Delays to the proposed Kingskerswell by-pass are almost as regular as the delays faced by people travelling along the A380 to and from Torbay.
It’s important to remember that while Torbay stands to gain the most from an improved link with the rest of the country, the road itself is all but for a few yards within the Devon County and Teignbridge District Council boundaries, and the local MP is the one the people of Teignbridge elect.
Torbay has never been wholly in control of its own destiny, but thanks to the two neighbouring councils and current Teignbridge MP we have never been closer to a construction start date.
The first and longest delay has to be from when the by-pass was first suggested in the 1950s to when it reached the top of the Highways Agency list for new roads in 1996.
The second was in 1996 when the A380 was de-trunked and the road was removed from the Highways Agency list and passed down to Devon County Council.
The third was a year later when the new Transport Minister Glenda Jackson MP announced a moratorium on road building until it could be proved that all other alternatives had been tried.
Devon County worked on the alternatives and in 2000 the scheme was top of the county’s list. That year Torbay stopped sending Councillors to Exeter when it became a Unitary Council. Consequently Devon’s County Councillors substituted the scheme for one in North Devon.
After much behind the scenes diplomacy by MPs and Councillors from across South Devon, the scheme made it back to the top of Devon’s list alongside Torbay’s, where it had never been anything other than the number one scheme.
In 2003 Richard Younger-Ross and I managed to get a timetable out of Devon County Council showing a start date in 2009 with completion in 2011.
Another year was lost following our local government reorganisation in 2005 together with a nationally imposed change to regional transport priority setting, and we are now looking at a start date in 2010 with completion in 2012.
The only likely delay now, assuming the public enquiry into the compulsory purchase orders goes through, is a change of Treasury policy. For the moment, at least until the General Election, the scheme is on track.
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It’s party conference time again and one of the policies my lot will be debating in Bournemouth is to make calls to all customer service numbers free, with the option of speaking to a real person rather than a computer.
The plan has been devised to change the balance of power between the public and the government, councils and big corporations by introducing a Universal Service code.
This code would put obligations on companies and organisations, including banks, power and water companies, that provide a service to the public.
The key measures include making one of the first options in their telephone response system the chance to speak to a human being.
These bodies would also be required to provide a free customer service phone number from both landlines and mobile phones.
There would also be a guarantee to arrange all service-related household visits, for example to fix a power supply or make a delivery within a one hour time window.
Staff should also be trained to deal quickly and effectively with customer enquiries, whether the call centre is based in the UK or somewhere abroad.
The code would apply to all public sector organisations – government departments, local councils, hospitals and others – while all organisations bidding for major contracts with or franchises from government would also be obliged to sign-up.
Now press three if you agree.
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During this Parliamentary recess the state of our town centres and how we revive them has come up at every meeting I’ve attended.
For the past three decades Government planning, tax and local government finance policies have encouraged out of town shopping.
The matter is urgent as recent research from the Federation of Small Business claims between 50p and 70p of every pound spent locally goes back into the local economy, compared with just 5p spent in supermarkets.
It’s nearly a year since I suggested the council should spearhead a buy local campaign, suspend on-street car parking charges during the recession, and use discretionary powers to reschedule business rate payments for those in difficulty.
The funds and powers are there, but not yet it seems the will to act.
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Many good arguments have been made for cutting the cost of politics. The Liberal Democrats have proposed reducing the number of MPs by 150 while the Conservatives are suggesting a 10 per cent cut, which would be 64 MPs.
However, I don’t think an auction between the parties as to who is going to cut the most MPs is actually that helpful. What we ought to do is set out what sort of a democracy we want and allow the numbers needed to flow from that.
The Lib Dem figure would mean each MP representing around 100,000 electors and by coincidence that’s the number of electors in Torbay currently split across the Torbay and Totnes constituencies. Torbay could once again be united as one constituency.
The Conservative policy would also have a coincidental impact. Mr Cameron surely couldn’t have foreseen when he chose the 10 per cent figure that most of the seats that would disappear would be Labour rather than Conservative ones!
Supporters of all parties and none are beginning to realize that without a proper rule book such as a written constitution, a bill of rights, and a fair voting system, nothing is really going change.
I’ve made a short film about this and posted it on my websites.
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