Squeezed @LEDleisure asks Seaton to pay towards part-time swimming facility while EDDC funds Sidmouth 5 x as much
Seaton Town Council was asked last week to give financial support to the much-valued opening of Seaton Primary School’s pool to the public at weekends and in the summer. Outsourced charity LED (Leisure East Devon) operates the pool but it isn’t part of its £900,000 a year contract from EDDC. Because LED’s support from LED is at a flat rate, it is increasingly squeezed by rising wages, etc., and says it can’t continuing subsidising Seaton to the tune of around £10,000 a year and needs the Town Council to help.
Meanwhile Sidmouth, which has an all-year pool, is supported from EDDC’s £900k to the tune of £50k or so each year, without Town Council support. Something’s not right and it’s for EDDC to address, it seems. The funding request will come to next month’s Seaton Town Council.
Meanwhile, LED, EDDC and Colyton Grammar School are meeting shortly to discuss the dispute over LED continuing day time classes at Colyton Leisure Centre.
Disappointing response by DCC Cabinet to @cpredevon reports on housing need, but the issue will go to Council on 21st February
The County Council’s leadership agreed an unhelpful recommendation on my motion to look at the implication of the Council for Preservation of Rural England’s recent reports for the Council’s policies relating to future development. Taking cover behind the fact that local planning authorities (like EDDC) are responsible for housing numbers, the Cabinet merely noted that the County’s role ‘is to ensure the necessary infrastructure is planned for’. This is a very narrow view of the DCC role as elsewhere it is made quite clear that we are a strategic partner in ventures like the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan. The recommendation is that ‘it is not necessary for DCC to commission work on the CPRE reports’ but I and others will challenge this at Council on 21st February.
I reminded Cabinet that this has cross-party support, with Hugo Swire having helped launch it and presented it to Government. The only other speaker was Labour leader, Rob Hannaford, who was under the mistaken impression that the CPRE is only concerned with rural areas and wants to prevent building of affordable housing in towns. I explained to him that nothing could be further from the truth – the reports advocate more social housing, concentrated in or near urban areas, but want to end the indiscriminate building of more houses for sale than are warranted by the growth in households, and government targets which encourage this.
The reports can be ordered by emailing info@cpredevon.org.uk
‘We haven’t got a clue yet’, says County Council leader about No Deal planning
At yesterday’s DCC Cabinet meeting, Leader John Hart answered three questions I had put in writing about estimated risks from Theresa May’s Brexit and No Deal, about help to businesses for No Deal, and emergency planning for disruption to fuel, food and medical supplies in Devon as a result of No Deal.
Cllr Hart did not answer any of my questions. When I asked when he would answer them, he said ‘We haven’t got a clue yet’ about what is going to happen, and that there would be a meeting next week, with just 10 weeks left to when the UK will crash out of the EU with No Deal if no change is made.
It can be seen that there are no protections in place to protect Devon from the effects of a No Deal. Economy Cabinet member Cllr Rufus Gilbert said ‘we can’t plan for a hypothetical’. Yet No Deal is the default scenario for 29th March.
This is why Devon and Dorset MPs like Ben Bradshaw, Sarah Wollaston and Oliver Letwin are absolutely right to try to block No Deal. I told Cabinet it was irresponsible of them not to support these moves.
Neil Parish voted against the successful cross-party attempt to prevent a ‘No Deal’ crash out
Finance (No. 3) Bill – Minor amendments in consequence of EU withdrawal (8 Jan 2019)
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/divisions/pw-2019-01-08-287-commons
Voted (no) against preventing the Government implementing the “no
deal” provisions of Clause 89 without the explicit consent of
Parliament for such an outcome. (division #287; result was 303 aye, 296
no)
Devon NHS agrees to pay EU Settlement Scheme fees for NHS employees, in bid to keep key EU doctors and nurses – a welcome move, but the Government’s toxic anti-immigrant policies are working in the opposite direction
The Devon NHS’s Sustainability and Transformation Partnership has agreed to pay EU Settlement Scheme fees for NHS employees. More than 1,200 people from the European Union work in the NHS in Devon, in essential roles such as doctors, nurses, domestics, health care assistants, and catering, administration and estates workers.
- ‘We want to make it is as easy as possible for our European Union colleagues to stay in the UK so all NHS organisations in Devon will cover the cost of the EU Settlement Scheme application for their employees and their employees’ close family members,’ says the STP.
Their key message is, ‘Whatever the outcome of the Brexit process, the 1,200 people from the European Union who work in Devon’s NHS are hugely valued and we want them to stay.’ If only the Government weren’t sending out the opposite message, with Theresa May trying to stop anyone earning less than £30,000 a year (as many NHS workers do) from coming to the UK, and propagating toxic attitudes to Europe which are driving people out.
While Kent County Council publishes alarming report on Brexit threat, the complacent Tory majority on Devon County Council blocks discussion of my urgent motion on the crisis
Kent County Council, which has a huge Tory majority, yesterday published an alarming report on the consequences of a no-deal Brexit for its county. At Devon County Council however, the Conservatives ganged up to prevent my urgent motion (below) 
being discussed. Despite impassioned and reasoned speeches from Devon for Europe supporters in the public session, Tory councillors voted to block a debate, meaning that the motion will not come back to the Council until February – by which time it will be too late. They also voted not to record votes on the procedural motion, so that no one would know for certain that they had voted to prevent debate. I had support from Labour, Lib Dem, Independent and Green councillors. Devon, of course, has no serious plans for no-deal, and at the last Council, showed that it didn’t even understand how it might arise.
Devon Tories in denial about role of Brexit in Flybe crisis
At yesterday’s County Council, Cllr Rufus Gilbert, Cabinet member for Economy and Skills, reported on the Council’s efforts to support Flybe’s operations at Exeter Airport after the company was forced to put itself up for sale (Virgin has shown interest but nothing has yet been agreed). I think that DCC and other local councils have done what they should in the crisis, including an offer to explore additional projects for the company’s Training Academy.
However the fact remains that the last two-and-a-half years of Brexit uncertainty and the plummeting pound it has caused have helped undermine the airline. As Sky’s City editor reported, ‘Sources said a combination of Brexit-related uncertainty, the weaker pound and soaring fuel costs had led Flybe’s directors to conclude that a takeover was likely to be required to preserve its future.’
I asked Cllr Gilbert if he agreed that it was shocking that the Government’s policies had led to this threat to Devon’s air services and our regional airport. But he was having none of it. “Brexit had nothing to do with it’, was all he could say.
@HugoSwire lends himself to a meaningless and doomed manoeuvre to try to save the day for Theresa May
From Politico this morning: ‘Last night three Tory MPs (Hugo Swire, Richard Graham and Bob Neill) laid down an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Act giving parliament a greater role in decision-making around the Northern Irish backstop. The amendment looks suspiciously like it could have had a government hand in it. Nikki da Costa, a former director of legislative affairs at No. 10, agrees.‘
However this is not a real choice. Parliament can only choose whether to extend the transition period after 2020 (in which case the backstop will not be needed, as UK will still be in the EU to all intents and purposes) or to move on to a new agreement including the backstop (as the withdrawal agreement suggests). Swire is lending himself to a thin manoeuvre to try to sway a few more Tories to May’s side, and the signs are it won’t take many people in.
Parliament is taking back control, but without Neil Parish and Hugo Swire (they backed Theresa May’s crumbling administration as it went down to defeat)
Our MP Neil Parish, together with Hugo Swire, supported Theresa May’s crumbling administration in trying to defeat the crucial amendment which will allow Parliament control of the Brexit situation after May’s deal is (as seems almost certain) voted down. This amendment makes a ‘No Deal’ disaster less likely, but both MPs opposed it all the same. They also opposed the motion to indict the Government for its contempt of Parliament over its failure to disclose its legal advice. Parliament is ‘taking back control’, but without Parish and Swire.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 