South Devon Alliance

19/12/2024

Six years ago today Newton Says No held its first public event. The momentum of public support led to three Councillors Janet Bradford - Independent Devon County Councillor Richard Daws SDA Independent Councillor Liam Mullone SDA Councillor, being elected to Teignbridge District Council in 2019 and by 2023, the foundation of the South Devon Alliance and nine councillors elected. We moved the political dial and although the SDA is no longer an active group, there remains a raft of independent councillors who are holding TDC’s feet to the fire on all fronts. Councillors who represent the interests of the residents, not ones who implement policies that are dyed into the wool of their party political rosettes.
Here’s to residents taking a stand and making a difference. The power of a community standing up for itself.

Seasons Greetings and here’s to a happy new year across the district ✨

01/11/2024

AN ANNOUNCEMENT...

ANNOUNCEMENT – Friday 1st November 2024: The South Devon Alliance councillors have today concluded that our party should no longer sit as a single group within Teignbridge District Council. Following our concerted efforts to represent public opinion and objections to NA3 and Queen Street, it is now clear that the only way forward to effect meaningful change is for a wider group of independent councillors to form a broader alliance at TDC. This must be one that stretches outside of Newton Abbot, can form a district wide opposition and attract a new raft of councillors to help shift the balance towards a better functioning and truly democratic council at the next elections, in 2027. The planning for this must start now.

In late 2018, a small group of residents formed Newton Says No, an environmental campaign to fight a massive scale housing development on the outskirts of Newton Abbot. Such was the strength of feeling in the town that only five months later, in May 2019, three of us were elected onto Teignbridge District Council. By May 2023, this group had formed the South Devon Alliance to tackle wider issues. The SDA became the largest opposition party at Teignbridge District Council, winning the majority of seats in and around Newton Abbot. Since then, we have fought tirelessly for the town and continued to reach out across the district. Even before the 2019 elections, we had been warned about the toxic and dysfunctional culture at TDC. As predicted, we went on to witness bad decision making and were subject to institutional intimidation. All recognised by the Local Government Ombudsman who, after a three-year investigation, demanded TDC apologise for failing to operate within the law. In October 2024, the council announced a ‘zero tolerance’ abuse policy. The same council that failed to act when SDA councillors and their families were criminally harassed and on one occasion, assaulted in the chamber.

At the heart of this are the national parties, who have allowed and propped up decades of bad practice at local government level. The only way this will ever change is for a larger number of independent councillors to provide a functioning democracy for our district.

Going forward, all the SDA councillors will continue to be active in the chamber and do their best for Teignbridge.

22/10/2024

Thanks to the valiant SDA councillors, expert Wolborough Residents’ Association environment officer Dr. Paul Evemy and the utterly brilliant ecologist Dr. Kenneth Thompson, who all stood up to wanton greed and environmental vandalism today.

It is with sadness but not surprise that we report the TDC planning committee granted approval of the applications for NA3, relating to the Wolborough Barton Road and Vistry housing application today. All the concerns that were put forward by the committee last month, causing the deferral, were suddenly seemingly satisfied by Vistry adding a mighty SEVEN stone clad dwellings to their 90+ pastel rendered houses, along with misleading reassurances by Officers that the development is outside the water catchment area for the Wolborough Fen.

The meeting was another hours long marathon where the WRA, environmental experts and ward Cllrs emphatically put forward reasonable and vital positions on protecting the Fen and creating a legacy that the town deserves. Cllrs Janet Bradford: SDA Independentl, Liam Mullone SDA Councillor and Richard Daws SDA Leader of the Opposition TDC spoke as ward Cllrs and Jane Taylor South Devon Alliance TDC and Cllr Paul Parker as planning committee members, all citing very clear and fundamental reasons why the applications should be refused.

The two votes were 6 for and 5 against with the Lib Dems voting en masse to pass both applications. With Tory Leader Cllr Phil Bullivant notably absent, his partner in destroying Queen Street, Lib Dem Cllr David Palethorpe, chose his moment to step eagerly into the breach to propose the recommendations. They are indeed two of a kind - ConDem'ing Newton Abbot on multiple fronts.

Cllr Jackie Hook said that in her opinion Penns Mount, White Hills and Hele Park had been planning disasters for TDC, but then voted for a development she herself said wasn't sustainable at the last meeting. She also said that the Fen catchment area was legal, despite having no evidence to back this up. Cllr Suzanne Sanders capped off the Lib Dem support to desecrate the rolling fields saying 'nobody is looking at those hills saying they'd look better covered in concrete', then voted to cover the hills in concrete.

Vistry's regional manager, speaking as one of two (paid) supporters, told the meeting his company wanted to help young people get on the housing ladder and how unfair it was on them that housing in the UK had become so very unaffordable, forgetting the fact that the big developers such as Vistry are directly responsible for this.

It never had to be this way, but the establishment of TDC have conspired to railroad this through and will now be wasting taxpayer funds on their legal fees, when their actual job should be to hold the developers to account and get the best possible outcome for residents.

Where does this leave us? Buxtons Environmental wrote to the council warning them that granting permission was likely unlawful, so we are now entering the domain where solicitors and barristers take over. Watch this space for more news.

22/10/2024

Here we go again. Agenda and webcast link attached. Please tune in at 10:00 to see how SDA councillors and others stand up for what is left of Newton Abbot’s precious natural landscapes and ecosystems.

Teignbridge District Council official website

17/10/2024

An update re the next NA3 Planning Meeting - open to the public and taking place at Forde House on Tuesday 22nd October at 10:00
🌳🦋🌱🐦‍⬛🐛🦇🪲🦉

27/09/2024

I posted this map in the MDA in August 2019. It showed that the footprint of Newton Abbot was set to double. Since then, some of this has already been built and the size alloted to NA3 has become larger.

This caused a lot of commotion at the time because every map the council had grudgingly published up til then had coloured development green - almost the same green as the remaining countryside. They split developments into pockets and only presented them one at a time, never revealing the true scale of their intentions. It was a blatant attempt to deceive people and it had worked really well. Once people saw it in black and white, with all the projects on one map, many were furious.

It set in motion a chain of events that would begin with a campaign of smears and intimidation from TDC, which led to several of us becoming councillors to deal with these accusations face to face as Newton Says No, and then to the founding of the South Devon Alliance in the hope that people district-wide wouldn't have to choose between the equally repellent camps of Lib Dem and Conservative.

There are of course legitimate concerns over affordable housing. We have backed affordable housing, social housing and brownfield development over and over again. What we don't back is a Newton Abbot forced to grow exponentially, without limit, and with NO regard to its heritage or setting and with absolutely no intention to grow its provision for sewerage, schools, healthcare, policing or anything else. Time and time again the question of infrastructure has been avoided while the council chases CIL money, bonuses and beanos. The last Tory incumbent, Jeremy Christophers, even said that the NHS was 'trying it on' when it said it would need at least a million pounds to prepare for a doubled population.

Since then the Lib Dems have done nothing different from the Tories and have avoided the difficult questions all the way to the line while mismanaging our town with staggering arrogance, incompetence and secrecy. They haven't even bothered looking into the impact on air quality at NA3, while at the same time justifying the closure of Queen Street using air quality as a reason.

After six years of this I can only conclude that the Lib Dems and their Tory allies (they back one another to the hilt and make cosy agreements not to stand in each other's way whenever there's an SDA candidate at elections) will always behave like this. They will never tell us 'We intend to double the size of your town', just piecemeal releases of one major plan after another, while denying that they have anything to do with one another, presenting them as 'community recreation land with housing' and 'biodiversity net gain development', and God knows what other Newspeak Orwellian crap while the roost of endangered greater horseshoe bats dies (it may already be extinct) and Wolborough Fen, and a dozen other such places, become poisoned.

South West Water has stated clearly that it has NO plans to increase sewage provision in our area. So consider the pollution the Teign, Exe and shoreline is dealing with now and imagine that under a doubled population.

When this map was first released both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats accused me of 'spreading panic' and 'presenting an unnecesarily bleak picture'. Did either of them say it was untrue? No. Even they weren't prepare to perjure themselves to that extent.

25/09/2024

Today’s MDA quoting the words of Ecologist Dr. Kenneth Thompson, speaking about Wolborough Fen at this week’s planning committee meeting:

‘Places like this are precious, and deserve the very highest level of protection. We have this magical place on our doorstep. We should do everything we possibly can to avoid the smallest possibility that it suffers any damage. These developments will very likely damage the fen and possibly even destroy it.’

He said the council was acting ‘like a bull in a china shop’.

‘A decade, or less, down the line we could be looking at the wreckage of Wolborough Fen,’ he said. ‘And you will be to blame.’

*Please note*
Sadly the MDA article misquotes Natural England who DO hold concerns about the current plans. For the record, their last communication to TDC includes the following: ‘With respect of 23/00597/MAJ relating to the reserved matters (road) application, Natural England remain concerned relating to the impact of ground water upon the Wolborough Fen Special Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI). Please ensure that whilst we have not made an objection, our concerns are noted in any officer report.’ TDC officers did not make Natural England’s concerns clear enough to the meeting or the newspaper.

FEARS for the future of a ‘magical’ wildlife haven have delayed a project to build 1,200 new homes on the outskirts of Newton Abbot again.

23/09/2024

BBC Spotlight report the deferral of the NA3 planning applications at today's Teignbridge planning meeting. A small victory today, as officers were recommending passing the two planning applications. We will continue to lobby to put in place protections for the Wolborough Fen and stop the town's air being polluted by over development.

23/09/2024

Council decisions about plans to build on fields in Devon are deferred until a later date.

23/09/2024

We can report that both NA3 planning applications were deferred at today’s Teignbridge planning meeting. SDA Cllrs and the WRA experts put forward strong arguments to protect the Wolborough Fen and to stop air pollution overwhelming Newton Abbot. There were a variety of reasons for the deferment of the road and house building application, which means that the council will have to consider these again, but with more information to hand. This outcome supports our position that this meeting was premature and TDC recommending approval was not consistent with its obligations to protect the environment and act in the best interests of its residents. So, for today, a victory, with the next installment coming soon.

21/09/2024

Just in case anyone is being misled by the ministry for disinformation of TDC, here is what is what TDC is using levelling up money for.

Teignbridge seem set on using the Levelling Up fund to destroy Newton Abbot heritage, despite other proposals exceeding their requirements