Ashley Mooney

It now turns out that Essex county Council have decide that it is just too difficult to have the lights back on in some places but not in others. In reply to a letter from Neil Stock (Con), leader of Tendring District Council, David Finch (Con), leader of Essex County Coucil, writes that this would be “administratively costly and unworkable”. You can see the full letter here – D Finch Response re Street Lighting – 17 Dec 15

Finally, when pressed to commit to a figure Cllr Finch tells us that it will cost £128,599.87 in the first year to keep the lights on, with no guarantee that this figure will not rise in future years. You can see the letter from Cllr Finch setting this out here – D Finch Response re Part Night Lighting – 4 Jan 16 .

I realise that, whilst Essex county Council have a legal responsibility to provide street lighting, the level at which this must be done is not closely defined. So, they [probably] have a legal right to turn off the light between 1:00am and 5:00am. However, to say that this has to be done for the whole of Tendring, because of the admin involved, is feeble beyond words. And then to pass on a bill for £130k pa to Tendring is more than my sense of humour is able to handle.

Now, there is something that you can do about this, You do not have to wait until 2019 when the next Tendring District Council elections are held. You get to vote for Essex County councillors in May 2017. Sadly not in this year. So, please make a note in your diary, tie a knot in your handkerchief, or whatever method you use. Just be sure that you do not vote these muppets back in for another term. Resolve now to never, never again vote Conservative.

Update:- I have now received this from the Senior Democratic Service Officer at Tendring District Council, “the meeting of that [Local Plan] Committee due to have been held on Thursday 10 March 2016 has been cancelled as there is no business to be transacted. There is no other scheduled meeting of the Committee in this current municipal year”. Really! Having pressed ahead with a housing figure that is too high, they now plan to assemble the Local Plan with no democratic oversight at all. Flabbergasted, doesn’t get close.

Thank you to all those who attended the meeting of the Local Plan Committee on Thursday night.

Sadly, the Country Club that currently runs Tendring District Council (Conservatives and their not so independent friends) pressed ahead and approved a figure of 550 dwellings per annum (dpa). That is 550 new houses to be built in Tendring, every year until 2032, or 9,350 new houses over the 17 year period. This is an improvement over the 705dpa, or 11,985 new houses originally proposed by the Conservatives. UKIP can take enormous credit for dragging the Country Club even this far.

However, it is still the wrong number . I did propose an amendment that read as follows: “That recommendations b) & c) be replaced with the following: b) recognises that there remain substantial reasons to believe that a figure below 480 dpa is the appropriate Objectively Assessed Housing Needs figure for Tendring District Council; and c) approves for Development Management purposes that the Objectively Assessed Needs be set at 480 dpa whilst officers continue to identify the correct figure, including delivering against resolution 22.b) at the Local Plan Committee meeting held on 12^th Nov 2015.” The public present were kind enough to support my contribution with a warm round of applause.

Councillors voting against this amendment, and in favour of the 550 figure, were: Cllr Tom Howard (Con, Beaumont and Thorpe), Cllr Carlo Guclielmi (Con, Manningtree, Mistley, Little Bentley and Tendring), Cllr Andy Baker (Con, Lawford), Cllr Mark Platt (Con, Hamford), Cllr Daniel Land (Con, Beaumont and Thorpe), Cllr Mick Skeels Senior (Coastal Independent, St Johns), Cllr Neil Stock (Con, Ardleigh and Little Bromley), Cllr Nick Turner (Con, Frinton). Cllr Gary Scott (Lib Dem, Alresford) abstained and Cllr Mike Talbot (Independent, St Osyth and Point Clear) arrived after this vote was taken. We are where we are because Tendring did vote for a Conservative lead administration. If we wish to avoid this kind of mistake in the future the residents of Tendring have it in their own hands – they simply have to stop voting for the Conservatives and their [not very] Independent friends.

One other point of interest at this meeting was the award of £640k from central government to Tendring, Colchester and Braintree district councils, along with Essex County Council, to evaluate the possibility of building and entirely new “Garden City” in this general area. I have not had a detailed briefing, but I understand there are four lead candidates. Possibly the front runner at this stage is a development on the borders of Colchester and Tendring, centred on Essex university. Clearly major investment in infrastructure would be needed. Without seeing any detail it is not possible to be for or against at this stage, but it is at least possible that such a development could be beneficial to Tendring.

 

The next meeting of your Local Plan Committee is this Thursday at the council offices in Weeley (Thorpe Road, Weeley, CO16 9AJ) starting at 18:00 (6:00pm). The reason for making this special appeal is that I fear the Country Club majority on the committee (Conservatives and their [not very independent] Independent friends) are planning to force through a draft Local Plan that contains a figure for new houses that is OBVIOUSLY TOO HIGH. It would be excellent if a lot of residents came and made their views known.

In this endeavour they are being ably assisted by the officer responsible for the development of the local plan is Simon Meecham. He is not a Tendring resident and is not directly employed by Tendring District Council. He is a director of Paradigm Planning and Economics who has been employed as a consultant. He will be gone the moment a local plan is approved. For those with the interest you can see what Mr Meecham says about himself on his LinkedIn Profile . In my view, he has an interest in getting a plan in place, but no interest in getting the right plan in place.

 

The heart of the problem is this graph. We are currently being presented with a population forecast for Tendring that rises sharply from now until 2037, despite the fact that the population has been flat from 2001 until now. The forecast driving the plan is the blue one entitled 480 dpa (not quite the highest forecast on this graph), which translates into a requirement for Tendring to build 550 houses per year; once ugly, but possibly unavoidable, add-ons have been added on.

I have written to Mr Meecham, copied to all the members of the Local Plan committee, about this and you may read that letter by clicking on this link Local Plan eMail 2016 01. You might click on the link just to get a clearer look at the graph.

At short notice, on Thursday 17th December there was another presentation to councillors by John Hollis, on behalf of Peter Brett Associates, of a further revision to the Objectively Assessed Housing Needs (OAHN) figure for Tendring. Their original figure was 705 dwellings per annum (dpa), which had previously been reduced to 597dpa. During this presentation the reduced this number further to 550dpa (actually chosen as  mid-point in a range from 480-600dpa). In terms of headline numbers over the 17 year plan period these figures amount to; 11,985, 10,149 and 9,350 houses. This is a [small] step in the right direction, but it is still the WRONG number.

For those of you with the will to go through these things the presentation may be found here John Hollis Nov 2015. John Hollis is now retired, but remains quite possibly the most eminent demographer in the country. He is demographer royalty!

In this presentation you will find, on slide 10 ,that John Hollis has corrected for the Unattributable Population Change (UPC). However, we still do not kinow what calculations he performed to do this.

For those not familiar with this subject the UPC is the “missing” people in the 2011 census. Based on the 2001 census the demographers worked out how many people should be in Tendring over the following years. Yet when the 2011 census results came in there were the same number of people in Tendring as in 2001, rather than the 10,500 increase that the demographers had projected. The UPC is a negative 10,500 – which is huge. The total population of Tendring is around 138,000.

The central mystery of this whole local process is how a flat population trend, as show by the 2001 and 2011 censuses, has morphed into a rising population once Peter Brett have finished their work. The actual calculations need to be reviewed, and quite possibly the total fertility rate (TFR) used.

I have heard third hand that a TFR of 2.3 has actually been used. That would be ridiculous as the national TFR is only about 2.1. And it is as high as it is only because immigrants have a higher TFR, at around 2.3. The non-immigrant TFR is around 1.9. As a matter of FACT there are very few immigrants in Tendring.

The last local plan committee meeting passed a resolution requiring the officers to provide the calculations that are driving the dwellings per annum figures. The minutes may be found at Local Plan Committee Minutes Nov 2015 Look at the bottom of section 22.

Without sight of the calculations, we are sadly none the wiser. I will continue to press for that to happen.

Update – Please do look at this 5min video from a co-founder of Greenpeace: http://prageruniversity.com/Environmental-Science/What-They-Havent-Told-You-about-Climate-Change.html#.Vc4sj_lViko

Happy New Year to you all!

I realise global Warming is not a Tendring Specific issue. However, it is a special interest of mine and I was recently challenged to show where it get my information from. Having done this piece of work, I thought I would share it more widely.

Atmospheric CO₂ comes from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/. This comes from an observatory on Mauna Loa and does suffer from the problem that there is significant human intervention. I gather 85% of the data points recorded are manually rejected. Nonetheless, I am not aware that anyone is challenging rise from c1950 to the current day from about 0.3% to about 0.4% (ie about 33%). This dataset is seasonal. Though presumably a global figure would not be. The trend is pretty much a straight line – slight upward curve. Whether it is man-made or not is another question, though presumably the burning of fossil fuels and cutting down of rain forest must have some effect.

Polar ice extent comes from http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/ – One tab for the Arctic and another for the Antarctic. The Antarctic graph shows steady growth of about 0.5-1.0% per decade. The Arctic graph shows a decline of 4-5% per decade. However, that is to take a trend through two inflections. Arctic ice is actually fairly stable up to the mid-1990’s, then it falls through to the early/mid 2000’s and is flat since then. 2006 is the low point and the 2015 minimum was the 6^th lowest on record. The fall from pre-1990 levels to post-2010 levels was about 1m Km² in a total of around 11m Km² (ie about 10%). There is more polar ice now than there was a decade ago, but 10% less than there was 30 years ago.

Note:- Polar ice extent is from satellite data, with minimal human intervention.

Global temperatures come from http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/. The one to look for is Global TLT. TLT is Temperature Lower Troposphere, the troposphere is the 15-20 Km above the surface of the earth. So the lower troposphere is the bit in touch with the earth. This shows stable temperatures through to the early 1990’s, then it rises through to 1998 and is flat since then. The rise from pre-1990 levels to post 2000 levels is around 0.4^oC. The fall in arctic ice lags the rise in temperature by about five years.

Note:- This global temperature info is from satellite data with minimal human intervention. I have previously used http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html but that requires significant intervention by people who are paid by the global warming lobby.

I have no source for sea level rises – because sea levels are not rising! I know of no credible source for any evidence of sea level rises. There are sporadic reports of islands in the Ganges delta being lost or Pacific islands inundated. However, if these are not from fanciful researchers, they will be down to erosion or changes in land level. If there is a global rise in sea levels, then it will be happening worldwide – that is the nature of water (and indeed worldwide).

Will the world succeed in keeping temperatures to less than 2^oC above pre-industrial levels? Of course – our glorious leaders would not be able to push temperatures above that level even if they tried!

It is such a shame that the environmental debate focuses on CO₂ emissions rather than habitat conservation and species/genetic diversity.

 

Back in August, I  brought to your attention the immigration figure for the 12 months to the end of June 2015 of 636,000 people, including 132,000 returning Brits. These figures come from the International Passenger Survey and there have been requests to HMRC for detail on the National Insurance Numbers (NINo’s) issued over the same period.

HMRC have confirmed that they do have this information but say that it is covered by an exemption for information “held for the formulation or development of government policy”. They have declined to release the detail saying that “HMRC is satisfied that the public interest in maintaining the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosure”.

However we do have NINo figures from the department of Work and Pensions (DWP). These tell us that 917,000 NINo’s were issued to “adult overseas nationals” in the 12 months to June 2015. Some of these may have come here for less than 12 months and would therefore not classify as immigrants under the IPS. Returning Brits would already have NINO’s, so we might expect from the IPS numbers that there would be only 524,000 NINo’s issued to “adult overseas nationals”.

When you add in the children and non-working adults (parents?) coming with these “adult overseas nationals” it would seem that the actual immigration figure for the 12 months to June 2015 is probably about double the IPS figure used by David Cameron and regularly quoted in the press.

What a pity that our government does not trust us to know what the real figures are!

I am indebted again to Peter Cawthron for bringing this to my attention. He writes at more length on the UKIP Clacton website http://ukipclacton.com/wp/.

 

This post is to share some of the issues that have been raised with me. Hopefully this will give some insight into what I have been doing, and can do, for you. I shall leave planning issues to another post. In all cases I have called upon the expert advice of council officers.

One constituent raised a problem with a car being offered for sale in a parking spot on Third Avenue, next to the playing fields. The parking is clearly intended for those using the playing fields. It turns out that offering a vehicle for sale on a public highway is not allowed. The constituent now has the direct phone number for the relevant officer, though the car has not reappeared.

I was asked to see what could be done to prevent reported drinking, smoking and substance abuse in the skate board park at Clacton Leisure Centre. I met with the manager and they are well aware that this is sometimes an issue. If it can be raised with them at the time then they will attempt to deal with it. This is [clearly] not an easy conversation to have. However, the young people using this space do take some ownership of it and do engage is some “self-policing”. On the policing, the cuts to PCSO’s have meant that they now carry out almost almost no surveillance.

Another constituent raised the problem of teachers at Shorefields school parking in adjacent roads, especially Southcliff Park. The particular issue here is that Shorefields is a Special School, with a teacher to pupil ratio that is above one. So parking is a day long issue and not just at the beginning and end of the day. The issue is particularly acute in Southcliff Park, which has essentially become a single track road, that is to say essentially unusable at busy times. TDC officers visited more than once and advised that the cars were legally parked and would not prevent the access of emergency vehicles. I met with the head teacher and they offered to include a request to teachers not to park in Southcliff Park in future. Clearly they will park somewhere, presumably in the Gardens and in Eastcliff Avenue [where I live]. Shorefields School is widely recognised as doing an important job very well. So, if the teachers free up Southcliff Park then the rest of us will just have to accept that any inconvenience is a contribution we make to the harmony of our community.

On the examples so far, I felt I was able to make some progress. When I was asked to support that placing of a plaque on the seafront I was met with implacable opposition from the relevant officer and the Portfolio Holder (Cllr Nick Turner [Con]). The person concerned’s partner had enjoyed watching the new beach being constructed before they passed away. The request was for a plaque to be sited overlooking a particular bay. The resident was willing to pay for the plaque and its installation. Two difficulties were raised. First, that placing the plaque would damage the sea defences, which I regard as the worst sort of “jobsworth’ism” that should have been confined to the 1950’s. Second, that if we allow one then we will be overwhelmed and the seafront would be covered in plaques, rather like all those locks on that bridge over the Seine in Paris. After some discussion, a solution was outlined where; only residents could have a plaque, and that the plaque would be taken down after a set period (maybe 5 years). Instead of a sensible arrangement, I am afraid I lost this one.

So, by and large, good people doing the best they can. And if you want a more responsive council, then please, please make sure that you never, ever vote conservative again!

 

 

There has been a lot of activity behind the scenes over the last few weeks, some frustrating and some possibly hopeful.

Please allow me to remind you as to why we are so certain that the current Dwellings Per Annum (dpa) target figure of 597 is simply WRONG. Between 2001 ans 2014 Tendring actually built 365 dpa against a plan target of 425 dpa. The Objectively Assessed Housing Needs (OAHN) study from Peter Brett Associates (PBA), commissioned by TDC, found that ” the downturn in delivery owed more to constrained demand than constrained supply”.  The population in Tendring was flat between the 2001 census and the 2011 census. Somehow the OAHN manages to turn a flat population trend, where 365 dpa did not restrict supply, into a future requirement of 597 dpa.

The motion at the last Local Plan committee required TDC planning officers to “investigate”. If they did that it was not apparent to councillors or members of the public. A “workshop” was arranged with the PBA consultant who carried out this work. However, that turned out to be mere repetition – a presentation of their earlier work. I then wrote to the relevant TDC planning officer with specific suggestions for the way forward. You may read the reply here 261015 OAN Cllr Mooney. The identity of the officer concerned has been protected. I am sure you find this response as frustrating as I do. However, I am sure the officer is only doing what they have been asked to do by the Conservative [lead] administration.

Having checked with the TDC head of planning that no further “investigation” as planned, I wrote to Cllr Stock (Con), chairman of the Local Plan Committee and his reply is here Stock Reply. Cllr stock is an elected representative and I see no reason to protect his identity in this case. Again, pretty frustrating.

So it was a surprise last Thursday evening at the Local Plan Committee meeting when we were informed that further work had opened up the possibility of a reduction in the 597 dpa figure after all. Members of the Local Plan Committee were made aware that this work was underway on the morning of the Local Plan committee meeting and have not been made aware of the details.

When it came to vote on a resolution to continue the work to establish the OAHN dpa housing figure, I proposed an amendment that this work should involve sharing the data and calculations that the PBA consultant was using. Without this the consultant is just pulling a rabbit out of a black box. To my surprise the amendment was approved. There was some confusion over the wording of the motion that was actually approved. However, when we see the minutes I do think the officers will finally let us see under the hood.

It has been a bit of a struggle, but it finally seems that we will be able to engage in a meaningful, mathematical way with the OAHN study findings. Given that the findings so far are obviously WRONG, I am hopeful that we will be able to achieve a lower OAHN dpa figure that will command broad support amongst councillors and residents.

Following the motion in the Local Plan Committee, TDC offciers arranged for the PBA consultants who carried out the Objectively Assessed Housing Needs (OAHN) study to meet with interested parties. Sadly, all they did was to present the report that they had previously submitted. I phoned the TDC Planning Officer (Cath Bicknell) and she confirmed that she had no further actions planned to discharge the Local Plan committee motion. So I wrote the note below to her, copied to the Chairman of the Local Plan Committee (Neil Stock [Con], also Leader of the Council):

I understood from our phone conversation on Monday morning that you feel no other actions are necessary to deliver against the motion at the last local plan meeting to seek a lower dpa figure from PBA. The meeting with the PBA consultant last Thursday was a repetition of the contents of the last PBA report. As such it fulfils neither the letter nor the spirit of the motion “to go back to the authors of the above-mentioned study to investigate the matters raised by the Committee in respect of figures and assumptions in the study and to explore the possibility of revising its conclusions with a view to setting lower housing growth figures for Tendring”.

The PBA consultant did highlight some of the many opportunities to achieve a lower DPA target figure. These include:

• Define a different HMA:- Possibly Colchester and Tendring. Different consultants?
• Population forecasts:- I believe that we were told that the revised approach to the UPC left a flat trend between the censuses. So, investigate the data/maths in detail to understand how a flat 2001 – 2011 trend becomes a 280dpa figure on a 5 year trend and 479dpa on a 10 year trend.
• Demographics :- At some point in the process, possibly prior to getting to 479dpa, PBA have taken into account; increased migration from a larger UK population, smaller households, longer lives. We should see the data/maths for these. Increased UK population is down to international immigration, which does not come to Tendring, and there is no data to support a decrease in household size during the plan period. Longer lives is [presumably] correct, but offset by people working longer. We should see the data/maths.
• Housing restriction:- The consultant was very keen that there was evidence a restriction in housing supply, in the face of the house price facts and ignoring affordability data. Indeed contradicting their own report. Failing that he said we would pick up a 10% or 20% uplift because there had been a gap when we did not have an approved plan in place. The rationale for this stance on uplift requires further investigation.
• EPOA jobs adjustment:- We need to see the data/maths on this. It may very well be that there is a need for more people to maintain the working age population, but this does not all have to be done in dpa. A fall in unemployment would be welcome.

No doubt other opportunities to deliver a lower dpa from the OAHN study will emerge.

Please could I ask that Tendring DC now engage in a material way to achieve a lower dpa figure for the Local Plan. I recognise that a great deal of the details will be undertaken by TDC officers. However, I, and I am sure others, are more than willing to engage in this process and wish TDC officers to be fully transparent about any meetings, questions and answers.

If you feel that a meeting of some (or all?) of those copied on this email with TDC planning officers would help, then I am sure that can be arranged. Would you be able to advise as to whether a motion at the next Local Plan Committee (or full council?) would help to move this forward?

I have constructive responses from both. Let’s see how this turns out.

Clacton police station will remain open! Three cheers for that. UKIP, and Douglas Carswell in particular, has lead the fight to keep it open, though it is fair to say that this campaign has had broad-based support.

The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Essex and the Chief Constable for Essex have now published their proposals for policing in Tendring in this flier; District – TENDRING 2015 10 . The highlights are:

• Clacton police station to remain open.
• Front counter of Harwich police station to close.
• 13 of the current 26 PCSOs will go.

Over the whole of Essex, PCSOs are being reduced from 250 to 60 and the police estate is being reduced from 25 stations open to the public to 10.

Clearly this is a significant reduction in the police presence. The proposal for Tendring states that the new Community Policing Team; “will not deal with low level non-policing matters such as long-term neighbourhood disputes, low level anti-social behaviour and parking issues, but will work alongside partners, for example the local authority and Community Safety Partnership, who will address these matters.” I am not aware that Tendring DC has plans, or resources, to pick up this responsibility.

It is clearly a good thing that Clacton Police station is no longer under threat. However, it has to be worrying that the Essex PCC, conservative Nick Alston, has been so invisible since he was elected back in 2012. On Wednesday 11th November 2015 he will make his first major public lecture since he was elected. His role is to represent the views of the people of Essex to the Authorities, especially the Essex Chief Constable and the Home Office. Instead he seems to have been captured by the machine and reduced to representing the views of the authorities to the people of Essex.

Given the level of opposition within Essex to these cuts, I would have expected Nick Alston to have reservations about these proposals. If he does, we do not know that they are. And that really is not good enough. Maybe he agrees privately, since he is not standing again at the next election in May 2016. That will be an opportunity to elect a PCC who will be more visible, and clear that their role is to represent us to the authorities, not the other way around.