EDDC - It’s time for change! It’s time for challenge!

Wanted! New East Devon District Councillors

On 7 May, voters in East Devon have the opportunity to vote in two elections. Zorro has already blogged about the general election and the need for change locally. Now my attention turns to the District Council elections.

District Council elections are held every 4 years, alongside elections for Parish and Town Councils. At the last District Council elections the East Devon Conservatives maintained their massive overall majority on EDDC. Out of the 59 District Councillors, 43 of those elected stood under the East Devon Conservative banner.

The outcome of the elections returned an East Devon District Council that is made up of –

• Conservatives: 43
• Liberal Democrats: 10
• Independents: 6

The full list of the 2011 East Devon election results are available -

http://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/2011EDDCElectionResults.pdf

In order to have a controlling majority on the District Council a Party, or coalition of Parties and/or Independents need to be able to muster 30 or more Councillors. Once a majority is formed this in turn determines the allocation of roles across all of the Council’s Committees and Sub-Committees.

Shamefully, in 5 Wards a total of 7 Conservative Councillors, including Council Leader Paul Diviani, were elected unopposed. These Wards were –

• Newton Poppleford and Harpford West
• Otterhead
• Raleigh
• Sidmouth Sidford
• Yarty

Looking at the 2011 election results, 9 Wards could, with a bit of organised opposition, provide significant challenges to the incumbent Conservative Councillors. This could potentially realise 18 seats that could be taken from the Conservatives.

When you take all of this and add it to the existing non Conservative Councillors. it shows that acquiring an additional 14 non-Conservative (and non-UKIP) Councillors, that today would alter the political control of the District Council, is not total fantasy.

The current Conservative majority on EDDC have not covered themselves in glory over the past 4 years. They have taken a number of deeply unpopular decisions that have flown in the face of strong local opposition. We have even seen East Devon electors in their hundreds angrily march on the Knowle. This is not a sight that one expects to see in East Devon really, but it showed the real strength of feeling amongst the electors to an unpopular Council decision.

At every turn, the Conservative majority on EDDC have showed that they are not reflective of the wider EDDC electorate. Indeed, when other Councillors on EDDC have sought to speak on behalf of the electors and challenge the Conservative majority they have been treated appallingly. We have seen and read of attacks, both personal and political, on those who dare to stand up to Councillor Diviani and his Conservative colleagues. They have been treated by the Conservative majority in ways that the old Soviet Union would have been proud of. In ways that electors find unacceptable. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Many of us believe that enough is enough in East Devon and that these forthcoming elections are an opportunity to challenge the Conservative majority and to elect those who will far better reflect the views and interests of the population across East Devon.

This will require residents standing in the District Council elections in May. There are Wards that can be turned from Conservative to another political colour. There are 5 Wards where Conservatives go unopposed, thus giving the electors in those 5 Wards no ability to choose someone other than a Conservative to represent them. Electors in these 5 Wards are effectively disenfranchised.

It’s time for a change!

It’s time for EDDC to have new Councillors who will break the East Devon Conservatives stranglehold on the District Council.

It’s time to get potential new EDDC candidates to gather support from those who will vote for them.

It’s easy to become registered as a District Council candidate. All you need to do is to complete a nomination form and have it signed by a proposer, a seconded and 10 others. They all need to be registered to vote in EDDC. It’s not that hard to do is it?

District Councillor nomination packs will be available from EDDC’s offices at the Knowle and from Parish clerks as from 9 March. You will need to collect them as they will not be posted to you. Once you have completed the nomination form and obtained the requisite number of signatures, it needs to be returned to the EDDC offices by 4.00pm on 9 April. As the advert says; simples!

If you won’t stand in the elections, do you know someone that should do?

To help you, or they, are thinking about becoming a candidate in the District Council elections go online at –

http://new.eastdevon.gov.uk/media/728037/become-a-district-councillor.pdf and/or

http://new.eastdevon.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/becoming-a-councillor/

It’s time for change! It’s time for challenge!

East Devon - A 3 way general election fight coming up?

East Devon general election battle - 3 way fight

Thanks to http://eastdevonwatch.org/ for this story –

http://eastdevonwatch.org/2015/01/27/east-devon-general-election-political-news/

“In the East Devon constituency as of today: The Green Party has decided not to put up a candidate in East Devon. The Liberal Democrats have yet to announce if they have a candidate. Labour Party candidate Jessica Pearce has withdrawn her candidature and Labour must now find a substitute. Confirmed candidates as of today: Andrew Chapman (UKIP), Hugo Swire (Conservative) and Claire Wright (Independent). http://www.claire-wright.org/

The Sidmouth Herald on 30 January dedicated a full page to the forthcoming East Devon general election fight. It confirmed that the local Labour candidate had withdrawn from the race, whilst the Green Party had confirmed that it was not fielding a candidate as it was seeking to concentrate on the District Council elections that are also being held on 7 May.

Read the Sidmouth Herald coverage at -
http://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/30.1.15SidmouthHeraldArticles.pdf

The Sidmouth Herald coverage also reports on Claire Wright's manifesto launch last week.

So, with just under 100 days to go until the election it currently looks as if the electors will have a choice of 3 candidates.

This could all be very interesting for East Devon electors!

Watch Claire Wright's election manifesto Q & A session

Zorro has recently posted detail of Claire Wright’s http://www.claire-wright.org/ election manifesto launch last Tuesday. Within that was a video of Claire’s speech, as well as a copy of her speech and her manifestos that, as a leaflet is being distributed across the Constituency.

 Claire Wright has now released a video of the question & answer session that she held at the manifesto launch. This video is interesting as it shows Claire Wright as she thinks on her feet in response to unscripted questions from her audience.

 If you are at all interested in East Devon politics how your next MP responds to the questions posed to her. The video can be accessed at – https://www.facebook.com/clairewrightindependent/posts/839181222815602

 

It’s time for a change – its Claire Wright’s time!

Sidmouth Herald report Claire Wright election manifesto launch

Today's Sidmouth Herald website reports -

Independent launches election manifesto

06:22 30 January 2015

David Beasley

Claire Wright launched her manifesto this week. Ref exe 6326-05-15SH. Photo Simon Horn

Archant

Independent parliamentary hopeful Claire Wright revealed this week the policies she hopes will see her voted in as East Devon’s MP in May.

 

Dozens of people gathered at the Exmouth Rugby Club this week as Claire Wright launched her manifesto. Ref exe 6278-05-15SH. Photo Simon Horn

 

At her manifesto launch in Exmouth, she insisted that she would fight against cuts to youth and health services, bus routes, lollipop patrols and residential homes.

Councillor Wright, who currently sits on the district and county councils, called for laws compelling house builders to redevelop ‘brownfield’ sites instead of the greenbelt.

In front of 100 people, she was quizzed on her policies, acknowledging that there was ‘no bottomless pit’ of cash and added: “I feel that they [the Coalition Government] are spending money on the wrong things, and that needs to be changed.”

Responding to concerns over the closure of hospital beds in Ottery St Mary and Budleigh Salterton hospitals, she said: “They say it will save money, but that isn’t the case.

“[At County Hall] We interviewed a GP…and it was revealed that the decision made at [their local hospital] at best would be cost neutral. All it will do is put more pressure on the carers in homes.”
Cllr Wright railed against proposed county cuts to bus services that would leave some ‘isolated communities’ cut off. She said: “If it wasn’t for central government those cuts would not have to be made.

“I’m certainly opposed to those cuts - we need more investment in local rail services.

“They spent £3billion on reorganising the health service. The Health and Social Care Act has been nothing but damaging, privatisation through the back door.”

She branded police and crime commissioners ‘a waste of money’ and added: “Tax breaks for big businesses, why are we doing that? What about helping our local independent businesses which are struggling?”

Mrs Wright painted a picture of a ‘bulldozer-like’ East Devon District Council (EDDC) which didn’t listen to other views.

She responded to Tory plans to stop the subsidy of wind farms and said: “Many are concerned about the landscape impact of wind and solar farms, I understand that.

“Rather than having speculative planning applications coming in - solar farms in particular, which can be very visually intrusive - what we need to do is sit down at the beginning of the Local Plan and work out where those solar farms or wind farms might be best located to minimise the impact on the land. That would hopefully prevent them coming forward speculatively and sporadically.”

Mrs Wright called for more councillors of other political parties to stand at this May’s town and district council elections, adding: “We have a Conservative crime commissioner, a Conservative MP and every council locally is Conservative.”

“The county council...tends to be, fairly progressive, but the district council is...a dinosaur. It has always had a large Conservative majority...getting things through is quite difficult because they block vote, and that can’t be good for democracy.

“People are tired of the old political parties, and May 7 has to be about getting a better balance on EDDC, and [a greater number of] other councillors, especially independents, because they don’t have to toe a party line and can vote with their consciences.”

Watch Claire Wright's election manifesto launch

Watch - A New Voice For East Devon

Claire Wright - East Devon's next MP

On Tuesday 27 January Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/ launched her election manifesto for her bid to become East Devon’s next MP on 7 June.

You can watch Claire Wright’s manifesto launch speech –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRXc6SogpnM

You can read Claire Wright’s manifesto launch speech –

http://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/27.1.15ClaireWrightSpeech.doc.

You can read Claire Wright’s manifesto –

http://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/CWrightJanFeb2015Leaflet.pdf

It’s time for a change – its Claire Wright’s time!

Betting odds shorten on Claire Wright becoming next East Devon MP

Zorro is not someone who normally has a flutter at the bookies. At best it is a few quid on long odds horses at the Grand National, or maybe the odd team in the World Cup. Certainly Zorro has never previous placed a bet on a general election outcome.

But this coming general election, and in particular the battle for the East Devon seat did grab Zorro’s interest some months ago. With Mrs Zorro’s support a bet was placed at Ladbrokes that Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/ would win. At the time we were pleased to receive the odds that we did but felt that they undervalued the reality of the local political scene.

Many of you will recall that when Claire Wright last summer announced her intention to stand for parliament Ladbrokes gave her odds of 66/1. Since then we have seen Ladbrokes give Claire Wright odds of 33/1, then 25/1 and excitingly 12/1. Now immediately after she launched her election manifesto the odds have shortened again down to 10/1!

Zorro is not an efficienado of the betting world but nonetheless 10/1 still seems a remarkably good set of odds. As we edge closer to election day we are bound to see the odds for Claire Wright shorten. So, if you are thinking about having a flutter on her get tour money on sooner than later as the odds must surely come down. Interestingly odds on Hugo Swire have lengthed!

Hat tip to East Devon Watch http://eastdevonwatch.org/ for this brief guide to placing an on line bet with Ladbrokes –

“Should you fancy a bet (but, of course, bet responsibly and be over 18) Ladbrokes Online do not make it easy to place one!

First you need to go to the A-Z of betting headings and choose Politics, then General Election and then General Election Constituencies. At this point they make it even harder: in the A-Z of constituencies our district comes under D for Devon East and not E for East Devon!”

Ladbrokes certainly don’t make it easy to place a non sporting online bet! If you have local Labrokes betting office it may be easier just to pop in to place a bet.

99 days to go!

There are just...


days left until the General Election