Save Our Sidmouth

Category Archives: East Devon Alliance


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Unreliable statistics again, from EDDC?

Has East Devon District Council miscalculated once again? The 13,000 per annum figure (quoted on Radio Devon last week by Council Leader, Paul Diviani) for the number of visitors to the Knowle, seems remarkably low.
If the Knowle is open for 250 days a year, then this would equate to 52 visitors per day, that is, one every ten minutes, or just six per hour. In reality, there is almost always someone waiting at reception. The actual number is likely to be far greater than 13,000, so where did that figure come from? Was it derived solely from people signing in at the front desk? Does it include the many who don’t sign in; those members of the public who attend meetings; and attendances at private events?
Should the estimate be at least four times the 13,000 figure? Erroneous statistics were given at the time of the Knowle planning application. Is the same happening again?

Councillors and others will certainly want to get to the bottom of this, and to thoroughly check the reliability of other Knowle relocation figures, before any further steps are taken.

Big questions will be asked at the Full Council meeting (26 February, 6.30 p.m at Knowle)..which is expected to be …full!


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Call for call-in of Cabinet’s decision to move to Skypark

The following e-mail, dated 14 February 2014, has been sent to Overview and Scrutiny Committee Chair, Tim Wood, by Peter Whitfield of Save our Sidmouth. It is published here with Mr Whitfield’s permission:

Councillor,

As chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee you will be aware of the dismissive attitude of some senior council members towards the strongly expressed motions passed at the 30 January OSC meeting in relation to the relocation project.

We are told that the next full council meeting on Wednesday week will consider the Cabinet’s motion to relocate to Skypark, although the agenda has not yet been published. We do not therefore know whether your motions will appear on that agenda or, if they do, whether they will be put ahead of the Cabinet recommendation.

As it is apparently standard procedure for your minutes to be passed by Cabinet before becoming valid and it will not be meeting again before 26th Feb it seems possible that that may be used as an excuse for excluding your motions.

If that should happen can I ask that you consider calling an emergency meeting of your committee to call in the Cabinet’s decision as your published remit allows and thus prevent a premature decision being pushed through by the leadership in the face of much public bemusement by the Skypark location, and the lack of any published evidence as to why it was the best option as the decision was taken in a Part B session.

You are the public’s primary bulwark against ill advised or otherwise dubious decisions made by other arms of the council and we ask that you stand up for us on this issue.

Thank you

Peter Whitfield
Sidmouth