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.
Devon democracy denied as elections postponed
In the County Council, an unholy alliance of the discredited Conservative Party and Labour has just recommended cancelling May’s county council elections, because the Labour government wants to abolish the council together with the district councils and impose a system of unitary authorities on Devon.
We the voters have not been consulted about the idea, there are no definite plans, and now the whole business will be left in the hands of local politicians who are literally past their sell-by date. It is good to see that Richard Foord and other Lib Dem MPs are opposing this stitch-up.
We must assume that Seaton’s present invisible Conservative county councillor, Marcus Hartnell, who has already decided not to stand for re-election, has gone along with this.
Save the Green Wedge: new call to action
From the Save the Seaton-Colyford Green Wedge Action Group:
Contentious planning applications are often submitted in the run-up to Christmas because it’s a busy time, but if you are at all concerned about the likely consequences of the proposal to build on land at Harepath Road, please respond to this application by 2nd January 2025.
The application for 2 retail warehouses (not an application for M & S or The Range), parking, drive-thru cafe/restaurant, EV charging centre and associated infrastructure, is due to be considered by EDDC Planning Committee in the new year.
Apart from the negative impact on the town centre, if this development is allowed to go ahead it would result in a significant and long-lasting detrimental impact on Seaton’s unique natural environment, its reputation as a destination for green tourism, its wildlife and its local economy, and will increase flooding to surrounding land and properties.
The applicant makes a number of references in the supporting documents to “future residents of the surrounding residential development”, suggesting that, if approved, the adjoining land at Harepath Road will also be developed for housing. Any future housing would put considerable strain on our already overstretched infrastructure and further erode our valuable green wedge.
Any development at that site is likely to increase traffic along Harepath Road, a residential route used by primary school children walking to and from school, patients accessing two doctors’ surgeries and older residents living in elderly people’s accommodation.
And a large number of Seaton’s independent retailers do not support this application because of the impact on their businesses and livelihoods, many already having experienced a decline in town centre shopping since the arrival of Tesco. The free parking facilities proposed at the Harepath Road site are generous and it is questionable whether those who shop there will then continue into town and pay £2 an hour in the town car parks. savethehighstreet.org recently stated that there is increasing evidence that out of town shopping takes business away from town centres.
If you think it’s important to protect our unique natural environment and our wildlife, prevent further flooding, support our local town centre businesses and our local economy, please write with your objections to this application by 2nd January to: Planning East, Blackdown House, Heathpark Industrial Estate, Honiton, EX14 1EJ and to members of EDDC Planning Committee:
brian.bailey@eastdevon.gov.uk; ian.barlow@eastdevon.gov.uk; kbloxham@eastdevon.gov.uk; Colin.Brown@eastdevon.gov.uk; jenny.brown@eastdevon.gov.uk; schamberlain@eastdevon.gov.uk; maddy.chapman@eastdevon.gov.uk; Olly.davey@eastdevon.gov.uk; peter.faithfull@eastdevon.gov.uk; steven.gazzard@eastdevon.gov.uk; del.haggerty@eastdevon.gov.uk; anne.hall@eastdevon.gov.uk; mike.howe@eastdevon.gov.uk; simon.smith@eastdevon.gov.uk; eileen.wragg@eastdevon.gov.uk
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 