Save Our Sidmouth


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SOS challenge to Energy and Consultancy figures…relocation project leader’s reply.

The Chair of SOS has received this e-mail dated 7th Jan 2015:

Mr Thurlow

You have lately written to us on a number of occasions and matters. As well as your queries regarding energy cost calculations you have asked several questions regarding use of consultancy which Kate Symington has passed to me to consider.

My responses are as follows:

Energy cost projections

The projected future increase in energy costs is a conservative reflection of the past decade of actual energy cost increases. Were we to project future energy costs at the exact same rate as the past 10 years experience then the cost saving argument for relocation would be even more compelling. The Council’s relocation will allow it to reduce its energy bills and its energy consumption significantly.

Consultancy

You are also interested in our use of Heynes Planning to provide planning advice. Their work is ongoing and, when it is completed, the contract will remain confidential not least because knowledge of the content could be unfairly advantageous to competitors in any future bidding the company may wish to undertake. We will review the continued confidentiality at a future date.

The threshold for single tender action is £5,000. With regard to total monies paid to Heynes Planning, the company is providing unrelated services elsewhere in the district for EDDC having been commissioned as part of a competitive tendering process for a sum greater than the threshold.

Lastly, ‘prompt’ in the context that Kate has used it means done in a timely manner rather than late. I hope that clears up your concern.

Regards

Richard Cohen
Deputy Chief Executive
East Devon District Council
Knowle
Sidmouth
EX10 8HL


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‘Leader’s assertion that the move (from Knowle) will be “cost neutral” are ever more fanciful’, says SOS Chair.

Yet more proof of the vehement opposition to EDDC’s office relocation project, are the no less than three letters in today’s Sidmouth Herald ‘Opinion’ page.

Michael Temple’s letter exhorts MP Hugo Swire to “view with his own eyes” Knowle’s existing purpose-built office block and “magnificent area of public gardens”, that the District Council is intent on selling to a developer.
Another letter (name and address supplied) is from an employee at Exmouth Town Hall, saying that “Parking is almost non-existent and it is impossible to conduct council business (there) satisfactorily”
(The Town Hall is one of two sites chosen for office relocation now that the Skypark option has proved unviable.) “It seems this is just lurching from one idea to another at the taxpayers’ expense” , claims the writer, who concludes with the comment, “Thank goodness an election is coming up”.

And Save Our Sidmouth’s view is also published, as follows:

‘I wrote recently sympathising with EDDC about their misfortunes in their heroic efforts to relocate from the Knowle. Now again, I have to commiserate with them, because the MP for East Devon, Hugo Swire has asked them to postpone the project until the future of Local Government becomes clearer. And he says that he is very unhappy about losing 400 jobs from Sidmouth, And that he feels that more investigation should take place into staying at the Knowle.

To think that the senior Conservative in the area does not agree with them! What a blow! And how unfortunate!

But I am sure that they will overcome this with their usual display of arrogance and short-sightedness. The esteemed dear Leader, Paul Diviani, has already laid out the path for the faithful to follow when he says that “he will not back down”.

How good it is to know that our Council is prepared to continue to justify the move in the face of increasing opposition. How good it is to know that that our Council will not back down, even when it is clear that figures they use to justify the move, ( e.g. the Energy Costs savings over 20 years), are wrong. How reassuring it is when the Council maintains its composure even when the financial and economic case for the move looks ever shakier.

Clearly it is becoming ever more certain that the dear Leader’s assertion that the move will be “cost neutral” are ever more fanciful.

But who will ever know, in the mists of the future? What a piece of luck!!

Richard Thurlow
Chair Save Our Sidmouth’