Thursday, 29 June 2017

"We are Cinderella in the South West." > missing out again on central government funding

Whilst the debate heats up on priorities for spending here in the South West
Public Sector Pay and the NHS - Dr Sarah Wollaston | Sarah's Blog
Save Our Hospital Services Devon public group | Facebook

... the cry goes up of 'What about us!'

We miss out again as Northern Ireland promised £1billion funding deal

By HannahFinch | Posted: June 26, 2017

Business leaders say the Westcountry will once again miss out in Theresa May's £1billion DUP funding deal for Northern Ireland.

Cornwall Chamber of Commerce chief executive Kim Conchie has written an open letter to the county's six Tory MPs calling on them to stand up for Cornwall while showcasing what its businesses can do in return to boost productivity, agriculture and hospitality.

He said: "This is a huge cock up by Theresa May and it was inevitable that Northern Ireland would get the money because they hold the balance of power.

"There will be other poor fringes of the UK feeling the same as we do because we are not getting our fair share. It is politics over economics and that is not the right way to prioritise spending."

In the open letter, Mr Conchie states that businesses and government can work together 'to move Cornwall quickly away from being the poor man of England, to becoming a world-leading innovation- and productivity-led regional economy that we and the rest of the UK are proud of.'

It adds: " We can only achieve this if we work with you in a seamless fashion sharing successes and challenges on all sides; and if Cornwall and Scilly receives the Government support it needs in order to flourish."

The Northern Ireland funding package is part of an agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up May's minority Government. Under a "supply and confidence" arrangement intended to last for the full Parliament, the DUP guarantees that its 10 MPs will vote with the Government on the Queen's Speech, the Budget, and legislation relating to Brexit and national security.

Tim Jones, chairman of the Devon and Cornwall Business Council, said that the region is once again playing 'Cinderella' by being continually overlooked by government for vital infrastructure investment.

He said: "Under the Barnett formula, We routinely get far less than devolved government areas and we are way behind Scotland and Wales.

"Northern Ireland has had some serious issues to contend with but the government promised us that they would rebalance the economy. This move does nothing but continue the notion that we are cinderella in the South West."

We miss out again as Northern Ireland promised £1billion funding deal | Devon Live
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Has deregulation gone too far?

Nobody likes 'red tape'
- and many have seen leaving the EU as an opportunity to get rid of much of it:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and a bonfire of EU red tape

As the OECD suggests:
Red tape is damaging Britain's growth, says OECD - Telegraph

However, lack of regulation can mean 'shoddy' buildings:
Futures Forum: "The laissez-faire, speculative attitude helps to create a shoddy culture in which the mindsets of estate agents take priority over the resourcing of local authority departments that are supposed to plan and regulate construction."

Polly Toynbee doesn't mince her words:
Brexiteers call it useless red tape, but without it people die | Polly Toynbee | Opinion | The Guardian

And so more questions are being asked about the drive to deregulate:
Futures Forum: Questioning the neoliberal agenda of deregulation and austerity

Especially about the timing of decisions to degregulate:
Government-backed 'red tape' group looked at EU fire safety rules on morning of Grenfell fire | UK news | The Guardian

In fact, we might see more regulation following Brexit:
Goodbye to red tape? It’s not going to happen | Business | The Times & The Sunday Times

Indeed, to what extent was a Labour government responsible for 'the wrong sort of deregulation'?
Grenfell Tower fire: was Tory austerity to blame or do problems date back to Blair? | UK news | The Guardian

Now there is a 'backlash' seemingly underway:
Regulation, red tape, sometimes necessary as Grenfell and BHS prove in different ways | The Independent
Grenfell tower: The beginning of the end for the Tory austerity regime | The Independent

Yesterday's New York Times asks:

After Grenfell Tower Fire, U.K. Asks: Has Deregulation Gone Too Far?

By STEVEN ERLANGERJUNE 28, 2017

LONDON — The terrifying fire at the Grenfell Tower apartment block, with its final toll of victims still hidden in the ashes, has intensified a political debate, with many Britons believing that privatization has gone too far and that the state has shrunk too much.

It is a partisan debate, wrapping in the bitterly fought election this month, the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, the anger about rising inequality, and years of budget cutting that is generally known as austerity.

With cladding on each of the 120 high rises tested so far having failed combusti bility tests, and hundreds of fire doors missing from buildings, the language of politics has now itself become incendiary. A Labour lawmaker, David Lammy, who grew up poor and had friends who died in the fire, said: “This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way, and we should call it what it is. It is corporate manslaughter.”

The Conservatives have been fond of promoting what they called a “bonfire of regulations” in every aspect of government, to bolster private and individual responsibility and promote economic growth and productivity. It was an argument made with particular force in the debate over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, which advocates said would free the country from annoying European “red tape.” But as Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist, said acidly: “They got their bonfire.”

What the Conservatives call red tape, argued George Monbiot, “often consists of essential public protections that defend our lives.” And the freedom promoted by deregulators, he said, often “means the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor, of corporations to exploit their workers, landlords to exploit their tenants and industry of all kinds to use the planet as its dustbin.”

Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of Parliament first elected in 2015, described Britain as, without question, “definitely more divided on the issue.”

“It’s the state as provider and the state as guarantor,” he said. “And while stepping away from the state as provider, we’ve moved too far away from state as guarantor.”

Simon Tilford, an economist and deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, said: “We’re seeing the biggest challenge to this 40-year drive to marginalize or discredit the state and its role in the economy and society. Grenfell Tower had such impact because it symbolizes for many in Britain the retreat of the state, visible in badly maintained social housing and the failure to build more social housing.”

Britain is having another chapter in the central debate of the capitalist era: What are the proper roles of the state, the market and the individual? A generation ago, neoliberalism had seemingly won, and the theorist Francis Fukuyama declared “The End of History.” But a British backlash against the small state, free trade and globalization, seemingly a remote possibility as late as last year, now seems to have arrived.

The debate is an important one. Britain has been a laboratory of sorts for deregulation and the shrinking of the state since Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979. The concepts were embraced by the Conservatives and then by New Labour, and helped rescue the country from the gloom and strikes of the 1970s and early 1980s. The “big bang” of deregulation of the financial industry gave rise to the London boom, turning it into a global city.

But Grenfell Tower has come to symbolize the growing pushback against seven years of moderate budget restraint brought on by the 2008 financial crisis. As services have been reduced, wages have stagnated for many in the public sector, and inequality has risen. Voters “are finally growing weary of austerity, of the rationing, outsourcing and penny-pinching,” wrote James Ely in The Financial Times. “Seven years of spending restraint is starting to manifest itself in the quality of some public services.”

The issues encapsulate the renewed ideological battle between the wounded but governing Conservative Party and the revived opposition Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. A man of the harder left, Mr. Corbyn has brought back the arguments used against Mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s, calling for a reversal of the policies she championed — privatization, deregulation, corporate tax cuts, and a shrinking of the Labour-built, semi-socialist state.

During the campaign, Mr. Corbyn and Labour called for renationalizing the railways, the water supply and some utilities, spending much more on social services like the National Health Service and social benefits and ending tuition fees at universities. After the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, Mr. Corbyn, long an opponent of surveillance and enhanced police powers, called for more beat police officers, complaining about austerity and arguing that “you can’t protect the public on the cheap.”

His left-wing populism (marked by a longstanding contempt for American foreign policy) was a sharp break with the neoliberal consensus of the past 30 years or so, which included Labour’s last prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But the Grenfell Tower fire, Mr. Freedland said, “appeared to make the Corbyn argument for him.”

In an indication of the shift, Britain’s annual Social Attitudes Survey, published on Wednesday, showed a broader rejection of austerity, with more people saying that taxes should rise to finance higher public spending. Only 29 percent of Britons favored further cuts in public spending, down from 35 percent 10 years ago, and 48 percent said taxes should rise, compared with 32 percent a decade ago. People were not asked if they were personally prepared to pay higher taxes, however.

While preparing a platform for the June election, Prime Minister Theresa May sensed the mood turning against austerity, loosening debt targets, trying to reach out to disaffected working-class voters and penalizing, though mildly, the better-off. But her campaign ended in tears, and “Mayism” has had a shorter life than the Edsel.

Mrs. Thatcher is often held up as the icon of the Conservative Party’s move to shrink what she called “the nanny state,” which she felt promoted dependency instead of initiative.

The welfare state built by the postwar Labour Party, had huge accomplishments, like the National Health Service and the spread throughout the country of public housing, known as council housing here. The ideal championed by the postwar Labour health minister, Aneurin Bevan, was of a place “where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and farm laborer all lived on the same street,” and according to Pilgrim Tucker, a housing campaigner, in 1979, 20 percent of the richest 10 percent of Britain’s population lived in social housing.

Mrs. Thatcher introduced the “right to buy” social housing to its tenants in 1980, in an effort to promote homeownership and responsibility. Over time, the nature of social housing changed, as some apartments simply became private rental properties — including an unknown number in Grenfell Tower itself — though their maintenance was controlled by the local council through a nonprofit management agency. And local councils did not build housing fast enough to keep up with demand, especially in big cities.

Under Conservative efforts since 2010 to reduce the national budget and the national debt, state funding was reduced or frozen for many parts of the government, including local councils. Deregulation also meant outsourcing responsibility for fire inspections to owners and builders, instead of civil servants. Private companies were required to use “authorized inspectors” for fire safety, but, as Mr. Freedland pointed out, they worked for builders and developers, and “there was a classic conflict of interest.”

Here the two trends of saving money and deregulation come together: The council had recently spent some $11 million on Grenfell Tower to insulate apartments and cut energy costs, using cladding that was approved under existing building regulations. And those regulations, however inadequate they have proved, are the same for all buildings, not just those of the poor.

The cladding aside, there were other fire-safety issues that were not dealt with by anyone, including the questionable installation of new gas pipes, inadequate fire proofing, and the lack of a central fire alarm or a sprinkler system, though neither was required for a structure built in 1974.

Still, as Mr. Lammy, the Labour lawmaker, said: “You can’t contract out everything to the private sector. The private sector can do some wonderful things, but they have for-profit motives, they cut corners. We’ve all been up to those tower blocks — they exist right across the country. Where are the fire extinguishers on every corridor? Where are the hoses? Are the fire doors really working? Where are the sprinklers?”

The questions are the right ones. But the fight over who is responsible, and over the causes and solutions, will continue, and will continue to mark British politics, divided more now than at any time since the election of Mrs. Thatcher.

After Grenfell Tower Fire, U.K. Asks: Has Deregulation Gone Too Far? - The New York Times
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Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Neighbourhood Plan > 'Last chance to have your say!'

This is the last week for filling in the Neighbourhood Plan's survey - with every attempt being made to get out to younger people:
Futures Forum: Neighbourhood Plan > Hello young adults: have your say!

The Herald again has done an excellent job of informing its readership about the issues and the processes underway:

Last chance to comment on Sid Valley’s Neighbourhood Plan

PUBLISHED: 06:55 27 June 2017 | UPDATED: 07:15 27 June 2017

Stephen Sumner

The seven key themes in the Sid Valley Neighbourhood Plan

Homeowners, youngsters, business owners and community groups have all grasped the chance to shape the Sid Valley before the final consultation ends on Friday.

People have responded in their thousands to four successive Neighbourhood Plan questionnaires over the last 15 months.

The results will feed into a draft plan the steering groups hopes to publish in October – a key milestone on the way to a referendum and the blueprint ultimately being adopted.

Reflecting on the feedback so far, chairman Deirdre Hounsom said: “We’ve received important messages about concerns that residents share – problems with traffic and congestion, unease about local planning decisions, a perceived lack of affordable housing for local people and a population that is not balanced in terms of age and diversity.

“Whilst people may weigh issues differently, the responses show the care, concerns and foresight people have in thinking about what will make the Sid Valley a vibrant destination to live, work and play.

“Our task is to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan which will support the whole community to achieve and maintain the full potential, delivering the framework for a positive future where our heritage and values are preserved, whilst being responsive to new and changing times.

“The core aspects of the Neighbourhood Plan deal with how we want to best use our land resources not just for housing and amenities, but to maintain and develop a healthy economy for the future, with the Eastern Town regeneration around Port Royal featuring prominently.

“We’ve learned, however, that people have ideas and concerns which are not to do with land, for example community issues such as health care, education, social care and welfare, and ideas on a range of matters from economic issues such as tourism to cultural, sporting and leisure activities.

“We very much hope that our 15 months of carefully planned consultations will continue to serve the community well across the full spectrum of our key themes.”

The second household survey officially closes today but the collection boxes at the drop-off points will not be emptied until Monday (July 3).

It can also be completed online at www.sidvalleyneighbourhoodplan.com. The steering group particularly wants to hear from working age residents to ensure the results are balanced.

Last chance to comment on Sid Valley’s Neighbourhood Plan - Breaking news & sport in Sidmouth | Sidmouth Herald
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Introducing children to the joys and delights of trees

The Arboretum have been showing young people the joys of admiring trees:

SCHOOL EVENT at SIDHOLME

A new venture to introduce more young children to the joys and delights of mature trees, in the gardens of Sidholme Hotel.

5 groups of primary school children will be welcomed to Sidholme for activities outdoors relating to trees and nature. New Chairman Jon Ball, together with Penny and Jill from the Arboretum committee, will use the mature gardens of the Sidholme Hotel to provide a busy and varied day.

Sidmouth Arboretum News

With a nice piece on the Herald's website:

Sidmouth Arboretum holds tree identification event for primary school pupils

PUBLISHED: 13:04 27 June 2017 | UPDATED: 13:21 27 June 2017

Clarissa Place

Pupils from Sidmouth Primary School enjoy a tree indentification exercise hosted by the town's arboretum group. Photo: Ed Dolphin

The group held the event at the Sidholme Hotels for Sidmouth Primary School pupils.

Sidmouth Primary School pupils showed off their knowledge of trees as part of an identification exercise by the town’s arboretum group.

The children were tasked to name the eight different trees at the Sidholme Hotel earlier this month.

The new initiative saw the year five pupils take in part of the arboretum’s town tree trail as they walked to the hotel which has a range of specimen trees. In the hotel grounds the children correctly identified the trees they were shown.

Arboretum members shared their knowledge of the trees and their importance to the landscape and history.

Jon Ball, group chairman, said: “Every class was a credit to the school in their behaviour and enthusiasm on a lovely sunny summer day in a wonderful setting.”

The arboretum has published its tree trails which are free and available from the library, Tourist Information Office and bookshops.

Sidmouth Arboretum holds tree identification event for primary school pupils - Breaking news & sport in Sidmouth | Sidmouth Herald
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Can we trust big business? >>> Big oil, free enterprise and crony capitalism

The oil industry is a powerful lobby:

Futures Forum: The TransCanada pipeline >> “No water, no beer. No beer, no fun”

It has been part of the 'free enterprise' or 'neoliberal' think tank system from the beginning:

The Koch Brothers’ Covert Operations | The New Yorker

CATO Institute - Conservapedia

And joined others very soon after their inception:

Put a Tiger in Your Think Tank, Part II – Mother Jones

The Heritage Foundation - Wikipedia

One of the basic tenets of the 'free enterprise' agenda has been 'respect for property':

The Moral Nature of Free Enterprise | Acton Institute

Milton Friedman's Property Rights Legacy - Forbes

However, when it comes to drilling for oil or shale:

Futures Forum: Fracking in Fort McMoney: a web documentary and strategy video game about Fort McMurray, the oil sands capital of Alberta, Canada

... these principles seem to crumble:

Futures Forum: "Allowing fracking companies to drill on private land without first requiring a landowner’s permission."

Futures Forum: The Infrastructure Bill, trespass law and fracking

Besides, several basic principles of doing business don't seem to figure:

Futures Forum: Overproduction and the end of Big Oil's business model

Futures Forum: Peak Oil... and EROEI... or Energy Return on Energy Investment

And we do have the issue of 'crony capitalism' which just won't go away:

Futures Forum: Climate change: and corporate welfare >>> Government is the problem, not the solution.

Earlier this month, Evan Davis interviewed the former boss of BP on Radio 4:

The Bottom Line: Can We Trust Big Business?

1 JUNE 2017

Business and its place in society is a prominent issue at the moment. Zero hours contracts, executive pay, tax avoidance are all issues where opinion has shifted dramatically. Has Shareholder driven capitalism finally gone too far?

In a special programme recorded at the Royal Academy of Engineering in front of a live audience, Evan Davis talks to the former BP CEO, Lord John Browne on his thoughts about big business as it relates to society. And asks whether it's now time to trust big business?

BBC Radio 4 - The Bottom Line, The Bottom Line: Can We Trust Big Business?

Tuesday, 27 June 2017

'New formula in funding will mean no school loses' > but: 'schools still face real terms, per pupil, reductions to their funding'

During the county elections, there was universal condemnation of central government's plans for funding schools in Devon:
Futures Forum: Devon County Council elections: the issues > school funding

Similar debate was had during the general election - but some thought that the schools themselves should not get involved:
Futures Forum: The general election in the West Country: the issues >>> education

The issues were once again raised on the front page of today's Mail:

Schools' bid to sway the election: Headteachers sent out letters attacking Tory policies during the campaign

> Families sent letters by headmasters 'trying to sway the general election'

> The messages came by post and social media and attacked Tory policies
> Letters sent to parents by heads of 3,000 UK schools across 14 counties
> Warned of 'dreadful' education funding despite election 'purdah' rules
By ELEANOR HARDING EDUCATION CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 22:40, 26 June 2017

View comments

Headmasters stand accused of trying to sway the general election by attacking Tory policies.

Families were sent a series of political messages – by post and on social media – in the run-up to the national vote on June 8. One warned of the ‘dreadful state’ of education funding under Theresa May. It was sent by heads from 3,000 schools across 14 counties.

Parents elsewhere were urged to sign a petition set up by the Left-wing National Union of Teachers.

Headteachers attacked Tory policies during election | Daily Mail Online

The Huffington Post posts a reply from a Labour MP:
If The Tories Don't Learn The Lessons Of Their Failure On Public Services, They're Finished | HuffPost UK

As covered by the EDW blog:
Just how much can you rip voters off before they reject you? | East Devon Watch

Devon teachers have responded in the WMN:
Devon headteachers angry after coming under fire for pre-election school funding campaign | Devon Live

Meanwhile, the Mail reports on how one school is dealing with things:
Leicestershire school to finish at lunchtime on Fridays | Daily Mail Online

It now seems, however, that there will be 'no cuts' after all:
Greening: No school cuts under funding formula | Schools Week

Ministers pledge no school will lose out under funding change

Justine Greening has said the Government will stand by its manifesto pledge to ensure no school loses out as a result of a new funding formula

Richard Vaughan4 hoursTuesday June 27th 2017

Ministers have committed to spending billions of pounds to ensure no school will lose money under planned changes to school funding policies. Justine Greening told MPs that she would stand by the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge that stated no school would be worse off as a result of introducing a new national funding formula.

Cuts to school funding was a major battleground during the general election, and was blamed for many parents turning their backs on the Conservatives.

Majority was cut

In Ms Greening’s own constituency of Putney, west London, schools were at risk of losing thousands as a result of the changes on top of wider cuts to their budgets. The MP saw her majority whittled down from more than 10,000 to just over 1,500 in the election.

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, the Education Secretary said the Government remained committed to rolling out the new formula, which aims to end the historic differences in per-pupil funding given to schools.

“As outlined in our manifesto we’re also going to make sure that no school has its budget cut as a result of the new formula,” Ms Greening said. “Now that the consultation is finished we’re going to explain our plans for the fair funding of schools shortly.”

May promises money

During a school visit in Bristol yesterday, Theresa May promised to put additional money into schools.

“There is extra money going into schools and there will continue to be extra funding going into schools and what we need to ensure is that we have a fair distribution of that funding,” the Prime Minister said.

Questions remain, however as to where the money will come from. The Tory manifesto pledged to spend £4bn over the next five years to protect schools from losing money under a new funding formula. But that money was to be taken, in large part, by scrapping free school meals for all five, six and seven year olds, a policy since abandoned following the Conservatives disastrous election result.

Still a real terms cut

Experts have warned that the extra £4bn would still lead to a real terms cut of around 3 per cent to school budgets due other cost pressures, such as increased national insurance and pension contributions.

Natalie Perera, director of think tank the Education Policy Institute said: “While the commitment that no school loses under the new formula will help to mitigate some losses, schools still face real terms, per pupil, reductions to their funding. Without additional funding, these pressures mean that schools budgets will have fallen by 7% in real terms between 2015/16 and 2021/22.”

Ministers pledge no school will lose out under funding change - The i newspaper online iNews
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Plans for Port Royal: anticipating a Regeneration Board >> Scoping Study consultation >> "This does not make a good start to what is supposed to be a public consultation."

The proposals from the Scoping Study were on display today:
Futures Forum: Plans for Port Royal: anticipating a Regeneration Board >> Scoping Study consultation >> proposals now available

Here is a report from the Rescue Sidmouth Drill Hall campaign:

Port Royal and the Drill Hall

Dear Friends,

I have been to both days of this Port Royal redevelopment consultation, needing to return on the second day to clarify some details. I have spoken in great detail to officials from East Devon District Council and Sidmouth Town Council, and to a member of staff from the consultants Jillings-Heynes. They have filled me in on a lot of the background thinking which is not detailed on the boards used for display.

Unsurprisingly the intention is to demolish everything shown in the Local Plan as ED03 and build a huge block of very expensive apartments with the Lifeboat and the Sailing Club/Gig Club/etc housed beneath them. It is proposed to be 5 storeys high in comparison with Trinity Court’s 4 storeys. Trinity Court has the 4th floor set back to give an appearance to the front of 3 storeys so the proposed block appears much bigger. The Drill Hall does not figure in these plans which I think is a wasted opportunity for the town.

The online survey is at
http://eastdevon.gov.uk/port-royal-consultation/

The opinions of the council officials were at odds in some cases. Although they both agree that this is supposed to be a ‘concept’ there is disagreement as to whether the massing of the building is more or less a fixed element or not. The footprint is agreed to be a fixed element of the design even though the footprint of the building is shown as covering some of the land which is part of the Ham and therefore can not have anything higher than 7 feet tall built on it.

When I pointed this out to the EDDC official I was told that details like that would be sorted out when they had looked at the Land Registry documents. When I replied that these documents had been publicly available for some time on my site the line changed to ‘Well yes, we know where we can actually build; but any developer would want to see the Land Registry entries for themselves.’ When asked why a footprint which was ‘not possible’ was being used, rather than an accurate one, I was told that the conversation had gone far enough and would not be continued.

This does not make a good start to what is supposed to be a public consultation.

The same disregard for accuracy was shown when I pointed out how high the block was in the background of the artist’s impression. I was told that it wouldn’t really look that big as it was a distortion due to perspective! As most people know, perspective works by things in the background looking smaller not larger!!

I will be making photo montages and creating plans to flesh out the minimal drawings shown at the consultation. They will appear on the www.drillhall.rescue.historic-sidmouth.uk site as a sub-page of the Scoping Exercise page. http://drillhall.rescue.historic-sidmouth.uk/scoping-exercise

They will be going up over the next couple of days and I urge you not to complete the survey until you have looked at them. The survey will be available online until July 31st so you have a month to think about your response. If you have any questions you would like to ask me I will do my best to pass on accurately what I was told. I will not twist facts to support my beliefs.

Remember that this consultation is a ‘gateway’ from which there is no going back.
Kind regards, Mary

Port Royal redevelopment doesn't include saving the Drill Hall
Rescue Sidmouth Drill Hall - Sidmouth Drill Hall Rescue
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Futures Forum