Wednesday, 28 May 2014

A self-drive future in Sidmouth?

Today's press have covered a big tech-story - which, for a town like Sidmouth with its elderly population already using mobility scooters, could be part of the street-scene within a year:

Published on 27 May 2014

Fully autonomous driving has always been the goal of our project, because we think this could improve road safety and help lots of people who can't drive.

A First Drive - YouTube

Why Google’s driverless cars change everything

Our lives are ruled by cars even if we don’t drive – Matt Warman says Google will end that era

By Matt Warman, Head of Technology

11:19AM BST 28 May 2014

124 Comments

I love cars, and I quite like driving, but Google’s plan to make cars driverless is the first move in a century to put them in their proper place.

Look around the streets of any village or city and there they are: sat in traffic, sat unused by the side of the road, the streets and layouts they require defining how we all live. They are the scourge of bicyclists, polluters of air, yet every society in the developed world has been suckered in to the convenience of car ownership – just jump in, go from where you are to where you want to be. Never mind that 96 per cent of the time your car is unused. They are quite the most inefficient major asset to own; we use even our houses more.

Google’s plan is to start small: their cute little cars will have a top speed of 25mph, whizzing around the streets of southern California, more likely to be hit by a driver in a real car than they are to hit each other, you or an inanimate object. But make no mistake: the scale of Google’s globe-changing ambition is revealed in this project.

_{Google self-driving car prototype Photo: Google}

Because this isn’t about changing car ownership: it’s about eradicating it. No wonder Google has built its own vehicles – why would Ford or any other motor maker want to sign up to a project that will see fewer cars in any country, because they’re always in use. These aren’t driverless cars; they’re driverless taxis, perpetually in motion and powered by Google’s detailed knowledge of traffic flow, its carefully analysed sense of demand and the knowledge that even on a quiet residential street, people need to get places. Tap a button on your smartphone and you’ll find that the car you need is not minutes away, but yards. It’s worth noting that Google has already invested heavily in Uber, a cab firm that does away with a central office, albeit not yet the driver. It's the ultimate just-in-time delivery system.

In the UK, Milton Keynes is already pledged to start a driverless cars trial by 2017, little pods taking people from the station to the town centre, like a monorail without the rail. With carefully mapped roads and an array of sensors, these will be far safer than the risks posed by fallible human beings behind the wheels of rickety old bangers. Will driverless cars kill people? Inevitably – but that scandal will be precious little compared to the daily scandal of the deaths on roads today. Ditto the risks of hacking in to the system. Legislators and corporations must go slowly, but good news travels fast.

Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, emphasised the benefits to the old and the poor: “There are many people underserved by transportation today (the elderly, a lack of cabs and buses in some places). Look at people too young, old or disabled who can’t get around. It’s an issue and a real challenge for them.” He’s right to do so, but like the web the driverless car will be a great leveller. It will benefit us all, and it will do so in our lifetime. A new generation will grow up thinking the steering wheel is what drives a racing car, used by hobbyists because it’s fun, rather than a tedious necessity in urban traffic.

My expectation is that we’ll see fleets of driverless cars, different levels of comfort at different prices, paid for as an annual subscription, with advertising subsidising some fares. Google, after all is an advertising company. It’s got the maps, and if you’re happy to let it know those ads will suggest you’re passing a great place for dinner. Pay a bit more, maybe they won’t be there at all.

Will this be for everyone? No. It’s a long time before driven cars are banned from our streets: but driverless lanes should come as no surprise. In such circumstances these cars will be closer together, more efficient, cutting commuting time and congestion. Like Google ‘reading’ your emails in Gmail, the utility will outweigh any perceived disadvantages. It’s a brand people trust, even though some have legitimate privacy concerns.

It changes, too, even the biggest infrastructure projects: HS2 may go very fast, but so can cars and these ones will pick you up from where you are and take you where you need to be, slashing total travelling time.

The driverless car - and the driverless lorry for freight – offer us a chance to reclaim both the streets and the steering wheel. Driving should be fun – but we all have better things to do than sit in traffic.

How does Google's self-driving car work – and when can we drive one? | Technology | theguardian.com
Self-driving cars face a long and winding road to success | Alex Hern | Technology | theguardian.com
BBC News - Google is to start building its own self-driving cars
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The 'sharing economy' in the news...

Recently, the American economist Jeremy Rifkin looked at the 'collaborative commons' and the 'sharing economy'
Futures Forum: Jeremy Rifkin and the Collaborative Commons

A few definitions:

The sharing economy (sometimes also referred to as the peer-to-peer economy, mesh, collaborative economy, collaborative consumption) is a socio-economic system built around the sharing of human and physical assets. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services by different people and organizations. These systems take a variety of forms, often leveraging information technology to empower individuals, corporations, non-profits and government with information that enables distribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services.^[1] A common premise is that when information about goods is shared, the value of those goods may increase, for the business, for individuals, and for the community.^[2]

Collaborative consumption as a phenomenon is a class of economic arrangements in which participants share access to products or services, rather than having individual ownership.^[3]^[4] Often this model is enabled by technology and peer communities.^[5]The collaborative consumption model is used in marketplaces such as eBay, Craigslistand Krrb, emerging sectors such as social lending, peer-to-peer accommodation, peer-to-peer travel experiences, peer-to-peer task assignments or travel advising, car sharing or commute-bus sharing.^[6]

Sharing economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sharing Economy

Home swaps, driving your neighbour's car, private car parking in your drive, even renting your neighbour's clothes. They are all part of a new style of collaborative enterprise in which nearly everyone can join and (maybe) make money: the 'shared economy'.

It's breaking cover, growing fast and could be important. Perhaps the best known example is Airbnb but many more companies have sprung up allowing people to share their things and even their time. And now companies are trying to make money out of what makes all this sharing possible: trust.

But existing regulations and laws are set up for traditional businesses such as hotels and car hire companies, and that is causing problems. Peter Day investigates the opportunities and snags of the sharing economy and asks if it could become a big democratic movement.

BBC Radio 4 - In Business, The Sharing Economy
In Business: The Sharing Economy | Collaborative Consumption

fixd cloud

Defining the Collaborative Economy – how do we do it, and why?

From small community groups to major multinational corporations, a large and diverse community of businesses, organisations and groups has assembled under the banner of the ‘Collaborative Economy’ in recent years. But what ties them together and, more importantly, how do they understand this Collaborative Economy?

Collaborative Consumption | Sharing reinvented through technology. Watch Rachel's TED Talk.

Peer-to-peer rental
The rise of the sharing economy
On the internet, everything is for hire

Mar 9th 2013 | From the print edition

LAST night 40,000 people rented accommodation from a service that offers 250,000 rooms in 30,000 cities in 192 countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online. But their beds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts and guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since its launch in 2008 more than 4m people have used it—2.5m of them in 2012 alone. It is the most prominent example of a huge new “sharing economy”, in which people rent beds, cars, boats and other assets directly from each other, co-ordinated via the internet.

You might think this is no different from running a bed-and-breakfast, owning a timeshare or participating in a car pool. But technology has reduced transaction costs, making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever—and therefore possible on a much larger scale. The big change is the availability of more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to be disaggregated and consumed as services. Before the internet, renting a surfboard, a power tool or a parking space from someone else was feasible, but was usually more trouble than it was worth. Now websites such as Airbnb, RelayRides and SnapGoods match up owners and renters; smartphones with GPS let people see where the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; and online payment systems handle the billing.

What’s mine is yours, for a fee
Just as peer-to-peer businesses like eBay allow anyone to become a retailer, sharing sites let individuals act as an ad hoc taxi service, car-hire firm or boutique hotel as and when it suits them. Just go online or download an app. The model works for items that are expensive to buy and are widely owned by people who do not make full use of them. Bedrooms and cars are the most obvious examples, but you can also rent camping spaces in Sweden, fields in Australia and washing machines in France. As proponents of the sharing economy like to put it, access trumps ownership.

Rachel Botsman, the author of a book on the subject, says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market alone is worth $26 billion. Broader definitions of the sharing economy include peer-to-peer lending (though cash is hardly a spare fixed asset) or putting a solar panel on your roof and selling power back to the grid (though that looks a bit like becoming a utility). And it is not just individuals: the web makes it easier for companies to rent out spare offices and idle machines, too. But the core of the sharing economy is people renting things from each other.

Such “collaborative consumption” is a good thing for several reasons. Owners make money from underused assets. Airbnb says hosts in San Francisco who rent out their homes do so for an average of 58 nights a year, making $9,300. Car owners who rent their vehicles to others using RelayRides make an average of $250 a month; some make more than $1,000. Renters, meanwhile, pay less than they would if they bought the item themselves, or turned to a traditional provider such as a hotel or car-hire firm. (It is not surprising that many sharing firms got going during the financial crisis.) And there are environmental benefits, too: renting a car when you need it, rather than owning one, means fewer cars are required and fewer resources must be devoted to making them.

For sociable souls, meeting new people by staying in their homes is part of the charm. Curmudgeons who imagine that every renter is Norman Bates can still stay at conventional hotels. For others, the web fosters trust. As well as the background checks carried out by platform owners, online reviews and ratings are usually posted by both parties to each transaction, which makes it easy to spot lousy drivers, bathrobe-pilferers and surfboard-wreckers. By using Facebook and other social networks, participants can check each other out and identify friends (or friends of friends) in common. An Airbnb user had her apartment trashed in 2011. But the remarkable thing is how well the system usually works.

Peering into the future

The sharing economy is a little like online shopping, which started in America 15 years ago. At first, people were worried about security. But having made a successful purchase from, say, Amazon, they felt safe buying elsewhere. Similarly, using Airbnb or a car-hire service for the first time encourages people to try other offerings. Next, consider eBay. Having started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace, it is now dominated by professional “power sellers” (many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users). The same may happen with the sharing economy, which also provides new opportunities for enterprise. Some people have bought cars solely to rent them out, for example.

Incumbents are getting involved too. Avis, a car-hire firm, has a share in a sharing rival. So do GM and Daimler, two carmakers. In future, companies may develop hybrid models, listing excess capacity (whether vehicles, equipment or office space) on peer-to-peer rental sites. In the past, new ways of doing things online have not displaced the old ways entirely. But they have often changed them. Just as internet shopping forced Walmart and Tesco to adapt, so online sharing will shake up transport, tourism, equipment-hire and more.

The main worry is regulatory uncertainty (see Technology Quarterly article). Will room-renters be subject to hotel taxes, for example? In Amsterdam officials are using Airbnb listings to track down unlicensed hotels. In some American cities, peer-to-peer taxi services have been banned after lobbying by traditional taxi firms. The danger is that although some rules need to be updated to protect consumers from harm, incumbents will try to destroy competition. People who rent out rooms should pay tax, of course, but they should not be regulated like a Ritz-Carlton hotel. The lighter rules that typically govern bed-and-breakfasts are more than adequate.

The sharing economy is the latest example of the internet’s value to consumers (see Free exchange). This emerging model is now big and disruptive enough for regulators and companies to have woken up to it. That is a sign of its immense potential. It is time to start caring about sharing.

Peer-to-peer rental: The rise of the sharing economy | The Economist

Last night I took my first Uber car and it was amazing

And, for another perspective:
Center for a Stateless Society » Uber and Lyft are the Best New Thing for Poor, Urban Communities
Center for a Stateless Society » Barriers to Entry and Fake Scarcities
Center for a Stateless Society » Capital Uber Alles?

Not everyone is convinced:

Renting isn't lending: The 'sharing economy' fallacy

May 28, 2014 John Harvey, The Conversation

The "sharing economy" seems to be everywhere at the moment. The Economist, the Financial Times and many others have all waxed lyrical about the social significance of using sites such as Airbnb or Uber to collaborate with other consumers.

The message from most outlets is consistently positive. The sharing economy is chic. The sharing economy is caring. The sharing economy is a threat to traditional capitalism. The sharing economy will help to reduce income inequality.

Nonsense. The sharing economy is a harmful misnomer. It conflates people who actually share with those who make money through collaborative consumption.

It is true that much of the work within the broad gamut of the sharing economy is important in terms of sustainability and worthy of further advocacy. But the disparate values that resource sharing brings to the economy should not be clumsily lumped together. Sharing in the presence of money and sharing in its absence are two entirely different forms of economic morality.

The meaning(s) of economy

This is not just a debate about wordplay. The way we conceptualise the economy has profound and far-reaching political consequences.

The economy represented in the mainstream media is primarily the formal economy – the sum total of individual quid-pro-quo transactions. The informal activities in the economy rarely get a mention. They are simply not seen as important enough. To conflate the formal and informal economy is to merge two moral logics which should be recognised as separate. They exist alongside each other but they are not the same.

Depending on your preferred definition of the word "economy", the phrase "sharing economy" is either a tautology or an oxymoron. The origin of the word economy has two root words: oiko (house) and nomos (rule or law). The original definition is said to have meant the art of household management, or in other words, how resources are shared among kin.

Various 20th century economists opposed this definition because, for them, the central aim of economics was to gain a scientific understanding of the interplay between all decision makers in society not just to analyse individual households.

Friedrich Hayek proposed the word "Catallaxy" as an alternative which derives from the Greek verb "katallatein". His definition meant not only to change or exchange but also to receive a person into favour or debt. It therefore refers to the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market. This higher level definition is the meaning that most of us already give to the word "economy".

So if we take these two opposed definitions and analyse the phrase "sharing economy" in the most basic terms it would seem to indicate either sharing sharing or sharing exchange, neither of which make any real sense.

The really important distinction between the definitions is the concept of exchange. Exchange is always presupposed by the possibility of debt. Debt is a moral position that stands in clear opposition to sharing. The tension between debt and sharing is at play in all economies. If the two are conflated, the significance of both is diminished.

Much of the activity that goes on in the informal economy occurs through generosity, as services in kind. The informal economy is therefore not always characterised as an exchange or a transaction. It is done without receipt, without quantification of value, without audit trails or records.

When we take care of children, the elderly or the infirm, when we volunteer for charities, when people give away their belongings for free, when we do the housework that provides the material conditions which support day-to-day employment – these are truly shared activities. We contribute to the economy when we carry out these tasks, just as we do when we buy a loaf of bread from a shop, get a mortgage or use complex financial instruments to manage derivatives.

But sharing is not the activity being promoted by the slew of new companies marching under the faux-compassion banner of the sharing economy. These companies are directing attention away from actual sharing in the informal economy.

Airbnb is not accommodation sharing, it is formalised lending. Uber is not ride sharing, it is a transportation service. Amazon's mechanical turk is not task-sharing, it is a means to crowdsource a labour force that is frequently underpaid.

None of this is to say these innovative companies shouldn't be encouraged to develop further, rather they should be recognised for what they are trying to accomplish –- commerciality, not simply prosociality.

If commentators continue to conflate the two sides of the economy they will mask true generosity and run the risk of missing issues that really matter to people.

Can we really claim to be experiencing a sharing renaissance when full-time carers receive less remuneration than people on the dole? Our economy is understandably driven by an exchangist policy bias, but the enormity of favourable discourse surrounding commercialised collaboration sounds like a claque. The prosocial definition of sharing should be wrestled back from the jaws of those using it to profiteer. The phrase "sharing economy" should be banished forever.

Explore further: Ride-sharing app Lyft expands to new markets

Source: The Conversation

R enting isn't lending: The 'sharing economy' fallacy

Don't buy the 'sharing economy' hype: Airbnb and Uber are facilitating rip-offs

Dodging taxes and regulation isn't just disruptive – it's bad for the economy

Dean Baker theguardian.com, Tuesday 27 May 2014 12.30 BST

Jump to comments (781)

Share artists or scam artists? Photograph: Ole Spata / dpa / Corbis

The "sharing economy" – typified by companies like Airbnb or Uber, both of which now have market capitalizations in the billions – is the latest fashion craze among business writers. But in their exuberance over the next big thing, many boosters have overlooked the reality that this new business model is largely based on evading regulations and breaking the law.

For the uninitiated, Airbnb is an internet-based service that allows people to rent out spare rooms to strangers for short stays. Uber is an internet taxi service that allows tens of thousands of people to answer ride requests with their own cars. There are hundreds of other such services that involve the renting or selling of everything from power tools to used suits and wedding dresses.

The good thing about the sharing economy is that it facilitates the use of underutilized resources. There are millions of people with houses or apartments that have rooms sitting empty, and Airbnb allows them to profit from these empty rooms while allowing guests a place to stay at prices that are often far less than those charged by hotels. Uber offers prices that are competitive with standard taxi prices and their drivers are often much quicker and more reliable – and its drivers can drive as much or as little as they like, without making a commitment to standard shifts. Other services allow for items to be used productively that would otherwise be gathering dust.

But the downside of the sharing economy has gotten much less attention. Most cities and states both tax and regulate hotels, and the tourists who stay in hotels are usually an important source of tax revenue (since governments have long recognized that a modest hotel tax is not likely to discourage most visitors nor provoke the ire of constituents). But many of Airbnb's customers are not paying the taxes required under the law.

Airbnb can also raise issues of safety for its customers and nuisance for hosts' neighbors. Hotels are regularly inspected to ensure that they are not fire traps and that they don't pose other risks for visitors. Airbnb hosts face no such inspections – and their neighbors in condo, co-ops or apartment buildings may think they have the right not to be living next door to a hotel (which is one reason that cities have zoning restrictions).

Insofar as Airbnb is allowing people to evade taxes and regulations, the company is not a net plus to the economy and society – it is simply facilitating a bunch of rip-offs. Others in the economy will lose by bearing an additional tax burden or being forced to live next to an apartment unit with a never-ending parade of noisy visitors, just to cite two examples.

The same story may apply with Uber. Uber is currently in disputes with regulators over whether its cars meet the safety and insurance requirements imposed on standard taxis. Also, many cities impose some restrictions on the number of cabs in the hopes of ensuring a minimum level of earnings for drivers, but if Uber and related services (like Lyft) flood the market, they could harm all drivers' ability to earn even minimum wage.

This downside of the sharing needs to be taken seriously, but that doesn't mean the current tax and regulatory structure is perfect. Many existing regulations should be changed, as they were originally designed to serve narrow interests and/or have outlived their usefulness. But it doesn't make sense to essentially exempt entire classes of business from safety regulations or taxes just because they provide their services over the Internet.

Going forward, we need to ensure that the regulatory structure allows for real innovation, but doesn't make scam-facilitators into billionaires. For example, rooms rented under Airbnb should be subject to the same taxes as hotels and motels pay. Uber drivers and cars should have to meet the same standards and carry the same level of insurance as commercial taxi fleets.

If these services are still viable when operating on a level playing field they will be providing real value to the economy. As it stands, they are hugely rewarding a small number of people for finding a creative way to cheat the system.

Comment:

I'm an Airbnb host - I declare all of the income and pay tax on it, I spend the proceeds locally. None of it flows into an offshore account. None of pays accountants to be 'tax-effective'. How am I "not good for the economy"?

Articles like these will become more frequent as the hotel industry suffers from a migration of people who prefer to stay in friendly, homely, welcoming places rather than in the disdainful anonymity of a hotel. Perhaps hotels ought, instead of sponsoring agonised wails like this one, to ponder on what they can do to give people what they want.

When I travel, I usually stay with other Airbnb hosts, except sometimes when there's a citizenM hotel in the place I'm going to. Their model gives modern travellers what they really want - the comfiest beds, free Wifi, good coffee, clean, Eames-ish design, Macs and printers, lots of meeting rooms and spaces, a 24 hour bar/cafe/coffee shop with the feel of the sort of club you'd like to join. No snootiness, no snobbery, no servility. (And no, I'm not sponsored by them in any way).

Don't buy the 'sharing economy' hype: Airbnb and Uber are facilitating rip-offs | Dean Baker | Comment is free | theguardian.com
Why taxi drivers are going to war with Uber | World news | The Guardian
London cab drivers to protest Uber Technolgies Inc taxi-sharing APP that helps passengers save money | Mail Online

Uber (company) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Uber - London
Uber

To finish, from David Graeber on The First 5000 Years of Debt:

9 Things You Didn't Know About The History Of Debt (PHOTOS)

Posted: 07/29/11 02:43 PM ET

Debt seems to be everywhere in the news nowadays: debt ceilings, sovereign debt crises, credit crunches, senate battles over debt protection agencies, subprime mortgages, the creeping feeling that the United States has somehow hocked itself to China. It might cause one to wonder: how did all this happen? How did politics suddenly become all about who owes who how much money?

When I started researching my new book, "Debt: The First 5000 Years," it was partly to answer just such questions. What I discovered startled me. Credit systems, and with them, periodic debt crises, are as old as history. What's more, arguments about debt and debt forgiveness lie behind countless wars and revolutions, as well as behind the rise of Western philosophy, and just about all of the great world religions. They have come to shape every aspect of our lives in ways we are mostly completely unaware of.

Here are a few examples of what I found:

1) Virtual money is not new; actually, it's the original form of money.

1 of 10

Coinage was only invented around 600 BC, but expense accounts, bar tabs, and compounded interest rates go back to at least 3500 BC. For most of human history, money was an accounting tool, not something people carried around and actually used to buy things.

Money begins then as a way of calculating credits and debts.

Perhaps the most common debt instrument in ancient times was the tally stick: a piece of wood notched to indicate money owed, then broken in half. In medieval England, the half kept by the creditor was called the "stock," that by the debtor was called the "stub." Stocks could circulate from hand to hand, becoming, effectively, money; and, of course, they were impossible to counterfeit, since no two sticks ever break in precisely the same way.

The Greek word for such tallies was "symbolon," whence our term "symbol" derives. Oddly enough, in China, where bamboo tallies called "fu" were long used, the same thing happened: tallies are long since forgotten, but "fu" is still the Chinese word for "symbol."

David Graeber: 9 Things You Didn't Know About The History Of Debt (PHOTOS)
Debt: The First 5000 Years - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also:
Futures Forum: The Circular Economy
Futures Forum: "Climate democracy" - comment on climate change and sustainability from The Nation
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Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Community-led design from the Glass House

A very inspirational charity offering real help and excellent ideas:

The Glass-House is an independent national charity supporting and promoting public participation and leadership in the design of the built environment. We provide independent advice, training and hands-on support to community groups and organisations, housing associations, developers, local authorities and other stakeholders, to help them work more effectively together to create better quality places and spaces.

The Glass-House Community Led Design

With a very practical seminars and feedback available for communities:

London Deb

How can we unlock potential in people and places?

Place Potential, The Glass-House Debate Series 2013/14 set out to explore how we can unlock the potential of people and place through collaboration. We explored this question through four key themes – health and wellbeing, the role of young people in place, creative reuse and housing – with audiences across the UK.

Over 250 people attended debates in four UK cities – Edinburgh, Newcastle, Bristol and London – while contributions on our blog and via social media added many more voices and views.

Can we improve health through placemaking?
Can young people be placemakers?
Should we build less and reuse more?
Can housing be a catalyst for great places?

We’ve gathered the reflections and voices on these questions in a new publication – Reflections on The Glass-House Debate Series 2013/14.

These pages hold no clear solutions, only provocations, but we hope they will make you think more or differently about Place Potential and the power of collaborative placemaking. Use the Issuu viewer below to read the publication or download it here.

Reflections from The Glass-House Debate Series 2013/14

See also:
Futures Forum: Rural Services Network: and Neighbourhood Plans
Futures Forum: Civic Voice: and Neighbourhood Plans
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Monday, 26 May 2014

Political earthquakes in the South West

UKIP have swept the boards across the country, including the South West.

From the party itself:

UKIP stuns the political class with fantastic Euro results across the country

26th May 2014

UKIP recorded an historic win in the European Elections, results confirmed last night, returning 23 MEPs, almost double its number of MEPs from 2009, with counting still to be concluded in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

SOUTH WEST	Votes	%	MEPs	change +/-
UK Independence Party	484,184	32.29 (+10.23)	2	0
Conservative	433,151	28.89 (-1.36)	2	-1
Labour	206,124	13.75 (+6.09)	1	+1
Green	166,447	11.10 (+1.80)	1	+1
Liberal Democrat	160,376	10.70 (-6.49)	0	-1
An Independence From Europe	23,169	1.55 (0.00)	0	0
English Democrats	15,081	1.01 (-0.63)	0	0
British National Party	10,910	0.73 (-3.20)	0	0

UKIP Euro Results from across the country - UKIP

A summary from the Western Daily Press:

EU Elections 2014: Overview of South West results | Western Daily Press

And results from the Express & Echo:

RESULTS: UKIP and Conservatives top Southwest European elections as Labour wins in Exeter and UKIP take East Devon

By Exeter Express and Echo | Posted: May 25, 2014

UKIP and The Conservatives have topped the South West European Election polls with two MEPs each.

Prior to tonight's election the South West MEP make-up was three Conservatives, two UKIP and one Lib Dem.

After tonights elections the make-up is: Two UKIP, two Conservatives, one Labour and one Green.

It means the six MEPs representing the South West on the European Parliament are William Dartmouth (UKIP), Julia Reid (UKIP), Ashley Fox (Con), Julie Girling (Con), Claire Moody (Lab) and Molly Cato Scott (Green).

In the South West, UKIP won 24 of 38 areas, Tories won 11, Labour two and Lib Dems one with Gibraltar.

The Conservative vote is believed to be down 1.4% in South West with the UKIP vote up 10.3%.

In Exeter Labour topped the poll with 9608 seats, UKIP came second with 8801 followed by Conservatives with 7587 and Greens with 5244. The Turnout in Exeter was 40.82%.

In East Devon UKIP beat Conservatives with 14475 votes, Tories had 13647 votes followed by Green with 4975, Labour with 3623 and Lib Dems with 3085.

Southwest Turn Out:
View image on Twitter

RESULTS: UKIP and Conservatives top Southwest European elections as Labour wins in Exeter and UKIP take East Devon | Exeter Express and Echo

And another 'breakthrough':

Greens gain first ever South West MEP

By Exeter Express and Echo | Posted: May 26, 2014

Dr Molly Scott Cato has made history

by becoming the first Green Party MEP for the South West. The Green Party gained 11.2% of the vote in the European Election, taking the 6th seat out of six.

Speaking shortly after the results were announced, Molly Scott Cato said: “It is fantastic that the South West now has a Green voice in Europe. I would like to thank everyone who voted Green on Thursday, and I am looking forward to representing the South West in Brussels.

“The Greens are the only party with a clear and positive message on EU reform, which I think was attractive to voters and translated into the result we see today. Our ‘people before profit’ policies have really resonated with voters who have been looking for a viable alternative party which truly represents their values.”

Greens across the region celebrated as they saw their vote share

rise from 9.3% in 2009 to 11.2% in 2014.

Greens gain first ever South West MEP | Exeter Express and Echo

And another 'earthquake':

European Elections: Liberal Democrat's Sir Graham Watson loses seat as south Somerset wrapped up in UKIP 'political earthquake' | Western Gazette

The question will be, therefore, what 'political earthquakes' await East Devon next May...

SO, WHAT DO THE EURO ELECTIONS TELL US ABOUT OUR DISTRICT?
26th May

Well, it tells us that, on the right, there are 14,475 people in our district who preferred to vote UKIP to Tory.

It also says that there were 11,683 preferring to vote (in rough political terms) to the left of them.

That means 26,158 who don’t want to vote for the current majority party and 13,647 who do.

Rather worrying if you are a majority party member...

So, what do the Euro elections tell us about our district? | East Devon Alliance

Sunday, 25 May 2014

Healthcare in Devon: proposed framework for services now open to consultation

A concerned comment from Cllr Claire Wright earlier this month:

Devon NHS proposes major new changes in healthcare - but no local information included

Thursday, 15 May 2014 1 Comment by Claire

The NHS in Devon has launched an eight-week consultation, on a set of proposals for a new “strategic framework” in patient care.

It is likely to represent the biggest set of changes locally to community based healthcare in decades and proposes a shift away from hospital based care, to care in people’s homes.

However, no information about how the proposals affect communities has been included.

The document, which was published yesterday, has been expected for the last few months, but has been delayed a number of times.

We have discussed the thinking behind the process - known as “transforming community services” many times at Devon County Council’s health and wellbeing overview and scrutiny committee.

The NEW (North, East and West) Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, which has put together the document, has said it will publish proposals on how the proposed service changes might apply in each locality “in the near future.”

However, the document (or at least a draft version of it) must be submitted to NHS England for consideration by late June.

I have written to the chair of the health overview and scrutiny committee about my concern over the short deadline of 8 July for comments, combined with the lack of detail about how the proposals will affect communities.

A summary of the plans and full document can be found here - http://www.newdevonccg.nhs.uk/involve/community-services/101039

Comments

1. At 08:02 pm on 15th May Sandra Semple wrote:

I have never seen such a strange document: there is nothing in it that anyone can be consulted on! It uses no figures, gives us no evidence and is mostly just dreadful jargon which is used to distract us from the fact that it is actually saying nothing.

Buried in it is one reference to our area and I would be very grateful if anyone could tell me what it means:

We propose to move to a model consistent with Northern locality. This would mean re-procuring services for adults with complex needs within Eastern locality with the locality acute provider, accompanied by health and social care integration within the locality. This proposed geographically integrated model of delivery would support simplified patient flows and clinically enhanced services in Eastern Locality.

Devon NHS proposes major new changes in healthcare - but no local information included - Claire Wright

This is the BBC's reading of the policy proposals coming out of Devon NHS, or "NEW Devon CCG":

Plans to cut Devon community hospitals' inpatient beds

15 May 2014 Last updated at 16:43

NHS managers said they would have to deal with increased demands on services

Plans for fewer inpatient beds in community hospitals in Devon have been put forward by local health bosses.

The proposals by the Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG), also include changes to minor injury units.

Managers said the idea was to treat more people in their own homes.

The group, largely run by GPs, covers the entire county, except for Torbay and south Devon.

“Start Quote

We won't be taking all the hospital beds away”

Dr David JennerNEW Devon CCG

'Discussion process'

It said the proposed changes were not being made to save money in its £1.1bn annual budget, although it ended the last financial year with a £14.7m deficit.

Dr David Jenner from NEW Devon CCG said: "What we're really trying to do is look at options that don't require people to be in hospital where is safe and appropriate to do so.

"We won't be taking all the hospital beds away. We are looking at improving community services."

The group said it did not yet know how many beds might be removed and all plans would go through a "discussion process" with the public.

The CCG added it was looking at having to provide treatment for an estimated 22,000 people who would reach the age of 75 within the next seven years, increasing demand on current services.

BBC News - Plans to cut Devon community hospitals' inpatient beds

These are the proposals from the NEW Devon CCG:

Public urged to have their say over community services framework

NHS HEALTHCARE commissioners in Devon want to hear from the public after they published a proposed framework to ensure services are right for the future.

The publication of the report, ‘Integrated, personal and sustainable; community services for the 21^st century’comes after 12-months of discussions with public, clinical and professional communities about what patients really need.

It was produced by NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG) and offers proposals to change the way community hospitals, community nursing and urgent care services are delivered - to continue to improve quality for patients and against a backdrop of rising demand, demographic change and economic austerity.

The framework is based upon six recurrent themes from discussions with the public and other stakeholders, namely that future community services should:

Help people to stay well
Move towards prevention, self management and early help

Integrate care
Coordinate and integrate care to remove organisational barriers

Personalise support
Give people more choice and control over areas such as personal health budgets

Coordinate care pathways
Get the patient flows right and include responses to crises and ongoing care

Think carer, think family
Create mainstream services that are much more ‘carer aware’

Home as the first choice
Greater emphasis on more personalised and responsive care packages at home.

Dr David Jenner said: “GPs have been commissioning local health services since this time last year. We have listened local people and believe we can continue to improve services for patients, design services to meet health needs and improve quality too.

“We’ve listened members of the public, GPs, and other important stakeholders before putting pen to paper on the draft strategic framework and now we want to test this with others.

“There is the potential to really address the challenges of the 21^st century - and to make every penny count so we can achieve integrated, personal and sustainable services for our patients, friends and loved ones in future.”

The report says that by 2021 – just 7 years from now – there will 22,000 more people (26 per cent increase) aged over 75 living in the area – we need to plan effective services for the older generation. We know people prefer to be at home with the right support, but we also know that we need to rethink the way care is designed.

If not addressed quickly, we know that the number of over 65s being admitted to hospital will rise by 2 per cent a year – we need to make a change.

To address this, the framework recommends:

·         Putting a greater emphasis on preventing disease and ill health and giving people more control through personalisation of their care.

·         Increasing the availability and range of out-of-hospital services to ensure people are able to live independently for longer

·         Developing community hospitals in new ways - inpatient beds where they are needed but with some innovated models of ‘health and wellbeing hubs’ so as to serve local people for the future.

·         Establishing a small number of urgent care centres which can see, treat and complete care for more people, while reducing the overall number of MIUs.

Some of what is proposed in the strategic framework is already underway in parts of Devon although the document proposes that the work should accelerate. More in depth work is needed for other areas and we will be sharing more detailed proposals and giving opportunities to comment in the coming weeks and months.

Health and wellbeing hubs are being developed in Budleigh Salterton and
Moretonhampstead – with local groups leading the way, working with the NHS to plan and organise future service provision.

In Tiverton, local people worked with the NHS to develop a specification for a 8am-10pm GP-led minor injuries unit. For case studies see appendix a.

The CCG wants people to have their say until on the overall strategy from now until July 8.

For full details go to http://www.newdevonccg.nhs.uk/involve/community-services/101039

Public to have their say over community services framework
NHS NEW Devon CCG - Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group
Healthcare commissioners seek public opinion (From This is The West Country)

Together with ideas for Budleigh:

Development of a health and wellbeing hub in Budleigh Salterton Hospital

Doctors, NHS managers and the voluntary sector have joined with local people and organisations to help secure the future of Budleigh Salterton Hospital by turning it into a hub for community services.

The community-led vision within Budleigh Salterton is to create a well-being hub based around the community hospital, which is run by Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust, bringing together the social care and the voluntary sector, including an intergenerational aspect appealing to all members of the community.

Local people in Budleigh Salterton asked for their opinion on new town health and wellbeing hub

See also:
Futures Forum: The Future of Health in Sidmouth: Clinical Commissioning Group for Eastern Devon
Futures Forum: The Future for Health in Sidmouth: Clinical Commissioning Group: Lay Member
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