but there is no indication of the candidate’s name, or even what the name of the ward is. While Trump prepares to break the British economy and dictate our laws, Farage is using oligarch money to trawl for votes based on generalities, with no knowledge or proposals for how our council should be run. Treat this arrogant approach with the contempt it deserves, and vote for a genuine local candidate with some idea where Seaton and Colyton are.
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/
Covid vaccine for 75+ at Seaton Hospital
The NHS spring booster for the over 75s will be given at Seaton Hospital on Saturday 12 April. Book via the NHS app where there are other venues and dates too – or wait for the NHS to offer it to you. Covid is currently at a low ebb but there are new variants and it is still very much a serious threat to health.
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!
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 