Devolution and Local Enterprise Partnerships >>> "unaccountable to anyone and unrepresentative of the local economy"

There is a very strong notion that planning for the future of local government is 'out of control':
"Planning decisions should be plan-led, not developer-led, and certainly not landowner-led."
Futures Forum: "Developer-led free-for-all is actually council policy"

Whether it is the sense that overdevelopment is unstoppable:
Gittisham development to go ahead | East Devon Alliance
Land west of Hayne Lane … we’ve reached the end of the line | Susie Bond

Or the feeling that developers are allowed to step over any red lines:
AONB? It means nothing to developers | East Devon Watch

This is due to the power of lobbying:

Dirty lobbying | East Devon Watch
Lobbying tsar investigates all-party parliamentary groups | Politics | The Guardian

 - which happens at the level of local government too:
Futures Forum: Concerns about transparency and lobbying continue in East Devon: pt 1
Futures Forum: Lobbying: East Devon Business Forum
Futures Forum: A history of the East Devon Business Forum, part nine ....... "The local development framework would enable businesses to progress land allocation. It was agreed that the strategy should reflect the Forum’s views."

The definition of 'lobbying' being: trying to get influence, but out of the public eye:
Transparency vs. Secrecy « East Devon Alliance

And much of this is happening under the phenomenon known as 'devolution':
Futures Forum: The Return of the East Devon Business Forum >>> >>> or, the ‘Greater Exeter Growth and Development Board'
Exeter and East Devon Growth Point

Today, the East Devon Watch blog publishes an extensive and substantial piece analysing how this has happened. Here is the conclusion:

IS DEVOLUTION ALREADY WITH US? A BRIEFING PAPER ON THE MAJOR CHANGES TO REGIONAL FUNDING SINCE 2010
8 JAN 2017

A paper provided to East Devon Watch by D W Daniel – feel free to reproduce or retransmit unchanged and with attribution:

Conclusion

21. Over the past six years huge changes have taken place with regard to the way central government grants to regions are administered. But this has largely happened below the radar of public perception. 

Across England LEPs now control an annual budget of £2 billion. Hundreds of millions of pounds worth of local investment funds are now in the hands of our Local Enterprise Partnership, a self-selecting group of big-business(men) (gender specific term deliberate), who appear to be unaccountable to anyone and unrepresentative of the local economy. 

This has happened irrespective of whether or not any formal devolution has occurred. 

There appear to be no metrics by which the investment decision they make can be evaluated and no mechanism for scrutiny. 

Likewise there appears to be no mechanism for publicly accountable scrutiny of any conflict of interest that might arise in the way these funds are distributed. 

What has happened to democracy?

January 2017

Is Devolution already with us? A briefing paper on the major changes to regional funding since 2010 | East Devon Watch

There is very little 'consultation' happening:
Devolution deal quashed as people not consulted on whether they wanted it! | East Devon Watch

And there is not very much sensitive development happening either:
Futures Forum: "Regeneration and economic development" in East Devon >>> looking beyond the conventional, the ideological and the heavyhanded

However, even the seemingly invincible lobby groups have a limited life-span:
East Devon Business Forum RIP | East Devon Watch
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