Somerset this week: 12 January
This week the fall out of Somerset Council's financial emergency continues to infect the county and its finances. As does the issue of flooding....
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Somerset this week: 12 January
Reality check
This week the Area South Committee of Somerset Council passed plans to build 400 houses at Canal Way in Ilminster. The fact the plans were passed, despite the overwhelming opposition of local people, was not a surprise.
What was a surprise was that our old friend the 5 Year Land Supply never really raised its head. The fact that Ilminster hasn’t the infrastructure to support a development that will increase the population of the town by 20% is not interesting to planners.
They simply pointed to the fact it was a preferred site in the Local Plan which had been approved democratically. All true of course. But what that has to do with the infrastructure of the town is somewhat less clear.
Even less clear was the approach to flooding. Sue Osborne is the Somerset Councillor for the area. She had a conflict of interest but exercised her right to speak before leaving the room for the debate and decision. Cllr Osborne pointed out that the land floods. She provided photos to the meeting to show the land flooded.
The planners did not deny that the fields flood. Not to worry though. They made reassuring noises about the Environment Agency having no objection. They added that the Lead Local Flood Authority was confident that if all the prevention measures included in the plans were put in place, there would be no problem.
That is one version of reality.
This is another one.
Significant flooding occurred in the town centre of Ilminster and Chard in 2021. Something that had not been seen previously in the modern era. Something that also followed a series of building developments in both towns.
In each development planners had assured councillors and residents that there was no risk of flooding. That neither run off, the problem of moving a flooding problem further down the street, or the capacity of flood prevention measure on site would be an issue.
Yet in 2021 there was a problem. A very serious problem. One that would suggest that when councillors are looking at an application, it is not good enough to take the assurances of other consultees, such as the Lead Local Flood Authority, at face value.
it is not good enough to take the assurances of consultees…… at face value
At the very least they should be willing to challenge those assurances and measure them against the facts. Including measuring previous statements made by the same authorities against the facts.
The fact is that previous assurances have been given on other developments. Those assurances are now questionable. To what extent did these “once in a generation” floods in Ilminster and Chard arise as a direct consequence of new developments with inadequate flood measures in place.
All we know is that developments happened. Then major flooding happened. Cause and effect needs to be examined. The words of planners and consultees are utterly irrelevant. It is the facts on the ground that count.
As to Canal Way, who knows. Perhaps it will not have a significant impact on flooding. Or perhaps the next time there is significant rainfall Ilminster will have even worse floods.
Either way, taking the word of consultees and planners at face value without challenge, is perhaps a little risky.
Million pound Shepton
Following a town council meeting on Tuesday (9 January) Shepton Mallet became the latest town council in Somerset to join the millionaires club. Councils whose precept is over £1m per annum.
Other members of the club include Taunton, Frome, Wells , Bridgwater, and Yeovil.
The increased precept flows from the implications of the financial emergency declared by Somerset Council. Towns and parishes are being invited to take over assets from Somerset Council, but for the most part, without funds to support running them. Which means the towns and parishes need to raise more money from local people via the council tax.
Last year Shepton Mallet raised a precept (council tax) of £715,750 for 2022/23. For 2023/24 the precept has now been set at £1,058,142. That’s an increase of 48%.
the precept has now been set at £1,058,142
That said, Shepton has taken unusual steps to involve local people with the process of setting the budget for the year ahead. The budget was put together through a process involving committee rounds, public workshops, and scrutiny.
What will the good folks of Shepton Mallet get for their money?
For a start £32,000 has been set aside for community grants. Whilst this is something Shepton Mallet has done in the past, knowing that Somerset Council proposes to slash the budget for community grants to zero may well have been at the back of councillors minds in Shepton.
£212,000 in the budget is set aside for negotiation and acquisition of assets from Somerset Council. The exact nature of what may be acquired cannot be known before the negotiations begin in earnest. Verity Jones, the Town Council’s Marketing Officer told us: “All assets and services are on the table for discussion, the ones of most interest to the Town Council are parks, open spaces and the market.”
Perhaps the town also had half an eye to the fact that Somerset Council has plans to slash investment in tourism to zero. The Town Council budget includes £47,411 to be spent on: “a dozen events and projects”. This is probably prudent planning under the circumstances.
Toilets in Wells
In December the finance committee of Wells City Council also considered some of the financial implications of Somerset Council’s financial emergency. Whilst Wells has yet to set a budget and precept for 2024/25 they are already talking about putting in a reserve of an extra £100,000. This will cover any devolution of services down from Somerset Council.
One area that is under active consideration though is the toilet block in the Union Street Car Park. Councillors have been made aware that this could be something Somerset Council would like to divest.
Clerks from councils in and around Wells are due to meet with Somerset Council this month to see what is on offer.
Saxonvale
Whilst nothing is set in stone as yet (nor has so much as a stone been laid) the Saxonvale site in Frome may be about to be sold on. The majority of the site was owned by Mendip District Council and thus passed to Somerset Council when the unitary council was created on 1 April 2023.
Since then a judge has thrown out the planning consent granted to Acorn Developments, Mendip District Council’s preferred development partner. The Acorn plans were widely opposed by the Town Council and local residents. Mendip District Council chose to ignore local opinions.
Nor is the Acorn plan a dead duck. Even though the judge has thrown out the planning permission granted, Somerset Confidential understands Acorn is resubmitting new plans for approval. Or at least it was…..
A second group with plans for the site, Mayday Saxonvale, does have the widespread backing of local residents and the town council. Their plans have now moved up a gear in the hope of displacing Acorn’s proposals with something local people actually want.
Then last week, on 4 January at the Scrutiny Committee for Corporate and Resources, it became apparent that Somerset Council wants to sell the site. In the rush to raise cash this is hardly a surprise. But it raises the questions, how much for and who to?
The logical place to start would be the two groups who were interested in developing the site with Somerset Council: Acorn and Mayday Saxonvale.
We asked Frome Town Council what they made of the latest developments. They told us: “We are aware of the review of assets and the areas that it is focusing on. Regarding the sale of Saxonvale, Mayday Saxonvale are currently in discussions with Somerset Council and we understand that Acorn will be submitting a revised Outline planning application shortly. We look forward to seeing the site developed in the near future.”
We look forward to seeing the site developed in the near future
Understandably so. Especially when a chunk of the last Frome Town Council meeting was taken up with a discussion on how to “reinvigorate” the town centre. They focused on three main issues:
Pedestrians being able to cross the main road in the town
Empty Units
Improving the environment in the town centre
All three are likely to be key issues to address to help keep the town centre busy and vibrant. But without a solution for Saxonvale, the town centre and the efforts to reinvigorate it are necessarily truncated.
Cllr Martin Dimery is a Frome resident who represents Frome West division on Somerset Council. He told us: "Selling the land at Saxonvale could be a very good outcome for Frome if it falls into the right hands. It may accelerate the planning process and ensure Frome gets the development it needs and has waited so long for."
Meanwhile Mayday Saxonvale are optimistic that their time may have come. Responding to our request for an update, Paul Oster, Mayday Saxonvale Director told us: "We are currently in discussions with Somerset Council regarding the Saxonvale site and are confident that the right decision will be made in due course."
Grounds for optimism perhaps. But if feels as if the future of Saxonvale is up in the air again. The largest single regeneration project for Frome in decades and it is still an unsightly maze of crumbling factories. Frome residents must hope that 2024 will see things take a turn for the better. or at the very least, an increase in pace…..
Running round in circles
One more fall out from the Somerset Council financial emergency has been the closure of facilities at Yeovil Recreation Centre. Although some facilities at the centre, which is just to the north of Yeovil College, will remain open the so called “managed facilities” will close. These “managed facilities” are the hockey pitch and athletics track.
Both are well used facilities whose use goes beyond the town (indeed county) boundaries. The Yeovil and Sherborne Hockey Club has used the pitch and changing rooms for over a decade. The club have over 300 active members. Without a home base, the club’s future is at risk.
The impact of closing the Bill Whistlecroft Athletics Arena goes even further. As the only certified athletics track in either the Somerset Council area or North Somerset, the impact of closure will be immeasurable. For over 50 years the athletics track has been a vital facility for the whole of Somerset.
The track is not only home to Yeovil Olympiads but to local schools and athletics clubs whilst county, regional and national level competitions hosted here would need to find new venues.
Those replacement venues would almost certainly be beyond our county boundaries.
Geoff Cole of Yeovil Olympiads told us that a meeting with Somerset Council in December mentioned costs would be cut, but gave no hint of closure. Now both Yeovil Olympiads and the Yeovil and Sherborne Hockey Club have received a written notice of closure of the facilities from the council.
Local people are not amused. Geoff Cole launched a petition against the closure on Change.org. In just over 4 days it has amassed 10,274 signatures. By the time you read this, it will probably be many more.
We asked Geoff Cole what he made of it all. What would the Olympiads do? Would Yeovil Town Council step in (as they have hinted they would do for the Octagon Theatre)? He told Somerset Confidential: “All options are being explored at the moment. I started the petition to raise awareness of the issue. We want everyone to know that the athletics track is unique in Somerset, it is the only certified track available to athletes. the issue is much bigger than just our community. Somerset Council should see the track as a jewel in the sporting crown of Somerset. Not simply something to be treated as a cost saving. In the overall scheme of things, relative to the scale of Somerset’s financial problems, these savings will not make much difference. But closure to the local community here would be devastating.”
If you’d like to add your voice to the petition, you can access it here
Granted
Taunton Town Council too have money on their mind. The council have just distributed £20,500 in local community grants. That makes a total of just shy of £75,000 for the council year 2023/24.
This quarter’s lucky recipients (each received £2,000) included:
Somerset Art Works – towards creative workshops focused on building confidence and resilience, encouraging creative thinking, cooperation, and collaboration.
The Bluebirds Theatre Company – towards the delivery of the youth Musical in a Week in Taunton and the performance of The Magic Flute.
Citizens Advice Somerset – towards the cost of providing advice and support to the people of Taunton.
Fuse Performance Ltd – towards the immersive event in Goodland Gardens on 6th April 2024.
Go Create Taunton CIC– to enable the continuation of community arts work for another year in the arts hub
Somerset Bus Partnership – towards the continued promotion of bus use in Taunton.
St John Ambulance – towards the funding of a Community Support Unit vehicle based in Taunton, to be used by volunteers across Somerset.
Taunton School Pastors – towards the funding of a School Pastors Co-ordinator for the next 12 months.
Turner Allotment Association – towards the building of rainwater harvesting constructions.
Creative Innovation Centre CIC – towards the training of youth arts organisations in Taunton.
The Grants Committee meets quarterly and the next full meeting will be on 8 April 2024, with the deadline for applications on 15 March 2024. But by then the council will need a new budget. It has not set one as yet. And as we noted above, with Somerset Council planning to stop all community grants, will Taunton Council consider expanding their own programme?
Not yet. Their spokesperson told us: “The budget and therefore proposed precept will be discussed at the next meeting of the Full Council, which will take place at 6pm on Tuesday 30 January.”
Groundhog Day at Hinkley
What is it about infrastructure projects in this country? Yesterday we heard about HS2. Chairman Jon Thompson announced that the estimated cost of the first phase of the project had risen to around £67bn. That’s up from £47bn the last time anyone put figures forward.
Hinkley C too is racking up costs like they are going out of fashion. The new nuclear power plant which is at last taking shape at Hinkley Point, is already double the original budget.
In 2016 the estimated cost to complete it was £16bn. By May 2022 that had risen to £25-26bn and by February 2023 EdF announced that would be nearer the £33bn mark. With no announcement for nearly a year, no doubt a further hike in costs will be announced soon.
Meanwhile a project that was supposed to be complete and generating electricity by 2022. Currently the best estimate EdF can give is that this will not start until September 2028.
The issue currently on the table at Hinkley C is the desire of the project team to do away with an expensive acoustic fish deterrent. The idea behind including it in the design, was that it will stop millions of fish being sucked into the power plants cooling system.
The problem for Hinkley is that the AFS was specified in the Development Consent Order (DCO). So they can’t swim away from it without agreement with the government and the Environment Agency in particular. If this all sounds like it might be familiar, well that’s because it is.
A public enquiry was held into the issue in 2021. This led to Secretary of State, George Eustice, deciding that the AFD’s should indeed be fitted, as agreed in the original 2013 DCO.
If at first you don’t succeed… Try again.
And so Hinkley C are trying again. Once more we have a public consultation to gauge reaction. There will be yet another planning enquiry and a new decision made by the latest occupant of the big chair at the Department of the Environment.
Instead of an acoustic fish deterrent Hinkley C propose a screen to prevent fish entering the main system with a return pipe going back out to the Bristol Channel.
If you wish to find out more about the consultation you can do so by coming along to open evenings where members of the HPC project team will be available to answer questions about the proposed application at the following times and locations.
Thurs 11 Jan 15.00 – 19.00 at Stogursey Victory Hall, Stogursey TA5 1PR
Thurs 18 Jan 12.00 – 17.00 Cannington Court, Church Street, Cannington TA5 2HA
Mon 23 Jan 11.00 – 15.00 at Wembdon Village Hall, Homburg Way, Wembdon TA6 7BY
Tues 30 Jan 16.00 – 20.00 at Pawlett Village Hall, Old Main Road, Pawlett TA6 4RY
Anyone who wishes to submit any comments in respect of the proposed application can. You can find out more here
You can respond to the consultation by the following methods:
Email: edfenergy@hpcenquiries.com
Post: Freepost SEC Newgate UK local HPC Consultation 2024
Phone: 0333 009 7070 during normal office hours.
All responses and comments must be received no later than 23.59 on 29 February 2024.
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Thank you for your excellent comments about the work being done by planners, in particular about the risk of flooding !
Flooding is a very important issue to many but not to worry; as you report, "in each development planners had assured councillors and residents that there was no risk of flooding." You state "it is not good enough to take the assurances of other consultees, such as the Lead Local Flood Authority, at face value."!
It might be valuable, however, if planners were willing to take comments made at the last COP28 conference or by the Met Office! on the effects of climate change and flooding... but I forget myself, the planners are looking at the whole of Ilminster whereas the Cop23 Conference and the Met Office are confining their research to the whole world!
your excellent reporting is s much better than other local sources. Worth reading