1)DCC/3774/2015 Aggregate Quarry development for the
Industries
Ltd extraction
of sand and gravel at Straitgate Farm extending to 40.23 ha including new site
access onto Birdcage Lane at northern end of site, together with staff welfare
facilities, car parking and wheelwash
Ottery town councillors were in rare agreement this evening as they unanimously opposed an application for a 100 acre quarry at Straitgate Farm, near Ottery.
Around 60 members of the public were present, and about 10 of them spoke in opposition, including Margaret Hall from West Hill Residents Association and Alan Burrows, who farms cattle at Straitgate Farm.
Mr Burrows said he had farmed at Straitgate all his life and he was very concerned at the proposed loss of agricultural land, which East Devon had had a “bellyful” of recently.
Local campaigner, Monica Mortimer also spoke against the quarry, with a particular emphasis on tourism.
Many people referred to the potential 200 lorry journeys every day along the B3180, a road that is inadequate for the large number of lorry journeys already being undertaken as a result of quarrying at Venn Ottery.
I pointed out that the proposal was contrary to the adopted minerals plan and the plan to extend the life of Blackhill quarry for processing was contrary to local and national policy.
Cllr Roger Giles gave a strong speech outlining all the issues, including the declining need for quarrying due to the landfill and aggregates taxes which mean that far more aggregates are recycled. All the councillors supported his position. Strong words were used such as “horrific and “horrendous.”
Councillors unanimously opposed the plans.
The draft new minerals plan goes before the Devon County Council development management committee on Wednesday 15 July at 2pm, where it will be debated for consultation. Straitgate Farm is a proposed preferred site for quarrying in the emerging plan.
The meeting will be held at county hall. Although members of the public are not permitted to speak, I will be representing my ward and I would urge a large turn out to give councillors a clear message.
We are excited to be launching the
UK-wide Blue New Deal initiative today. The Blue New Deal will work to deliver
good jobs and economic sustainability for coastal communities through a
healthier marine environment.
Finding solutions to the various
challenges faced by coastal communities across the country will require
participation and cooperation from a range of different voices and interests.
The Blue New Deal will bring coastal
partners together – from local councils and national government departments, to
entrepreneurs and industry representatives – to develop a nationwide action
plan, to be launched in 2016.
Read our Blue New Deal vision
report setting the
context for this initiative. The report outlines how the absence of social and
environmental goals in key coastal and marine industries over the years has
placed undue pressure on coastal economies, communities and the environment.
It also begins to explore the many
opportunities to deliver more and better jobs and economic prosperity to coastal
communities through transforming our approach to managing the UK’s wealth of
coastal and marine assets.
Website
The Blue New Deal website will showcase some of the existing
examples of innovative and sustainable approaches happening around the UK coast.
We encourage everyone to share their story with us.
Help us share it widely:
suggested social media posts
Can we balance the economic &
social needs of communities with those of our marine environment? Yes!
http://bit.ly/1R1UpGn (via @NEF)
More and better jobs for coastal
communities through healthier seas. Help make it happen: http://bit.ly/1R1UpGn (via @NEF)
Coastal communities can thrive through
a healthier marine environment. Help @NEF turn this vision into reality:
www.bluenewdeal.org
Innovative & sustainable
approaches from around the UK coast: economic prosperity through healthy seas
www.bluenewdeal.org (via @NEF)
FernandaBalata Project
Lead, Coastal and Marine Environment New Economics
Foundation
Information on the improved recycling scheme trials
Latest news on the trial
An improved recycling collection service is to be trialled in two East Devon areas this September. Around 1,800 households in the Feniton and Exmouth (The Colony) areas will be able to recycle more during the trial as the council is adding cardboard and mixed plastics to the extensive number of items it already collects from the kerbside each week. Every household in the trial areas will receive an additional 70 litre reusable sack which they can use for their recyclables along with their usual green recycling box. The weekly food waste collections will also continue as normal. As residents will be able to recycle more in their weekly collection, they will produce less waste to go in their grey wheeled bin which will then be collected every three weeks instead of every two weeks in the two selected areas. The council is carrying out the trials to help prepare for the appointment of a new recycling and waste contractor next year. Feedback and information from the trial will help the council make a decision on any future changes to the current recycling and waste service for the whole district. The trials will start in September. East Devon currently recycles around 44% of its household waste and the recycling and waste contract accounts for around a quarter of the council’s total annual revenue spend. With the ever continuing squeeze on public finances - East Devon faces a budget gap of £2.8 million by 2020/21 - the council will be looking very carefully at every detail of the new contract to ensure it gives value for money. Several other councils and waste partnerships have carried out improved recycling trials similar to the one East Devon plans to introduce. Falkirk and Bury Councils have already implemented their enhanced recycling service leading to three – weekly waste collections across their areas. Falkirk has just approved plans to move to four weekly waste collections following the great success of their improved recycling rates. East Devon officers are preparing a wide ranging public awareness campaign in the two selected trial areas with letters, leaflets and road shows. The council is also looking for ‘Recycling Champions’ in Feniton and Exmouth (The Colony) to assist council officers and help them with the introduction of the trials by giving feedback throughout. If you’re a keen recycler, living in the trial areas and you’re interested in helping out, please contact our recycling team on 01395 571515. The link below will take you to the full press release: Feniton and Exmouth (The Colony) Trials - East Devon 22 June 2015 - Trials announced for improved recycling collection service - East Devon The story has been covered by the Express & Echo - together with concerns about 'human waste': East Devon's recycling trial: How will it deal with nappies? | Exeter Express and Echo The East Devon Watch blog points to an inconsistency, however: “Improved recycling” = fewer collections! | East Devon Watch In a comment to the blog, independent Cllr Susie Bond adds some helpful points:
One thought on ““Improved recycling” = fewer collections!”
There were concerns in Feniton, one of the trial sites, about storing nappies ready for the three-weekly collection, but EDDC has confirmed that these will be picked up separately on a fortnightly basis.
I actually think the new recycling contract is a very positive move, but will require people to be slightly more organised about what they put into the landfill bins. So much waste comes from food packaging these days (cardboard and plastic) and all this can now go into the recycling bin for weekly collection.
Starting in September, the new system will be trialled in Feniton and the Colony area of Exmouth. EDDC is looking for ‘Recycling Champions’ in these areas to feed back on the trial.
An improved recycling collection service is to be trialled in two East Devon areas from September.
Feniton has been chosen as one of the areas for the trial which will involve the addition of cardboard and mixed plastics to the kerbside collection each week.
Every household in Feniton will receive an additional 70 litre reusable sack which will be able to be used alongside the usual green recycling box. The council’s weekly food waste collections will continue as normal.
An increase in the number of items which can be recycled will mean there will be considerably less waste going into the grey landfill bins, which will only be emptied every 3 weeks, instead of once a fortnight as at present.
Feedback and information from the trial will help the council make a decision on any future changes to the current recycling and waste service for the whole district. The trial will start in September.
East Devon currently recycles around 44% of its household waste and the recycling and waste contract accounts for around a quarter of the council’s total annual revenue spend.
East Devon officers are preparing a public awareness campaign in the two selected trial areas, which include Feniton, with letters, leaflets and road shows. Information on the trials will shortly be placed on the council’s website (eastdevon.gov.uk).
The council is also looking for ‘Recycling Champions’ in Feniton to assist council officers and help them with the introduction of the trials by giving feedback throughout. If you’re a keen recycler, living in Feniton and you’re interested in helping out, please contact EDDC’s recycling team on 01395 571515.
From September, residents in the trial areas will be able to recycle:
• Cardboard: Printed card, egg boxes, inner tubes from toilet and kitchen rolls, brown cardboard boxes, card from packaging such as toys and electrical goods, all cardboard food packaging (cereal packets, cardboard sleeves) • Mixed plastics: Margarine and ice cream tubs, yoghurt pots and food packaging, e.g. meat and veg trays • Plastic bottles: Milk containers, drinks, cleaning and product bottles • Textiles: Clothes, sheets and blankets, curtains and towels • Glass: Glass bottles, glass jars • Household batteries • Paper: Newspapers and magazines, bagged shredded paper, junk mail/envelopes, writing paper • Metals: Food and drink cans, pet food cans, foil wrap and trays • Empty aerosols • Food waste: Fruit and vegetable peelings, cooked food, uncooked food, meat and fish, plate scrapings, tea and coffee grounds, cat and dog food.
Planning system ‘unwittingly unleashed industrial-scale affordable housing avoidance’
Architects are calling for the government to rewrite planning legislation to stop developers dodging “affordable” housing commitments.
They want to redraft a clause in the National Planning Policy Framework which introduced the concept of financial viability assessments to the planning system in 2012. The system will remain at the mercy of practitioners of “dark arts”, said one London architect and teacher, until terms like “viability” and “affordable” are given clear definitions. The NPPF unwittingly spawned a whole industry devoted to helping developers argue their way out of providing social and “affordable” housing on the grounds it would render their projects unviable.
The practice was branded “a wholesale fraud on the public purse” by Northampton University housing expert Dr Bob Colenutt in an investigation published by the Guardian and written by Oliver Wainwright, BD’s former architecture critic. This revealed for the first time details of the financial viability assessment for Lendlease’s Heygate redevelopment – after a three-year legal battle to keep it confidential. It set the level of “acceptable” profit at 25%, an unusually high figure that apparently raised concerns at the planning authority but which ultimately went unchallenged.
One architect, at a large London practice which works on residential schemes, said the viability clause in the NPPF was essentially undermining affordable and social housing targets set by local authorities and should be revised. “There’s not much transparency in how the viability assessments are done,” he said. “As architects we haven’t seen the cost plan or the sales model for a large number of the projects we are working on. It’s highly likely that things are being cooked up to look unaffordable when in fact they are perfectly affordable. But it’s unworkable as a public policy approach to say, ‘You are behaving badly’. You have instead to make the rules as clear and straightforward as you can.” He added: “It’s demoralising to work on stuff that neither you nor anyone you know could afford to live in – two-bed flats selling for £800,000.”
Bartlett tutor Edward Denison (see box) said: “The secrecy of viability studies makes a complete mockery of a fair planning system and prevents anyone from challenging constructively what a developer claims can be achieved on any given site.”
Architect Ruth Lang said the planning process had been shown to have “systemic flaws”, with different figures referred to by developer and council to describe the same project. She got so frustrated she quit practice to do a PhD investigating this. “One of the problems is we have little agency as architects to change anything,” she said. “We need to get further up the food chain otherwise we are just a responsive rather than a pro-active part of the system. We’ve had conversations with clients but it comes down to whether we can persuade them to be a good moral citizen. It needs to be about how we can have some sort of leverage in that discussion. There’s got to be a way of incentivising their compliance and it’s got to come from government-level investment in social housing. Government also needs to help councils evaluate these schemes because local authorities are so overstretched.”
Ben van Bruggen, director of van Bruggen Urbanism, said: “The viability assessment is a tool and like many other bits of the planning system it is open to interpretation. Local authorities are finding it a drain on their limited funds and resources to respond and investigate all Freedom of Information requests about viability appraisals and so are more likely to want to avoid potential controversy.”
There were signs that things could change, he said, with Greenwich council proposing developers be required to publish their full viability report if they don’t meet affordable housing requirements.
“This seems to make it more transparent,” he said. “In any event local authorities could seek a review of the viability. If, for example, a scheme is granted consent then it would be possible to state that if it wasn’t completed within three years the viability must be reassessed. This at least could reflect a rapidly changing market and any uplift in value could be captured by the local authority as the developer’s profit was already built in.”
This is from the original piece by Oliver Wainwright:
Revealed: how developers exploit flawed planning system to minimise affordable housing
The release of a ‘viability assessment’ for one of London’s most high-profile developments – seen exclusively by the Guardian – sheds new light on how developers are taking advantage of planning laws to ramp up their returns
Elephant and Castle is feeling the full force of London’s ‘regenerative steamroller’. Photograph: Sarah Lee
In the last decade, London has lost 8,000 social-rented homes. Under the Tory-led coalition, the amount of affordable housing delivered across the country fell by a third – from 53,000 homes completed in 2010 to 36,000 in 2014. Much of the reason lies hidden in these developers’ viability assessments and the dark arts of accounting, which have become all-powerful tools in the way our cities are being shaped.
It is a phenomenon, in the view of housing expert Dr Bob Colenutt at the University of Northampton, that “threatens the very foundations of the UK planning system”; a legalised practice of fiddling figures that represents “a wholesale fraud on the public purse”. What was once a statutory system predicated on ensuring the best use of land has become, in Colenutt’s and many other experts’ eyes, solely about safeguarding the profits of those who want to develop that land.
Under Section 106, also known as “planning gain”, developers are required to provide a certain proportion of affordable housing in developments of more than 10 homes, ranging from 35–50% depending on the local authority in question. Developers who claim their schemes are not commercially viable, when subject to these obligations, must submit a financial viability assessment explaining precisely why the figures don’t stack up.
In simple terms, this assessment takes the total costs of a project – construction, professional fees and profit – and subtracts them from the total projected revenue from selling the homes, based on current property values. What’s left over is called the “residual land value” – the value of the site once the development has taken place, which must be high enough to represent a decent return to the landowner.
It is therefore in the developer’s interest to maximise its projected costs and minimise the projected sales values to make its plans appear less profitable. With figures that generate a residual value not much higher than the building’s current value, the developer can wave “evidence” before the council that the project simply “can’t wash its face” if it has to meet an onerous affordable housing target – while all the time safeguarding their own profit.
According to Glasspool, the most striking thing about the Heygate viability assessment “is that it has nothing to do with the scheme’s viability at all, and everything to do with its profitability for the developer”. It is also all perfectly legal.
Within the pages of calculations, produced for Lend Lease by property agent Savills, the level of “acceptable” profit is fixed at 25% – a proportion that equates to around £300m. Southwark council commissioned an independent appraisal of this viability assessment from the government’s district valuer service (which was also revealed as part of the disclosure). The appraisal clearly highlights this 25% profit level as a concern, noting that “most development schemes when analysed following completion average out below 15%”. The difference represents more than £100m that could have been spent on affordable housing – yet the 25% profit level remains unchallenged.
With the private sector now calling the tune on affordable housing, while hiding the score in a locked room, it’s not hard to see why the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, David Orr, recently told his members that developers are “leading local authorities on a merry dance”.
“It’s not so much a dance, as running rings around them,” says planning expert Duncan Bowie, a lecturer at the University of Westminster. “Every consultant knows how to fiddle the figures in their client’s interests, but most planning officers simply don’t get it. Local authorities have really lost the plot on this.”
Many consultants are now paid bonuses for successfully reducing the number of affordable units in a scheme; indeed an entire industry has grown up around the art of dodging planning obligations. But why has it only become such a problem now?
A relatively new arrival to the planning system, viability assessments have gained increasing weight since the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) introduced a crucial clause in 2012, stating that plans “should not be subject to such a scale of obligations and policy burdens that their ability to be developed viably is threatened”.
This clause has given developers a much freer licence to force their plans through the system regardless of constraints, on the basis that local planning policies represent needless “burdens” on their pockets. Democratic mechanisms for securing public benefit have been reframed as destructive barriers of red tape, and harmful obstacles to economic growth.
“Viability has driven a coach and horses through the planning system,” says Colenutt. “All the things that are supposed to determine the best use of land – mix of uses, massing, density, social mix – have been trumped by finance. And it’s a form of financial modelling that’s hidden from view, entirely determined by the developers themselves. Councils are held over a barrel with the implied threat that ‘If you don’t play ball, we’ll go elsewhere.’ It’s what the development industry has always wanted. They cannot believe their luck.”
Many developers imply that building affordable housing always entails a loss – but when affordable rents are capitalised at up to 80% of market rate, the reality is it just makes less of a profit. (Affordable housing also removes a chunk of the development risk, given it comes with guaranteed funding from a housing association.) Still, with an imperative to maximise shareholders’ returns, why would any commercial developer agree to anything that makes less profit than the maximum that can possibly be squeezed out?
“These viability assessments conclusively prove that we cannot rely on developers to build affordable housing,” says Colenutt. “And they’re standing in the way of other groups who want to build it – the community land trusts, housing associations, co-housing groups – by preventing them from getting access to the land. Instead, the industry is wilfully inflating land values and forcing local authorities to grant permission for things they don’t want.
“Now that it’s been let in as a principle, viability is running riot through the entire system,” Colenutt adds. “It’s completely destroying the ability to build mixed communities, all on the grounds of spurious financial models. It’s critical that we develop the expertise to tackle it now – because this is going to be an almighty battle for years to come.”
In East Devon, both the District Council and individual Town Councils own beach huts: Beach huts service - East Devon At Beer, there is a fifteen-year waiting list: Beer beach huts - East Devon There's considerable demand: beach huts in Dorset/South Devon - Devon Message Board - TripAdvisor And, as being reported currently, there are many 'issues' around East Devon's beach huts. Futures Forum: East Devon beach huts: a summary so far... In West Dorset, each Town Council manages its beach huts. Of course, each town is different... LYME REGIS: The point about the location of Lyme's huts is that one row are at the top of the western Monmouth beach blocking the car park from sight and the eastern huts overlook the beach but are at the bottom of the sea wall so they do not block any view: Lyme Regis – where even the lamp posts are fossils! | Packabook The system for getting hold of a beach hut is also different: > Huts are bought from previous owners at market price - and not to the highest
bidder. > The licence for each hut is nevertheless held Lyme Regis Town Council. They can take the hut back at
any time if they have a change in policy or if the owners neglect the huts, which is made clear in the contract, although it does not seem to have happened as yet.
> The holders of beach huts in Lyme Regis have either had them for many years, or have acquired them after waiting for many years - when they are
no longer wanted, or the person with the licence has died, or no longer wishes
to keep it.
> There is no 'bidding': it's 'first come, first served' for those huts owned directly still by the Town Council.
Residents queue overnight for Lyme Regis beach huts
Twenty people camped out overnight to secure a beach hut on the sea front at Lyme Regis. Demand for the huts at Lyme Regis is overwhelming. So the town council offers a limited number to locals, first come, first served.
Only 3 huts are available for a year long lease Credit: ITV News West Country
Only three huts were available for a year-round lease, and three for the summer months, but there was still demand even for the winter lets.
Among those waiting was a family from Lancashire, who're very pleased to qualify as locals at last.
We've been coming here for fifty years. We decided eventually to retire here and make the most of the weather.
– DOROTHY PINDER
The lucky ones to get a beach hut won't get the new keys until the new year, but today was a chance to check on their old huts and get ready to move to the new ones. Non-locals will get a chance to hire a hut from next Tuesday, October 14th. They're £100 a week in July and August, £15 to £35 a week through the rest of the year. And there are a few kept for one day hire.
Around twenty people camped out overnight to secure a beach hut on the sea front at Lyme Regis. Demand for the huts at Lyme Regis is overhelming. So the town council offers a limited number to locals, first come, first served. One couple has waited since Thursday.
Lyme Regis residents camp out for beach huts like these Credit: PA
People have been camping out overnight in Lyme Regis to try to secure one of 13 beach huts that are only available for local residents. A residents only booking day has been held this morning for the Cart Road day huts, with special consideration given to those who live in the town full-time. One woman has been camped out since Thursday.
